Consider this paragraph from an Oct. 4 New York Times story about the housing slump in that city.

“Despite the drag from the housing downturn, there are several countervailing forces sustaining Baltimore’s economy. The port operation, with 18,000 workers, thrives. Among other traffic, all of the vehicles that Toyota imports for sale east of the Mississippi come through here. And the Baltimore-Washington International Airport is a magnet for light industry and commerce.”

Of course, Baltimore also has its Old Harbor District, and that’s what the likes of Patrick Conley are talking about as they try to turn much of Providence’s working waterfront into some kind of condo and tourist heaven (despite the drag of the New England winter). But Providence has its Riverfront Park, which serves nicely. And we need the well-paid blue-collar jobs real ports have far more than the low-wage hotel, restaurant and condo jobs that would be created by the Conley approach to waterfront development.

Providence doesn’t have the Constellation, sister-ship to the Constitution, and there’s not much to be done about that. But there’s a lot that can be done to create a magnet for light industry and other commerce by focusing on our ports, in Providence and Quonset. We can bring more cars in and we can build a container port (which would entail perhaps two big ships a week — far, far fewer than showed up back when Rhode Island was a major base for naval ships). We could also, with some infrastructure modifications, host transcontinental and transatlantic flights from T.F. Green Airport.

More and more, people are seeing the downside of a NIMBY economy, one that proposes the niche of, say, yacht services as an alternative to economic development that can do real heavy lifting. The result is a weak economy that withers in the slightest downturn, particularly hurting lower- and middle-income people.

Rhode Islanders are proud of their environment, and rightly so. It is salubrious, and you can do a lot in a day in our compact area. Somehow, some have been convinced that it’s either/or, a tradeoff between economic development and the Bay. It isn’t. We can have both. Check out Savannah, Charleston and Baltimore.