Cape & Islands News

Summit participants ponder Cape's economic, demographic problems

Growth in year-round population ending, younger workers leaving

Participants in Cape Cod Economic Summit II listen to a panel discussion. The summit was held Friday at Cape Cod Community College.

Summit explores alternatives to Cape stalwarts of tourism, retirees

By James Kinsella

A year ago, demographer Peter Francese warned the first Cape Cod Economic Summit that demographic trends showed that population growth on the Cape, long one of the fastest growing areas in New England, had essentially stopped, and that the Cape further was losing its younger working adults.

On Friday, economist Neeta Fogg of Northeastern University told the 300 people who gathered for Cape Cod Economic Summit II that the Cape continues to lose these workers.

Meanwhile, Fogg said, the overall Cape economy is getting worse. Whatever modest employment gains realized between 2004 and 2007 have been more than wiped out by this year's economic downturn, she said.

And she anticipates that the Cape economy, along with the Massachusetts, New England and U.S. economies will get worse before they get better.

People looking for reasons why economics is called the dismal science would have found them quickly at the summit, held from Friday morning through early afternoon at the Tilden Arts Center at Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable.

But they also would have found good reason to start looking beyond the Cape's de facto motto of recent decades: "In Tourism and Retirees We Trust."

Cape residents long have paid lip service to diversifying the region's economy beyond those reliable sectors.

Now, with economic and population growth stagnating on the Cape, summit participants are casting about for specific ways to create new growth and retain the Cape's younger working adults.

Cape Cod Focus, a study group formed in the wake of last year's economic summit, has stated that the Cape's economics and demographics are out of balance.

Steve Abbott, the co-chairman of the group, said matters have grown even more serious on the Cape with this year's economic slowdown.

"What before was important, now is imperative," Abbott told summit participants.

One strategy put forward at the summit to help the Cape: regionalization, especially of schools.

Summit participants such as Harwich Selectman Robin Wilkins said regionalization not only can save money through economies of scale, but can offer more resources and opportunities to the larger student populations in the centralized schools.

Chatham and Harwich, which long have considered merging their school districts, have renewed their discussions.

Carolyn Cragin, superintendent of the Harwich schools, said she anticipates that the state Department of Education will be moving to encourage smaller districts on the Cape to merge. If districts move now, she said, they have a chance to structure a merger themselves, rather than wait for a merger to be imposed from above.

Wilkins said Cape residents really should be thinking beyond merging small districts to creating a single school district for the entire Cape, an organization that would have the resources to offer world-class education that will allow Cape students to compete in a global economy.

Other speakers pointed to existing Cape zoning and rules that make it far easier to build single-family homes for retirees than apartments for younger workers just starting out.

Paul Niedzwicki, executive director of the Cape Cod Commission, said the commission is interested in fostering growth incentive zones where regulations are relaxed and mixed residential and commercial uses are encouraged. Niedzwicki said the Cape needs to start looking at its challenges with a 21st century vision rather than a post-World War II vision.

Wendy Northcross, chief executive officer of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber plans to compile the ideas put forward at Friday's summit. Northcross said a committee formed for the purpose then will choose a single objective to focus on for a year, and pursue that objective with a "laser beam" focus, rather than spending a little time on many different initiatives. The following year, the committee would choose a new objective, and so on.

Among those attending the summit was Stephanie Coxe, an aide to state Rep. Cleon Turner of the 1st Barnstable District.

Coxe said the actions that summit participants pursue or don't pursue will have a real effect on the lives of Cape Codders.

So long as the Cape continues to rely on tourism and retirees, she said, the "two Cape Cods" will remain: one a Cape of poorer, working-class residents, the other of more comfortable, affluent residents.

"That divide's going to continue," she said.

Wendy Northcross, left, chief executive officer of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, Barnstable County Commissioner William Doherty and Susan Rohrbach, aide to state Sen. Robert O'Leary, compare notes at conclusion of Friday's economic summit.