For many who grew up on Cape Cod, the grass often appears greener on the other side of the bridges. Or maybe it’s the money that looks that way.
Perhaps they just haven’t looked close enough at where they live.
“My dad gave me some great advice when I was thinking of leaving the Cape,” said Scott Swaylik, 39, a financial advisor in Barnstable. “He said everybody works their whole life to be able to move to the Cape. Why would you want to leave?”
Well…
Chris O’Brien: “I was going to hit the bridge with a one-way ticket and leave.”
“Growing up here, I couldn’t wait to get off Cape,” said Chris O’Brien, 31, who recently started a website design firm, Dative, based in Bourne. “I was going to hit the bridge with a one-way ticket and leave.”
Bob Maffei, 39, owner of Maffei Landscape Contractors of Mashpee, said, “If you had a chance to grow up here, everybody says the same thing. ‘I plan to get off of Cape Cod.’ ”
In fact, US Census numbers showed that between 2000 and 2010, the population of those ages 25 to 44 dropped by 26 percent in Barnstable County, said Anne Van Vleck, 43, Executive Director of the CCYP, the re-branded Cape Cod Young Professionals.
These census numbers prompted CCYP into action, said Van Vleck. Working with the the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, CCYP developed a survey that 3,817 have taken since November 1. The goal is to get 4,000 to take the survey by the end of November. It is part of an initiative that CCYP is calling “Shape The Cape.”
“This is one of the cross-cutting community issues affecting everyone in a lot of ways,” said Wendy Northcross, 57, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. “This is the age group that is having babies, buying houses, and consuming goods and services.”
Barry Bluestone, 68, the founder of the Dukakis Center and a summer resident of Truro, put it this way: “Younger people A, do the work and B, pay the taxes.”
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