Two interesting assessments, today, give one the impression that the characteristic Rhode Island game of “let’s pretend” is perhaps coming to its untenable end, at least with regard to land usage.  This is from a column by retired Providence Journal commentary page editor, Robert Whitcomb:

It is hard to quantify how much Rhode Island has gained or lost from trying to preserve old mills because people think that they’re quaint. Many can never be retrofitted to make a fair (without tax breaks) profit. Preservationists (not a few of whom are financially secure and don’t have to worry too much about finding a job in the sluggish Rhode Island economy) fiercely fight to save as many of these mills as possible, once built for economically logical reasons that disappeared decades ago. Indeed, the Ocean State has not exactly become a boom town during all these years of trying to keep old factory buildings that don’t make anything anymore except the occasional arsonist.

And this is from the weekend column of Millennial WPRI journalist Ted Nesi:

It’s time for Rhode Island to take a deep breath about the old I-195 land – particularly the state’s politicians, who’ve been promising big things from the 19 acres of potential redevelopment for years now. I-195 Commission Chairman Colin Kane said on this week’s Executive Suite he doesn’t expect construction on any buildings to begin there before the fall of 2015, with the spring of 2016 more likely. And as Jef Nickerson has pointed out, Providence already has plenty of undeveloped land in prime locations in the form of surface parking lots (not to mention Victory Place); the fact that developers aren’t snapping those up suggests weak demand.

It all comes back to Rhode Island’s practice of single-entry bookkeeping — meaning that the powers who be like to coddle the public into believing that the benefits of their preferences have no negative consequences.

Ours isn’t a mature polity.  Rhode Island is an excellent sampling of what the world would look like if teenagers ran it.  Every game is designed to make sure the cool kids do well.