An editorial in Sunday’s Providence Journal argues strongly for maintaining the existing industrial zoning along Providence’s working waterfront:

As we have long argued, there are plenty of other places for developers to cash in by building condominiums and to hold festivals and concerts. What makes this land special is that it hosts a working port — with hundreds of high-paying jobs with good benefits that the region so desperately needs, while stimulating economic activity throughout the region through trade. It would be folly for the city and state to threaten this vital economic engine at a time when Rhode Island needs all the high-paying blue-collar jobs it can get. Anything other than maritime use is a waste of valuable land and the millions of dollars that taxpayers spent dredging the shipping channel.