I hope that readers have been noticing the collection of 34 essays by columnist Kai Potter that we published last month. His book is called Noticing, something that Kai does extraordinarily well.
He gave a reading last week at Wellfleet Preservation Hall and took questions from the audience. One person wanted to know how Kai, who was born and grew up here, feels about the “tensions” between people who live here year-round and those who are part-time residents.
The question was jarring because Kai’s writing is about the ecology and natural history of the Outer Cape. He may have opinions about the cost of real estate or the workings of town government, but that’s not what he’d come to talk about.
The tension for some — like those who campaigned to “keep Truro rural” — is about change. It’s understandable that someone who mainly comes here on vacation, retreating from their urban or suburban life, might want this place to remain exactly as it was when they first fell in love with it.
Many year-rounders here feel the same way. We look at the poorly planned chaos of Route 28 and marvel at the wisdom of those who preserved so much of our land in the Cape Cod National Seashore.
But there are ruinous changes already unraveling the Outer Cape’s social fabric, stemming not from unmanaged construction but from a wholesale conversion of our housing stock to satisfy the tourism economy. Both part-timers and full-timers can be guilty of trying not to see the resulting demographic and economic shifts underway.
The fact is that we are well on the way to becoming like Ibiza, the Mediterranean island filled with wealthy visitors where those who serve them — including many longtime residents whose rentals have vanished into thin air — are now forced to live in tent cities. “The rise of remote work and a surge in short-term rentals have erased many apartments from the market, compounding existing shortages caused by land-use restrictions on an island prized for its natural beauty,” the New York Times reported last week. “Ibiza’s deepening housing crisis came slowly at first, and then all at once.”
The majority of buyers there are looking for second homes or for investments, the Times reported. “Ibiza is a good investment because the prices never stop rising,” said one broker.
The housing crisis here does not cut a clean line between part-timers and full-timers. In fact, most part-timers see the problem and want to help. That was clear at a recent forum hosted by Truro’s part-time resident advisory committee, and Wellfleet’s seasonal residents association has expressed similar concerns.
Kai Potter’s answer to his questioner was exactly right: the more deeply people connect with a place, the more they will understand and care for it — and for the people who live and work in it. The tension here, I think, is not between part-timers and full-timers. It’s between people who are paying deep attention to this place and those who lack awareness of the beauty and fragility of the human landscape that surrounds us.
