From the details you've given, it sounds to me like you might like Providence better than one of the wealthy suburban towns. Providence is a very small city-it is definitely not snobby, and for the East Coast pretty laid back.

the property taxes are very high.

THANK YOU, PPs! I really appreciate your taking the time to reply. It is always great to hear info from those who know the area, as well as know DC.
It is also great to hear that there are immigrants, as that is also a plus for me. I grew up with half my family being from another part of the world and I would not my children raised in a pure "white" environment.

If you were to live in Providence, you might like the area near Blackstone Boulevard on the East Side. That area would be easy distance to Wheeler or Moses Brown, which are the most highly regarded independent schools in the city. A number of my friends send their kids to Gordon, which is a progressive school. Lincoln is a small Quaker girls school. And there is Providence Country Day, which I know nothing about.

Most of my friends in Barrington and East Greenwich send their kids to public school and seem happy with the schools. The exceptions are parents who want a Catholic education for their kids.

I'm a New Englander who lived in the DC area and then moved back. I think New Englanders are cooler socially and more insular, but Rhode Island has a lot of transplants. Even though Boston is closer, I think Rhode Island is more oriented toward New York than you might expect as an outsider. And, personally, I find Boston to be boring and provincial.

Rhode Island is broke and corrupt, the economy is much better in Mass-although you won't notice those problems as much if you are ensconced in Barrington. Providence is a great little city-arty and unpretentious and quite international, with a high percentage of immigrants-which is a plus for me.

My SIL lives there and loves RI. It is pretty laid back - but still has a lot of New England traditions and a large Red Sox fan base.

Op here:
Anyone have insight into the quality of life there? Assuming you have enough money to live comfortably there and can chose a nice town to live in, would you say the pace of life is drastically different from DC? Are people typically friendly? I find DC to have some very competitive people(I know I am not alone in this observation) would you tend to find similar people in the Providence area? I have only lived in New England once before, over 15 years ago and that Cambridge for grad school, so I'm curious as to whether the culture there is similar to the Boston area or if one would say there are major differences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moseley Brown is a good private school. Narraganset is lovely.

You mean Moses Brown, a very old and good independent school. Moseley Braun was an ineffectual and somewhat corrupt US Senator from Illinois.

Sorry, typing on my phone. A friend went and though highly of it. Went to a good college after.

R.I. is the Mafia capital of New England.

Anonymous wrote:Moseley Brown is a good private school. Narraganset is lovely.

You mean Moses Brown, a very old and good independent school. Moseley Braun was an ineffectual and somewhat corrupt US Senator from Illinois.

RI might be a small state, but there are very different parts of the state. Barrington is lovely - very close to the beaches. The area of Providence near PC is arty. But there are also nice private schools north of Providence near the MA border. (Near Attleboro, MA). Mercymount and Mount St. Charles are great private schools. (Both are Catholic though.)

I grew up in the Wakefield/Kingston area. Lovely place to grow up, good schools. I hear it is pretty expensive now. I'd move back in a heartbeat. I can say that my experience growing up was lily white, and I didn't have friends of color until college. I hope the demographics have changed.

Anonymous wrote:Moseley Brown is a good private school. Narraganset is lovely.

Thanks for the reply! Do you know that school well? If so what would you say about the type of community at the school? conservative? progressive?

We loved Jamestown RI while husband attended naval war college. Very small town- not sure about schools as we had preschoolers then.

Moseley Brown is a good private school. Narraganset is lovely.

Any of you out there from RI? Or maybe have family currently raising kids there?
My husband is applying for a great job there, the kind that he has been waiting to come along. No guarantee he will get it, of course, but I want to now the scoop of if/where one would want to live in that are. We currently live in NW DC, our two kids are in elementary school(private). We have heard Barrington, RI is a nice place to live. Any thoughts about the pros and cons compared to DC in terms of life for the kids? What are school options like? We would consider public or private. I work in a flexible creative field so I feel it might me a plus for me to be near Providence and not far from Boston, but live in a smaller more relaxed small city/town.
I would really love to hear insight from those who know the area well.
Would it be the sort of place that one would easily meet people, if you make an effort?

Anyone?