Youth exodus
Friday, September 01, 2006
Keene Sentinel Editorial
Give the Fitzwilliam selectmen credit for plain talk. They could have said they wanted the town to buy a 350-acre property on Jaffrey Road and Route 119 for conservation purposes or to preserve a favorite view.
But they didn’t play word games. They said that buying the property would be cheaper for taxpayers than allowing a private developer to eventually put up houses there. Houses bring families, and families bring children, and children require schools, and in New Hampshire schools cost a fortune in local property taxes.
The selectmen say one better use for the property might be elderly housing. Old folks generally don’t procreate.
Proposals such as this are made just about every day in New Hampshire in a variety of ways, through zoning, business decisions and political activities. And, in the short term, they make perfect sense. The state places much of the educational burden on local property taxes. Communities can keep a lid on the situation by offering incentives to increase their taxable property and by creating disincentives for young families to move into town. Success varies. That’s why yearly taxes on similar homes in this state range from a few hundred dollars to many thousands of dollars — even though the state Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that situation is unfair and unconstitutional.
Is it any wonder, then, that the U.S. Census reports young adults are fleeing this state in what appear to be record numbers? Since 1990, the percentage of New Hampshire residents aged 25 to 34 has declined 27 percent — the fourth largest drop in the country. In the last five years alone, 12,000 people in that age group have left the state.
This exodus of young workers does contribute to New Hampshire’s bragging rights as one of the richest states in the nation. We’re currently 6th, but the Census Bureau’s ranking of “Average Median Household Income by State” for 2002-2004 actually had us at No. 1. Yet some well-heeled business leaders are beginning to wonder how they will find enough future workers to drive the expanding economy upon which most people’s wealth and well-being depend.
“We better find out what the disconnect is before the gap grows,” said Richard Brothers, commissioner of the Department of Employment Security. Brothers told the Concord Monitor: “The graying of New Hampshire is going to be a much more difficult situation unless we can keep our young people here.”
Census figures can’t discern motivation, but among those possible disconnects is the likelihood that some young people are looking for metropolitan delights that can only be dreamed of around here. Fair enough. But that attraction is valid in all largely rural states. And a recent report from the Monitor, published in The Sentinel August 27, indicates that in New Hampshire housing is a key problem for many younger workers, especially when its cost outstrips their pay. As we see in Fitzwilliam, and just about everywhere else, the housing stock for people with moderate incomes is heavily influenced by the quite reasonable fear of disproportionate town by town property taxes.
Granted, employers, conservationists and government officials in several parts of the state, including the Monadnock Region, are trying to stimulate construction of so-called work-force housing, but more than that is needed.
If the dictates of the New Hampshire Supreme Court are not sufficient to nudge the state’s political establishment into crafting an equitable tax system, maybe the sight of people heading for the border will prompt some reflection.