Small Cities Deserve More Than Leftover Attention

Central Falls is a single square mile, the smallest and most densely populated municipality in Rhode Island, and it carries a share of the state's challenges — constrained municipal finances, aging housing stock, limited open space — that is wildly out of proportion to its size. Woonsocket, its larger Blackstone Valley neighbor, faces a similar mismatch between need and resources.

It's easy for state attention to drift toward Providence, where the population and press corps are both concentrated, or toward Newport, where the tourism dollars are. But the state's smallest cities often have the least capacity to solve their own problems without state partnership, precisely because their tax bases are thinnest.

Recent state investment in Blackstone Valley water infrastructure and riverfront redevelopment is a welcome sign, but it shouldn't be treated as a one-time gesture. These communities need sustained attention, not occasional headlines when a grant gets announced.