"Little Compton Sewing Club and Tea Enthusiast Discussion Group"

I'm always reluctant to say this because I don't want to accidentally offend the wrong people, but I've long found using a space before a question mark to be a surprisingly good indicator of low intelligence. I've seen people I respect do it, but extremely rarely.

"The problem was that the candidates weren't insane enough"

Fun younger areas in Providence include Federal Hill and Fox Point. College Hill and Wayland Square will be a bit pricier, but I don't know what your budget is. Outside Providence, try Edgewood in Cranston, which is right at the border and has a young vibe -- you'll be 10 minutes from downtown.

For bars, keep in mind I'm old, but the bar at the Dean Hotel is very cool from my perspective, as are the Avery and the Eddy. And don't forget Free Play, a huge barcade with dancing upstairs -- that might be a great way to meet people!

Restaurants, I love Den Den Korean Fried Chicken and all the Plant City restaurants. Durk's Barbecue is legit. Those just came to mind immediately, but of course Providence is a great restaurant town and there are endless options.

I know a lot of people use Meetup for meeting new people.

I just have my doubts that transit-oriented development would even work around there because it's too far from Boston. Providence commuters are a better bet but I doubt the critical mass is there.

Wickford Junction just doesn't make any sense and I have a very hard time imagining what could be done to seriously increase ridership. It's the Boston commuter rail. It's nearly two hours to Boston. Anything over two hours door to door is considered an "extreme commute." Large numbers of people are never going to use a train station for extreme commuting. And there's just not enough demand for a train into Providence when driving from there is always going to be faster and easier; traffic into Providence just isn't bad enough.

While I agree with the general idea in this thread of "the best restaurants in Lincoln are not in Lincoln," I will say that OZ Tacos & Tequila and Trattoria Romana are both quite good. OZ is the only restaurant in town that I would (and have) come from elsewhere to eat at.

I was puzzled by the inclusion of Shelter Arcade Bar, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the always-superior Free Play exists.

I've gotten to know West Warwick a lot better since I moved right to the Warwick side of the border. I've lived pretty close for the past eight years but sometimes thought about how little I was actually there. Now that it's close enough that I could walk there in 10 minutes, I don't really have a choice!

Basically, it's a mixed bag. Some of it is gritty and unpleasant, other parts look like any suburbia anywhere. As others have said, none of it is really unsafe. There's even a little bit of charm there -- the bike path, old converted mills. It is very far from my favorite place in the state, but if you're looking for a value, you could do a lot worse. I guess that's not a ringing endorsement but what I'm trying to say is that it varies a lot from neighborhood to neighborhood and the worst that it gets is "kinda unattractive and trashy."

What do you mean by "place"? Apartment? Private house?

Ha, came here to say this. There are more and less desirable parts of Warwick but there isn't any of it I'd call "unsafe." I believe statistically the least safe part is Oakland Beach, but anecdotally I've heard that's mostly because of high rates of domestic violence and such.

As I recall, yes!

Can you still get day passes to Gooseberry Beach? It's one of my favorite beaches but I haven't been in years, and last I heard you couldn't get daily admission anymore.

Never belonged to a beach club here, but I grew up in a South Shore Long Island town that has perhaps 10 of them. Fun fact, the one right next door was where Donald Trump went as a kid; everyone in the area knew it as the one that doesn't accept Jews.

Most people join them because it's a scene. It's the summer version of a country club. There's usually a restaurant, there's a bar, you make a whole day of it and it's a lot more comfortable than just hauling your chair to the beach. You can go inside and kick back, go out to the beach, go inside and kick back again. Often they'll have chairs, umbrellas. They'll have kids working there to set everything up. You'll get a cabana so you can change inside, in privacy. There may be showers that are better than the ones you'll typically find at the beach, when you'll find showers there at all. There's often a pool too. You can get access to their facilities -- one girl I grew up with had her birthday party there every year. And then I'm sure more than a few people join them to make business and social connections.