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Leaving Nantucket
rutt
Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
In previious years, by the end of the summer, I had island fever. This year I had the urge for staying. But Wednesday evening I put my car on the ferry and the dog and I left Nantucket for the mainland until next year. (My wife and children went the day before. Here are some shots from that ferry ride.
If not now, when?
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I used to live on the Vineyard for two years in the late 80's. Fond memories. Nantucket has changed a lot more than the Vineyard since then. I went out last year and the place is almost 99% for the rich only now. It's interesting, if you drive through some of the residential areas on Nantucket now, you'll see huge homes with overgrown bushes in front, unkept lawns, etc. Why? Nobody lives there that the homeowners can hire to do that type of work. So many workers on the island (Cops, retail workers, DOT, etc.) come in on the first ferry from the mainland and leave on the last of the day to go home. They can't afford to live there. I hear the teachers had to have special low-rent housing built so they could keep them in the schools. Crazy. It's become so exclusive that it may be actually backfiring a little bit.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2003/10/09/in_search_of_living_space/
Doug
It is also true that Nantucket is an expensive place to live and services are very expsinsive. But it is also a very different place in July and August than in the other ten months. Rent is 5x more in those two months than in the rest of the year. So lots of renters got off island in the summer and lots of "land rich" middle class people rent their houses diring the summer and go on vacationon during the summer (financing a big part of the rest of their year.)
Nantucket has changed a lot in the ten years since we bought our house there. But I think it would look like it had changed even more to someone who was just visiting for a weekend or so.
Amazing that it has grown into what it has in the last decade. Regardless of all that, it's a great place, hopefully someday I can buy a place there as well. I don't know, kind of a long ferry ride, I'd have to buy a private plane.
Rutt, do you ever go out to your place in the winter?
One book to read, if anyone is interested in the history of the island, the people that lived there, the hardships of the whaling industry, and the demise of the whaling ship "Essex"... It is called In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. I'm reading it now and it is quite a story, and a great history lesson of the island as well. Rutt, if you haven't read this one, I'm sure it's on your list.
Doug
Yes, I read this when it came out and even know the illustrator quite well. There is another book by the same author, "Away, Offshore", which is more of an overall history of Nantucket.
Doug
Grey here today, supposed to be like this all week, 50% chance of rain today and that is the good day. I think they are worried about effects from Ivan, too.
I should count my blessings that we are not getting a hit or sitting on tenderhooks waiting to evacuate.
ginger
That was a moving shot of the Russian Embassy. Tragedy noticed.
Our whole area, and the islands in particular have become a rich community. Where I live, Mt Pleasant, we are not an island, exactly, so houses can still be built, though they cut back permits periodically.
The islands are built up, so it is the older, smaller houses that go. They are bought, razed that day and huge places come up for various part time and full time residences.
One side effect is that the children who grew up in these areas, and still have families there (here), they can't afford to buy/rent/live here when they grow up. So Charleston area is losing many of the Charlestonians. I read that many are going to the Atlanta area. Meanwhile the elderly parents/grandparents do not have the nuclear family that used to exist.
Another funny thing is that downtown Charleston is now so expensive with the taxes and all that the children are selling the houses that have been in their families for generations and moving, in one case, to Sullivan's Island, which most people would consider overpriced, and gone to the rich. It is all relative. The old timers in Charleston peninsula now live next door to empty houses, the children are no longer there playing, neighborhoods are not neighborly, the neighbors are not there.
I moved to the Charleston area in 1984, a much different place then. Most of this growth started in the 1990s, all of it did, actually. I have never seen a place change like this. I do not know how to show it in photographs. The houses look the same downtown, a little better maintained, actually, as these are wealthy buyers where the Charlestonians were up and down the scale in their family homes.
The blacks have left the Peninsula, too, that has changed the voting districts with no black representation in the peninsula, or downtown area.
I could go on, lost my train of thought, but I would imagine this is a wide spread trend in most places that are in the media and considered "nice". One thing, the people who move here, have the means to move here, they do not know what Charleston used to be or what we are talking about.
ginger
Sorry for rambling.
Shot with a 10D and a fine ProMaster 28-200 lens - NOT L glass, for sure, and it shows.
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