<p>Just a few comments from a rising Junior at Brown:</p>
<p>Brown is not a gated community. It is a part of the city, and adds to the culture and history of Providence. The local residents regularly use the campus greens to walk their dogs and play with their children, and even to get married. At night, a number of (very friendly) security guards are posted around campus, but the gates remain open and the greens are kept well-lit (frisbee at night is not unheard of).</p>
<p>Brown is surrounded by the largest surviving collection of colonial-era houses in America. Many of these are owned by Brown, or are available for rent as off-campus housing. Architecture and color vary widely, and so it can be very interesting to take a short stroll off-campus, especially in the early fall or late spring. As a whole, the East Side is a very comfortable, very wealthy, and very safe part of town.</p>
<p>I grew up in Philadelphia, so read into this as you will, but I find downtown Providence to be very nice. It feels comfortable, and is stuffed to the brim with restaurants and clubs (Providence recently beat Boston in a Boston Globe restaurant survey). The "Renaissance" has resulted in a very clean city, with an attractive network of rivers flowing through the town. The railroad tracks were moved underground, making everything far more sightly, and the public busses look like old trolly-cars, right down to the wooden floors. However, there are very few residences in this part of Providence, and so it can feel like a ghost-town on weekend mornings (I actually enjoy this, though some may not).</p>
<p>South Providence is, indeed, something of a slum. I have volunteered at a soup kitchen there several times, and did not enjoy the area. For better or worse, however, it is far removed from Brown's campus. Unlike at Penn, for example, none of the "ghetto" areas connect to Brown, and relatively few of the vagrant types make their way to the east side. Those that do are often surprisingly skilled musicians, who actually add to Thayer Street's cosmopolitan feel (they best of these will even draw crowds).</p>
<p>As for "things to do," other posters have already mentioned Newport and Boston. However, Providence has its own scene, which attracts a decent number of large-name performers. In my experience, though, there are enough things going on at Brown itself that none of this is a big deal: as I imagine is the case at most colleges, there are comedy, improv, musical, and theatrical performances every weekend, most of which are of very good quality despite being student productions.</p>