John,
Last night I delivered my annual State of the City address to a packed Providence City Council Chambers. I shared my vision of the New Providence we live in today, compared to the city of years past.
I grew up in a Providence that was very different from the one we see today.
For all of its strengths, Providence was a place where finances were mismanaged, where neighborhood parks went untended, and where infrastructure was neglected. In my teenage years, Providence was a city where crime was too high, downtown was desolate after dark, and our main corridors, sources of so much neighborhood pride, steadily declined.
Today, we are creating a New Providence. The New Providence is known for honesty and integrity, for investing in infrastructure and school buildings, for tackling education holistically, for creating a knowledge-based economy, for confronting climate change, and for being the safest it’s been in its history.
Over the next several days I'm going to write to you about what New Providence means to me. If you would like to read my entire speech in the meantime, please click here.
The New Providence is an exciting place that is on its way to being the best mid-sized city in America. Let’s build the New Providence together!
Thank you,
Jorge
