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I have a very knowledgeable realtor friend (no connection to the listing agent) who lives in Edgewood. He tells me regardless the upper Edgewood location and busy Blvd., the house is a steal unless it contains some unseen defect.
We ended up buying in Edgewood last year and we're absolutely satisfied with our decision. We're a professional couple with young children and regular commutes into Providence. The eastside of Providence was our ideal but we wanted a decent size forever home. We reflect a national trend of young people preferring cities. It's really nice to actually see people walk around and kids play outside. If this trend persists, I'd expect the areas neighboring South Providence to gentrify even more.
I don't find South Providence to be scary actually. It seems more immigrant than innercity to me. The other day, I walked into a bodega and discovered delicious Portuguese food for cheap. A block away from me is a middle eastern restaurant. If anything, I find the empty streets and McMansions in the suburbs even creepier than any socioeconomic "creep" into our neighborhood.
We ended up buying in Edgewood last year and we're absolutely satisfied with our decision. We're a professional couple with young children and regular commutes into Providence. The eastside of Providence was our ideal but we wanted a decent size forever home. We reflect a national trend of young people preferring cities. It's really nice to actually see people walk around and kids play outside. If this trend persists, I'd expect the areas neighboring South Providence to gentrify even more.
I don't find South Providence to be scary actually. It seems more immigrant than innercity to me. The other day, I walked into a bodega and discovered delicious Portuguese food for cheap. A block away from me is a middle eastern restaurant. If anything, I find the empty streets and McMansions in the suburbs even creepier than any socioeconomic "creep" into our neighborhood.
Everybody loves Edgewood for many of the reasons you mention. The idea of a "creep" is mostly promoted by those with a rural or suburban anti-diversity mind set. They "flee" rather than embrace those not like themselves. The reality is neighborhoods such as Edgewood provide a wonderful place to raise children by giving them the benefit of a richer multi cultural experience; better preparing them for the America they will some day occupy as adults. Not to mention a vibrant neighborhood which provides beautiful, generous homes on big suburban sized lots. The best of both worlds if you ask me!
On creep or blight or whatever, I fully agree that a lot of the concerns raised about Edgewood in this thread have to do with lack of comfort with diversity. My wife and I enjoying going to latin and asian restaurants that would scare most suburbanites, and we routinely make use of little ethnic markets -- and the new Armandos near Edgewood is great!
On the other hand, there are neighborhoods that are safer and better cared for, and those that are not. We ended up ruling out some possibilities at the northern edge of Edgewood precisely because the blocks immediately to the north showed so much disrepair, tagging, and generally a bad feel. It wasn't a question of race: those last few blocks of Cranston (Bay View, Northrup, etc) actually looked worse than the southern edge of Elmwood, like Washington Ave, even though the demographics were more 'white'. One house we saw, for example, was a beautiful big colonial, but the neighbor behind (i.e., the next block) was a house with several boarded up windows, some half-dissasembled cars in the back yard, a couple of barking rottweilers, and two dudes giving us an unfriendly eye -- *white* dudes. That the house we were viewing showed signs of a recent break-in attempt didn't help. It just was not the kind of feel we got closer to Pawtuxet Village or east along the park. Not because of the color of the faces we saw, but the conditions of the houses, etc.
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