Beyond tourism
As population slumps, Cape Cod ponders diversifying its economy
By Katie Johnston Chase, Globe Staff | August 7, 2009
When Teresa Martin tried to start an online game company in Mashpee, right in the middle of the Upper Cape, she found the town’s Internet service was inadequate for the massive game files she needed to send and receive. So she took her budding enterprise - which she thought would create 40 or so jobs - to Providence.
That was five years ago, and in the end, the business never got off the ground. But now Martin has another venture: developing social-networking software for middle schools.
Again, she’d like to locate the business near her home, which is in Eastham, and this time she’s working with the nonprofit OpenCape Corporation, which is trying to improve Internet access on Cape Cod, to make sure she can get the bandwidth she needs.
OpenCape is one of several endeavors to pave the way for a more robust economy on Cape Cod by creating jobs and attracting more people to live there year-round, a chicken-and-egg challenge. Efforts are being made to relax the stringent building limits that were imposed in past years to preserve the quaint nature of the Cape’s villages, encourage the growth of a green technology industry, and build new companies from scientific discoveries made by the Cape’s oceanographic laboratories.
Resistance to such progress has long been ingrained on Cape Cod, but even residents who treasure the character of this summertime haven realize there is a growing need to light a fire under the economy.
“If we aren’t doing something to keep younger people on the Cape, all these beautiful things we like are going to wither on the vine,’’ said Elizabeth Gawron, another Eastham resident and executive director of the nonprofit Cape Cod Foundation. “I think this is a very important time for the Cape.’’
Although it is renowned as a desirable place to visit, the Cape can be a hard place to make a living. There is little affordable housing, prices are high, and the main industry - tourism, which the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce said provides as many as two-thirds of the region’s jobs - doesn’t pay well, isn’t growing, and thrives for only three months a year.
“People on the Cape are like little squirrels gathering their nuts during the summer to get through the winter,’’ said Bill Waldron, owner of the Orleans coffee shop Cape Cup.
Lately, there have been fewer squirrels to do the work. Between 2000 and 2006, the Cape lost 11 percent of its residents ages 35 to 44, according to a Northeastern University study. The population as a whole has been slowly shrinking, from 228,000 in 2003 to 221,000 in 2008, and the people who are staying are getting older. The population of Barnstable County, which covers all 15 towns on the Cape, has the oldest median age in New England, with twice the percentage of people over 65 as in the average US county, according to demographic forecaster Peter Francese of the nonprofit research group New England Economic Partnership, in Walpole. “As the workforce shrinks, economic malaise sets in,’’ he said.
One local group is trying to shake off this malaise by increasing the Cape’s connectivity to the rest of the world. OpenCape is applying for $32 million in federal stimulus funds to build a new fiber-optic communications backbone on the Cape, and a microwave public safety system and data center to connect towns and services. The network would directly connect to institutions looking for more bandwidth and be accessible to residential service providers, which could create more competition on the Cape.
The network would also run to underserved areas, such as Truro, where 43 percent of residents don’t have broadband access, OpenCape officials say.
“I call us the North Korea of fiber optics,’’ said Daniel Gallagher, OpenCape president and director of information technology at Cape Cod Community College, which stands to benefit from the project.
Art Gaylord, director of computer and information services at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, represents one of a number of institutions participating in OpenCape. Woods Hole, he said, has been ineligible to apply for some federal research grants because it doesn’t have access to a second path to the Internet in case the first one goes down. “That puts us at a competitive disadvantage,’’ Gaylord said.
“There’s this overall, growing acceptance that something needs to be done to diversify the direction of the Cape beyond its hospitality base,’’ Gallagher said. “If we’re going to do that, we need to give people the enabling infrastructure they need.’’
Woods Hole and the nearby Marine Biological Laboratory are partnering with the nonprofit Regional Technology Development Corporation to license and create commercial products. The idea is to form companies that will market scientific discoveries from the labs, bringing more high-paying jobs to the Cape. Executive director Bob Curtis described the work of the research labs as “an enormous resource of technology that has been untapped from a commercialization standpoint.’’
Some advocates say the Cape also needs to become more welcoming to development. The Cape Cod Commission, a regional planning agency, has been granting exemptions from strict building restrictions to allow development in industrial areas and in downtown centers.
Hyannis was the first Cape community to take advantage of the more forgiving attitude toward development. In the past three years, $40 million in town and private money has been invested to renovate buildings, turn a former milk factory into town houses, and construct a youth center.
Just down Route 28, in Yarmouth, there is a 136-room Hampton Inn, the first completely new hotel on the Cape since the 1980s, and opportunity is being created for aging motels, as well. So far, four motel owners have applied for funds to convert their properties into housing, some of which will be designated as affordable.
“We’re trying to provide a variety of housing opportunities to retain our population,’’ said Karen Greene, Yarmouth’s director of community development.
Another frontier is green technology. The Cape Cod Economic Development Council was awarded a $400,000 state grant to teach plumbers, contractors, and electricians about solar and energy-efficient technologies - boosting their value to potential employers. In Bourne, a plan is underway for a green technology industrial park that could support 10 companies and 1,400 jobs.
As they have for years, residents worry that attracting new workers could change the character of the Cape, even as many accept that the economy must be diversified.
Lee Elman, who for 25 years has lived part time with her husband in a sun-filled house on a hill in Truro, opposed a Stop & Shop supermarket intended for her town. But she welcomed technology and the opportunities it could provide, saying, “I think it’s really important for this community to survive.’’
Katie Johnston Chase can be reached at johnstonchase@globe.com.
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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