“School boom on Nantucket; Student population soars as immigrant population takes root.” Who knew? It was interesting to learn from Saturday’s “Cape Cod Times” front page story that while Cape schools are shrinking, part of the much-lamented youth flight, Nantucket’s are bursting at the seams.
“Some public schools on Cape Cod have closed as families flee the area’s high cost of living and sparse job opportunities,” according to the story. But on Nantucket, by a wide margin the most expensive part of the Cape and islands, “the student population has increased by 50 percent in the past 21 years.” Most of the increase has come among children from Hispanic, African-American, Caribbean, and Eastern European immigrant workers.
By way of explanation, the article mentions a building boom of high-end housing enabling previously seasonal workers to settle down fulltime, but also that, as in Cape towns “rents are astronomical.”
The question is: how are the Nantucket workers making it while those of Cape towns are not? Apparently it’s not a superior affordable housing program on the island. The article mentions that “workers are …doubling and tripling up in homes. …living in sheds, under boats and in trailers.”
As several islanders quoted in the article said, the interesting mix of ethnicities should enrich the island’s culture. But such makeshift living conditions don’t sound like the sort of integration into the existing community that would be good for the island longterm.
Is it fair to say that Nantucket is growing itself a much-needed worker ghetto? If so, is this a good thing? And in any case, why the big difference from Cape towns?
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