Editor’s note: This is one of several A Look Ahead 2020 stories we are running this week in which we take a look at what 2020 has in store for our coverage area.
New Hampshire is projected to maintain its status as the second-oldest state in the nation in the coming decade. How will this, and other demographic trends and effects shape our communities? Ken Gallager, a principal planner for New Hampshire’s Office of Strategic Initiatives, Robin LeBlanc, the Executive Director for Plan NH, and Jo Anne Carr, Jaffrey’s Planning and Economic Development Director, laid out their thoughts.
The median age of New Hampshire residents is 42.4 years, as compared to the nation’s 37.7. The median age is even higher in southwestern New Hampshire, Gallager said, including a couple places with a median age over 50. This is due, in part, at least, to the region’s predominantly rural character.
“You’re always going to have younger people occupying the city regions. The older people are in the more rural regions,” he said.
For perspective, he pointed to the state’s annual number of housing units permitted for construction.
“The main reason the state is growing older is we had a huge influx of people in the 1980s to start families,” Gallager said.
During the 1980s, Gallager said 20,000 units were permitted annually. This year, the state permitted 4,000 units, part of a “happy upward trend” beginning in 2011, he said. A lot of the people who moved in during the eighties remain in the houses they bought, Gallager said, and he expects the next decade to be marked by that generation “aging in place.”
The aging trend merits some real reconsideration on behalf of builders and planners, Leblanc said.
“People are getting older, but they are active much longer,” she said, and planners must avoid thinking in the same way as when there were lower percentages of the population over 60, and the elderly didn’t live as long.
“What older adults and Millennials want is the same thing: small homes, a walkable community. They want to hang out at the bars to socialize, go to a park, go hiking,” she said.
Now, there are just about as many 18 to 34 year-olds as people older than 65. In light of this, Leblanc believes “we need to think differently about the kinds of homes we make available.” She also foresees transportation considerations on the horizon.
“As the population gets older, [as] we all get older, at some point we give up our keys, then what do we do?”
An aging population also has ramifications for current and future town leadership, Carr said.
“Our boards are aging, we’re an aging region. Are they making the decisions best for the generation coming up?” she said.
In the coming decade, Carr said she hopes to see a continuation of the area’s high tech manufacturing industries current growth trend.
“In Jaffrey, our manufacturing leader is Millipore[Sigma], along with Teleflex,” a medical fabricator company, she said.
She said a number of area companies, such as Medifab, Microspec, and Microcatheter Components, developed as offshoots of those existing industries in recent years. The number of jobs the industry’s been providing, as well as the diverse quality of those jobs, are good for the region, she said.
Carr said that in the coming years, those same companies anticipate creating a number of managerial positions, and positions for people with bachelor’s and advanced degrees in biology and engineering, in addition to entry level opportunities. She also said she was encouraged by recent interest from Franklin Pierce University in partnering with local towns for business research and development, or internship opportunities. She sees the initiative as “helping students see that it’s right here.”
One common theme in the conversations about age and workforce demographics is housing, namely, that the region doesn’t have the right kind of housing available for current and future trends.
“When Millipore says they’re looking at hiring 300, 400 people, that’s a lot,” Carr said. “From the workers, one of the issues is “Where are we going to live?”
“Across the state, at least 20,000 homes that are needed are not there,” LeBlanc said.
She considered the high percentages of seniors living alone in the area.
“Why live in a big house with five bedrooms? Because there’s nowhere to downsize,” she said.
Most of the development boom in the 1980s was single family housing, Gallager said. Carr, who also participates with the Peterborough Community Task Force on Housing, said she is looking into how to create housing available for a wider spectrum of needs.
“What is preventing houses from being built?” she said.
She suspects that the answer lies in a number of factors that vary from town to town – all the more reason to collaborate regionally on workforce and housing solutions, she said.
Gallager said there’s already a statewide trend towards multifamily housing, which accounts for 40 percent of new units today, as compared to just a quarter of units in the 1980s. That trend is also geographically segregated, he said, with multifamily developments mostly occurring in the state’s cities. For example, almost all the multifamily homes built in Cheshire County recently were built in Keene, he said. If the trend continues, Gallager expects denser urban centers in the state, but is unsure if or when the trend will filter to smaller or midsize towns like Peterborough.
Carr and Gallager both said they are interested in the potential for innovative zoning measures to meet the state’s changing housing needs. Gallager pointed to the implementation of density bonuses, mixed use development, and workforce housing initiatives in some of the state’s larger communities, but noted that the adoption and ultimate effects could be different in smaller towns. He said he is unsure what the effects of this would be for the small towns of the state.