Expand the charm north in Newport

Of course not every neighborhood in Newport can look like this 18th Century section of “The City by the Sea.’’

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Newport is a fascinating little city, with its  dramatic coastline, history, architecture and thick demographic/ethnic stew. And now there’s an interesting battle underway over how to redevelop its North End, a neighborhood with lots of low-income poor people and rather ugly cityscape. Visually, it sometimes seems that there’s “no real there there,’’ as Gertrude Stein said famously about Oakland, Calif.

I just hope that the final plan doesn’t result in making it look like a suburban-style shopping center/ office park with much of the space taken up by windswept parking lots. To show that it’s part of  a city much of which is famous for its beauty, it should look like part of a city,  with the density of one, and with  green  parks as well as a mix of new housing – resident-owned and rental -- stores and restaurants (with space for outdoor service) whose design speaks to the most attractive aesthetic traditions of the area. Newport is well known for its extremes of wealth and poverty. Thoughtful redevelopment of the North End can at least attempt to provide the unrich there with the opportunity to live in a neighborhood with the sort of built beauty than improves their socio-economic, as well as psychological, health, including by drawing in some of the visitors, and their wallets, who previously only went to the famous historic areas in the southern part of the city.

Village center on Block Island

I  spent a day and night on Block Island last week: Gray skies, gray water, gray buildings and lots of red pants.