Issue date: 3/19/08 Section: Campus News

Media Credit: Kim Perley Buddy Cianci, former mayor of Providence, talked about his experiences and the future of the city in a lively lecture to a capacity Salomon 101.

Providence should "seriously consider merging" with its neighboring cities, former mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, Jr. told a crowded Salomon 101 Tuesday night, in a speech in which he recounted the history of Providence and his more than two decades of service in the mayor's office.

Cianci served two terms as Providence's mayor, from 1975 to 1984 and 1991 to 2002, making him the city's longest-serving executive. He is widely credited with facilitating Providence's 1990s "renaissance," though that work hasn't saved him from controversy and criticism.

During his first stint, he resigned from office after pleading no contest to assaulting a man he said had been having an affair with his wife.

His second term came to an end when he was sentenced to five years in federal prison for conspiracy. He was released last year, and since then has been hosting a weekly radio talk show.

Or, as Cianci summed it up: "I was mayor for a while. Then I stopped being mayor. Then I was mayor again."

But he saved the boldest part of his speech for the end, when he called on the city to merge with its neighbors - including Warwick, Cranston and North and East Providence - into "a union of equals."

Cianci called Providence "a city divided," and added that it is also the seventh-most crowded in the nation, occupying the same 18 square miles it did 100 years ago. Providence and the surrounding cities currently work as a single city even though they are separate politically, he said. Rhode Island was once called a city-state, he said, in the days when a few cities held almost all of its population. He suggested that having dozens of cities does not make sense for the nation's smallest state by land area.

"It's only a matter of time" until something must be done, he told the crowd. He compared the scheme to the situation in Fairfax County, Va., which has a population almost identical to Rhode Island's, but only one government .

The unification plan was one of a series of goals he laid out for continuing the city's renaissance, which he said isn't yet complete. By the time he left office in 2002, Providence had gained jobs in some sectors but lost others in manufacturing, wholesaling and railroading, he said. Providence's continued renaissance depends largely on the state government overcoming its current financial crisis and making new commitments to the city as it did in decades past, Cianci said. He argued that the city must end suburban sprawl and bring jobs back from the suburbs.

Continued...

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