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I can't give you a lot of advice, the art scene isn't really my cup of tea. I'd say it's alive and well but I have no clue if it's indeed kicking any rear.
The East Side and Federal Hill are nice areas. You've got tons of restaurants, tons of young people on the East Side, lots of small shops and coffee places. It's a vibrant area.
Now, when it comes to Down City and its lofts...I lived in Downtown Providence for five years and recently moved away to Bristol. When I moved to Providence I somehow had it in my head that I would move to a mini Manhattan. I certainly didn't find that. Yes, Downcity has lots of lofts and I'm sure it has improved over the last years. Yes, there are clubs and bars which are crowded and busy on the weekend. Yes, there are quite a few new stores around the Westminster area. Are they anything special? No.
I'll tell you why...a rather large percentage of these new places are completely soulless for the lack of a better description. They're stores which exist solely to cater to the crowd the Downcity developers want to attract - affluent mid twenty somethings who have a decent job and money to spent. So you've got antique stores, wine stores and house furnishings. Really awesome. If you look closely, you'll find a couple interesting smaller stores in between, but nothing really great.
So if you come from East Harlem I think you might be very disappointed. Downtown Providence isn't an area which has grown naturally, it's a developers' playground and it shows. Oh, and forget about diversity or artists living there, the rents are too high for that kind of crowd.
Nevertheless, if you want to give it a try, there are a couple loft places. One of them is the Westminster Lofts group. I'm sure there are a couple others but I'm not too familiar with anything outside of Downtown.
When it comes to safety issues, I would rank the East Side as the safest, followed by Federal Hill and then Downtown. While Downtown has improved somewhat over the last few years, it's still a sketchy area, especially late at night.
Good luck.
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Rhode Islander Moving Back from NYC
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