This, from this morning’s Cape Cod Times:
“The number of Brewster students in kindergarten to fifth grade has dropped from 777 in 1993 to 481 this year. The main reason? Young families can no longer afford to live on the Cape.
“What does that precipitous decline in young people mean for the Cape as a whole? Is the Cape fast becoming a wealthy enclave for the retired? What do we want the Cape to look like in 20 years? Shouldn’t some of our county leaders be asking these questions?”
Excuse me, but the plight of young people who can’t afford to live on Cape Cod is an obsession in these parts, and has been for the years I’ve been here.
For example, the same Cape Cod Times reported a story only yesterday about six families who won a lottery entitling them to buy houses in Falmouth at half the market price, which is all they could afford.
Unless “county leaders” plan to extend programs like this to several thousand more people, an impossibility, the disconnect between cost of living and adequacy of wages will remain a problem without a solution.
Yes, the Cape IS a wealthy enclave for the retired. What used to be a sand bar covered with package stores is now a sand bar covered with golf courses.
The unspoken concern in all of this is, of course, the reality that these wealthy retired folks expect to find local services provided by relatively low-paid local help to meet their needs: restaurant workers, nurses aides, folks to mow their lawns.
Problem is, the local help can’t make enough coin to afford a mortgage.
Aside from totally scuttling the free market by putting a cap on private real estate sales, I don’t know of a solution to this problem, which is not unique to the Cape. Hand-wringing about the awful awfulness of it certainly won’t help.
In my own field, employers in this region aren’t willing to pay competitive wages for experienced professionals, figuring they’ll hire a junior instead. The Libertarian in me says there’s nothing wrong with that, and if those companies are willing to endure the cost of turnover and retraining as a result, that’s a business decision they have to live with.
The impact on the community, though, is significant, when friends, colleagues and neighbors decide to fold their tents and move on to other regions with better prospects and improved standards of living.
Besides the economic differences between the rich retirees and the service sector, there’s a vast cultural divide: people in their retirement years move to the Cape to escape daily cares. They want senior discounts, a low-key cultural life, good medical care, part-time jobs, light traffic and a walk on a beach from time to time.
They don’t need the things that attract young people, like excellent public schools, fast-track jobs in big companies and an opportunity to meet other young people. It’s the latter which drives away single lads and lasses, and that’s an old demographic trend that is not going to change.
In the past, large companies have invested in branch offices here, only to depart within a relatively short time.
Very recently, there have been two disruptions in the technology sector here. One local company was sold to Boeing, and the founder of another died suddenly, spawning educated guesses about how quickly his firm will be on the market, if it isn’t already.
From the listings on their website, membership in the local technology council has dwindled down to a precious few, mostly consultants who get by because they have a second income.
One can’t fight the inevitable: the retirees are here to stay, and jobs that pay a living wage are leaving. The Cape Cod Times and everyone else in a leadership position need to face those facts. Bus the service workers in from New Bedford, lobby for an extension of the commuter rail to Bourne. Do SOMETHING, but just stop whining.