By Jason Graziadei
I&M Senior Writer
In her 18 years on Nantucket, Amy Wiggin met her husband, had four children, took a job in the school system and thought she had found a home.
That all changed last year, however, when Wiggin and her husband Ken made the difficult decision to uproot their family and move to Mattapoisett, Mass. It wasn’t just that Ken, who works in the heating and air-conditioning field, had found a new job off-island. Wiggin said the cost and realities of raising four children on Nantucket proved to be too much.
“The number-one reason we left is my husband got a job off-island, and we tried to commute at first, but it was too hard on the family,” Wiggin said. “I think the biggest obstacle living on Nantucket was your whole life schedule is dictated by the boat schedule, and the cost of living. We have four children, and if my son had to go off for a hockey game or swim meet, it was the cost of the whole family going off-island.”
The Wiggins are not alone. The current economic recession has inflicted a heavy toll on young, working families on Nantucket, as jobs in the construction trades have dried up, and opportunities in other fields have become scarce. The anecdotal evidence of population decline has been abundant this winter: empty streets and storefronts, more parking spaces, a glut of available post-office boxes on Federal Street, and a rising stock of homes and apartments for rent. But has an exodus begun? Are people really leaving the island in significant numbers?
Precise figures are not available, but several telling indicators reveal Nantucket’s population is indeed declining.
To read the entire story, pick up this week's Inquirer and Mirror or register for the I&M's online edition by clicking here. |
