Green Future Episode 1

por The Providence Eye

Play podcast:   Our names are Eliza, Emma, and Eddie, and we are 8th graders who attend the Wheeler Cityside program in Providence. We are really interested in sustainability and climate activism. As young people, it sometimes can be difficult for us to help make [...]

“Our education just isn’t important enough.” School Budget Measures the City’s Commitment to Children

por Jonathan Howard

One after another, Providence Schools students and parents stepped up to the mic at the City Council on June 11 to demand that the city increase its appropriation to public schools by $20 million in the coming school year. Their passion and anger at the [...]

Civics Education is the Lifeblood of Democracy

by Ruth Marris-Macaulay

Do we believe our votes make any difference? Are those who fought to extend the franchise to the landless, the formerly enslaved, to women, to Native Americans and others, forgotten? My great great Aunt Harriet, in her mid-forties, chained herself to the railings outside the [...]

Nathan Bishop: “He Could Do More Work With Less Noise Than Any Man…”

by Jane Lancaster

Searching “Nathan Bishop” to understand why Providence decided to name a school for him in the 1930s, one might find an Englishman who briefly played goal for soccer team Manchester United, or a Toronto-based singer-songwriter, but also the fascinating, modest, hard-working man after whom Nathan [...]

The Comprehensive Plan: What People Are Saying

by Marisa Angell Brown

On May 30 and June 3, Providence Preservation Society (PPS) hosted community conversations about the city’s emerging Comprehensive Plan in the nonprofit’s second-floor meeting space on College Hill.  In all, about 75 people turned up to hear short reflections on the Plan offered by advocates [...]

What’s Wrong with the Land Use Plan?

by The Providence Sustainability Commission

Editor’s Note: Providence is currently engaged in a once a decade endeavor, writing its Comprehensive Plan, and this Comp Plan will be the foundation for zoning and development decisions throughout the city.  The Providence Eye will be publishing discussions about specific sections now under consideration.  [...]

How Clean is Providence’s Air?

by Barbara Morin

Everybody breathes, so clean air is critical to everyone’s health. Poor air quality is especially dangerous to people who are active outside, particularly outdoor workers, and to sensitive individuals, including older adults, children, and people with cardiac and respiratory conditions. How is air quality classified? [...]

Garbage In; Garbage Out. Providence is Missing the Mark on Recycling–By a Long Shot

by Emily Smith

Trash in Providence is disposed of in one of three ways: it is recycled, it is diverted, or it goes to the Johnston landfill.  Providence recycles only 7.8% of its garbage, the worst recycling rate of all municipalities in Rhode Island.  (Second to last is [...]

The Public Maintaining Public Gardens

by Anna Browder

With the rise of industrialization and the growth of cities in the nineteenth century, the natural outdoors was increasingly seen as healthy, even curative. Without great expanses of nature, cities developed public gardens- beautiful green spaces, for the public’s benefit, some of the most famous [...]

Providence College and Smith Hill: Town and Gown Intersect

by Marie Hardiman and Carmine Perrotti

On the evening of Wednesday April 3, around 40 people gathered at the Smith Hill Library on Candace Street in Providence for the second Providence College & Smith Hill Dialogue Series.  The topic, economic development.  Specifically, “how can Providence College and the community collaborate on [...]