The Negative Side of the New of Newport

When walking around Newport, there are many different parts of the city that show how diverse and community based it is that make it such a great place. That’s what it looks like on the outside, but taking a closer looking I could see that it is changing and growing into something that isn’t what some communities want. There is a clear divide in Newport, East vs. West, and it is possibly draining the city of its homey feelings. When talking with some of the employees of the area, they expressed their views of Newport and their experiences. They were young people close to our age working in stores around the levee, so even though it wasn’t a wide range they still gave us a window in the life of Newport’s most social environment. None of them lived in Newport, they did not know anything about Newport outside of the levee, and were excited to see Newport expanding.

The expansion of Newport can be seen as a very good thing… for the levee. It is the new of Newport for the east side, and it is growing everyday. It’s not a bad thing, and it is going to help Newport in the long run. But what about the rest of Newport? Just outside the levee are nice family style restaurants and historic downtown, so close and show the beautiful history of the city. But what is outside that homey community? When driving around the west side of Newport, and some of east side too, I see many unfinished projects or projects that need to be thought of to keep the city balanced.


A lot of this just comes from observation and comparing it to what we have been told about Newport from ReNewport, but I think the main thing about the situation is that the history of Newport isn’t heard. The main focus that the people living in Newport are concerned about is the families. The people we talked to said that new families and young people will be moving into Newport with all the renovations and new apartments and such… but what happens to the families that are already settled there? What happens to their work they have put into the community? Where does that family feeling of Newport go? These present issues are something that need to be taken into consideration when looking at the future of Newport.