Charlestown lags behind other South County towns

Finishes in the bottom half of statewide rankings

By Will Collette

I reported last week that Charlestown’s rating in the annual GoLocalProv.com rankings of Rhode Island’s Best Communities had slipped by five positions from 14^th place to 19^th place.

We lost the most amount of ground because of the cost to live here – 32^nd out of Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns. We also lost ground because of our low ranking for “arts and culture,” and “restaurants and bars.” It’s not that the ones we have aren’t good – in my opinion, they’re just fine – but we just don’t have much in these two categories.

Our ranking would have fallen further, except the Chariho School system rose in the state rankings to 3^rd place in the state.

Now that all of the towns have been reviewed, we can also compare Charlestown’s ranking to other South County communities. Unfortunately, we don’t do very well.

The Top “Best Community” in Rhode Island honors this year go to South Kingstown. North Kingstown  follows in fifth place and Hopkinton finishes in sixth place.

Ten places above Charlestown is Richmond, ranked #9 in the state.

North and South Kingstown both have affordability issues (#26 and #28, respectively, but less than Charlestown’s #32 ranking), but they more than make up for it with high marks in all the other categories, especially for their food and restaurants.

Hopkinton and Richmond score almost as low as Charlestown in arts and culture, and restaurants and bars, but they beat us handily in affordability, ranking #7 and #9 respectively.

Three South County communities came in at lower rankings than Charlestown – Narragansett at #22, Westerly at #24 and Block Island at #36.

It was affordability that sunk Block Island  (a.k.a. New Shoreham) to near the bottom. Of course, Block Island is an amazing place, but these ratings were assigned not based on tourist appeal but on what it's like to live in a town year-round.

Narragansett was hurt by its poor affordability (at #36, worse than Charlestown), arts and culture (#23) and safety (#21).

Even though Westerly moved up six spots from last year, its #24 ranking highlights its continuing affordability problems – at #37, it is the worst in South County – as well as safety (#23), education (#16) and economic condition (#17).

While these sorts of annual rankings can easily be dismissed as subjective, at best, or just plain wrong at worst, they do tell us how we are seen by others and how we are compared to our neighboring communities.  Whether we agree or not, it's worth trying to see ourselves as others see us.

As I wrote in my earlier article, there are some in Charlestown who are perfectly happy that we have a low ranking, especially on affordability, since that might discourage the riff-raff from moving into town.

While I am not advocating that we try to be more like South Kingstown (I shudder at the thought), I think that last year’s and this year’s ratings point out Charlestown’s challenges to be more affordable.

That is, unless a new town policy passed when no one was looking to decree that we are to convert Charlestown into a summer enclave for rich, out-of-state retirees. And we need to support existing businesses and encourage new ones in those areas where we lag – arts, culture and food.

It sure would be nice to have a 12-month economy where our year-round businesses don’t have to dip into their summer profits just so they can stay open after tourist season to serve us up a nice meal. I think we need to figure out how to promote our off-season beauty and attractiveness to bring at least a few people to town to see how great Charlestown is during the fall, winter and spring.