Affordable Housing Institute : US

I’ve always admired the Shakers, whose belief that faith alone will swell their numbers is so strong they renounce not just procreation but marriage itself.  God will provide, God will bring the new faithful.  
 
 
Centuries ago, there were many of us.

 

Their commitment is admirable – and they are dying out.  Unless God provides, in the form of new converts, Shakerism will soon be extinct as a religious sect. 

 

Shaker furniture: clean lines, ascetic seating, and no people

 

To those of us who lack the Shakers’ faith, it seems self-evident that a society, to survive, must procreate – new blood to replace the old.  A community must do the same – it has to bring in jobs and young families and children, or it will become geriatric, and moribund, and eventually a ghost town.

 

The evaporation of urbanization is happening in Cornwall and Wales, both of which are becoming green weekend and holiday destinations with no economy but tourism, no year-round residents.

 

Townhouses in Fowey, Cornwall, October, 2006

 

Amazingly, it is happening to Cape Cod, and housing is at its root.  At least, such is the thesis advanced, however tentatively, by The Boston Globe:

 

Cape Cod’s rapid aging, slow growth point to future problems

 

BARNSTABLE, Mass. –When Leon Michelove sits back to enjoy the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra on a summer Saturday, it’s obvious to him something about the audience has changed.

 

“All of the hair is gray,” said Michelove, 75, of Barnstable. “When we started here 10 years ago, that was not the case.”

 

Since 1990, the Cape’s median age has risen about seven years, from around 39 to just under 46.

 

Consider that grim arithmetic.  In roughly 17 years, the median age has risen 7 years, or roughly 0.4 years’ increase per year.  If there were no births at all, and no deaths – everyone just aged in place – the rate of increase would be 1.0.  If the population were in equilibrium, births equal to deaths, the rate would be 0.0.  A 0.4 rate is very rapid aging indeed.

 

On behalf of 54-year-olds everywhere, I want to say that I don’t look that bad!

 

Nationwide, the median age (36.4) rose about half as much during the same time [i.e., a 0.2 rate – America is getting older – Ed.], according to Peter Francese, director of demographic forecasts at the New England Economic Partnership.

 

If the trend continues, the region faces crushing health costs to care for the aging and fewer workers for an already stretched employees pool.

 

As we move through our economic lives, in our middle years we have both a high earning rate and a high spending rate, but inflation and home ownership conspire to give us savings, in the form of accumulated home equity.  When we reach later life – retirement and beyond – our rate of expenditures exceeds our rate of earnings.  So those of us who own homes tap that reservoir of equity, drawing against it to cover our costs.

 

Some Cape Codders also fear their historic, hardworking communities will transform into exclusive places only for the wealthy, similar to nearby Nantucket.

 

They already are so transforming.  Age and death are completing the transformation.

 

The flip side of our need to spend more than we make is that we spend it largely on services – personal services.  Whether lawn care, or home repair, or cooking, or housekeeping, or health care, or assistance with daily activities, the older we get, the more we need young people nearby so we can pay them to do things for us.

 

And one of the things we need … is human contact

 

An aging population is a demanding and consuming population, and it cannot do well without plenty of young people around. 

 

My sister-in-law lives on the Cape.  She’s a caregiver.  It pays poorly.  She also lives in a very tiny house that she bought more than a decade ago.

 

The cure for an aging population is affordable housing, for two reasons: service workers, and bedrooms, to produce the children and raise the children.

 

Higher density possible by abusing your little brother

 

“I don’t think you can call any community healthy that can’t support all generations of a family,” said Maggie Geist of The Association to Preserve Cape Cod. “The Cape is well past that point.”

 

Today, about a quarter of Cape residents are over 65, compared to about 13 percent nationwide.

Another telling statistic shows the Cape had 5,000 more deaths than births between 2000 and 2006, the 6th highest percentage loss in the nation. That puts the Cape ahead of Pinellas, Volusia and Pasco Counties in retiree-laden Florida.

 

Cape Cod is graying, at a rapid rate.

 

The Cape’s rising age can be partly blamed on the shorelines and landscapes that draw visitors from all corners and inspired famous residents such as the Kennedys. President John F. Kennedy once said, “I always go to Hyannisport to be revived, to know again the power of the sea, and the Master who rules over it, and all of us.”

 

That’s nice.  JFK would be 90 today.

 

Sudden death kept him young in our minds

 

The Cape capitalized on its natural beauty in the 1980s by building up tourism to replace the flagging fishing and farming industries. Some of those new tourists were smart enough to buy properties as second homes before the Cape market boomed.

 

Now, they’re retired and moving in.

 

“It’s kind of the unintended consequences of a robust tourism economy,” said Wendy Northcross, executive director of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.

 

Route 6 is the only viable artery

 

Anyone who’s ever driven to the Cape knows that there is basically one and only one highway to transit it: Route 6, which runs from the Cape’s armpit (the Bourne and Sagamore bridges) down to its elbow (Chatham) and then to its dangling wrist (Provincetown).  Traffic jams leading up to the Sagamore bridge are so legendary that most people plan which odd off-hour they will face the peril.

 

A rare spectacle: the Sagamore bridge with only light traffic

 

Driving through the Cape is an exercise in frustration.  It would be absolutely impossible to manage heavy day-worker commuter traffic up and down Route 6 and over the bridge. 

 

Whichever direction you’re going, that’s the one with the traffic

 

Jobs on the Cape have to be indigenous; Cape workers have to sleep on the Cape, and for that they need affordable housing.

 

The Cape’s work to attract more visitors came as more residents were settling in. Between 1980 and today, the population boomed from 148,000 to 225,000. Many Cape towns, concerned about preserving their character and natural resources, reacted with policies aimed at curbing development.

 

When the Cape was only a summer destination, the traffic was more manageable.  People came, rented a hotel room for a week, sent the kids off to the beach all day, and plopped down with their fat best-sellers.  The summer workers were all students, bunking in propinquity in bunkhouses behind the motels, not minding the close quarters, and going back to college in the fall.  As the retirees move in, and the Cape is occupied year-round, the needs of an older population predominate, and the tourniquet represented by the bridge and the single road cut off job flow.

 

Where’s the love part?

 

So we have a part of the country that:

 

• Is land-locked.
• Is development-restricted.
• Is desirable and has an affluent and aging population.

What’s the logical consequence?

 

What happens next won’t be pretty

 

The same policies also pushed prices too high for younger families with children. Between 2000 and 2006, about 10,000 people aged 35-44 and their children left the Cape, Francese said.

 

As I’ve posted in Zoning oneself blue in the states, excessive development restrictions likely have the effect of lowering the population growth rate, and thus reducing future voting power.  More directly, they also push up housing prices.

 

Faced with rising home prices, what did the Cape do? 

 

[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]

 

Send post as PDF to