You'd be surprised at the number of people who don't live in Providence who visit every weekend. My friend is from Brockton, not a transplant, actually from Brockton, and she drives out here 2-3 times a week. She goes out in Providence more than I do.

You say "should we choose to accommodate cars", like Providence hasn't been doing that for 50 years. The reason the walkable city mentality is having trouble is because pvd has prioritized cars for 2? 3? generations, no one remembers when Providence had street cars, and you could take a street car to Cresent Park or Rocky Point. Now we're having to pull back that infrastructure in favor of pedestrian infrastructure. People don't like what they perceive as a step backward. People aren't understanding that infrastructure reduces car use among everyone because they don't want to. They either can't see 5 moves ahead to understand that, or they feel entitled to be able to take their cars everywhere because the US is such a car-centric country, and our rugged individualism views public transit as less than.

I don't think most people drive in Providence because it's dangerous to walk. I'd argue there are more car windows broken and cars ransacked every night than there are muggings. Compare Providence to the next most populated city country wide, Knoxville? And you'll see Rhode Island has significantly less crime. Providence isn't a dangerous city if you look at 2021's crime report and look at what's considered street crime (robberies and assaults), there were a total of 2,409 offenses all year. This averages out to 6.6 crimes a night. If WaterFire brings in an average of 40k people, let's assume there are 10k people who are going out on a normal Friday night and triple the average crime rate because there's more crime on a Friday night than a Tuesday night. That's one crime for every 5,000 people out. And yes, I know street crime is under-reported, and that's not even taking into account that most reported crime is committed by people known to the victim and not strangers. But seriously, can we stop saying Providence is dangerous? It's a bullshit excuse people from the suburbs use to say I'm uncomfortable if there are people of color in my vicinity.

You can choose not to accommodate people who don't live outside providence, but most of the Providence economy is service industry, and if you take the patrons away, Providence will be right back where it was in the 70's and 80's.