New Hampshire facing demographic crunch as population ages

[brooklynite]

The Guardian:

There are worse places to live than the small, bucolic New Hampshire town of Meredith. Nature feels close, with Lake Winnipesaukee stretching out from the town to forests and mountains beyond. The former mill town’s compact, walkable centre is home to boutiques, restaurants and a winery. Traffic picks up a bit in the summer as tourists head to the water – and again for ice fishing and ice hockey tournaments on the frozen lake in the winter. But for the most part, Meredith is a quiet, serene and beautiful place for the people that live there.

Here and elsewhere in the state, the New Hampshire way of life and a strong economy led to a population boom in the 1970s and 1980s. In Meredith, the population grew by 60% in the 1970s alone. The problem is that that migration slowed to a trickle and then a virtual halt. Today, the baby boomers who moved to the state back then have dramatically unbalanced the state’s age demographics.

In 2010, just 16.7% of Meredith’s Belknap county was over the age of 65; In 2030, it is projected that 37% will be over that age.

What’s happening in Meredith and Belknap county is a microcosm of what is happening across New Hampshire and across northern New England: large portions of the population are getting older while there is minimal – or sometimes even negative – migration and growth.

I thought The Free State Project was going to move tens of thousands of people in to take over the Government?

[jcmaine72]

1. There are currently 3,000 asylum seekers at our border who would make fine new additions to NH.

And probably tens of thousands more from other parts of Latin America, as well Africa and the ME, who would certainly help revitalize NH and give it some sorely needed diversity.

[Marengo]

6. You've used this bait in other threads I noticed, any bites yet?

[jcmaine72]

9. Huh? I support the asylum seekers unconditionally. If that support is considered troll bait to you..

...then perhaps you might want to take time to reassess which political party you want to belong to.

Question for the board: How many posts do I need here before I can get nasty, suspicious people like this off my back? Look at what they wrote, and then compare it to the reception other posters with thousands of posts to their credit have received for expressing the same humanitarian support for asylum seekers as I have.

Nasty and unwarranted.

[oberliner]

2. They have gotten a fair number into the NH legislature

[maxanne]

7. The stated goal

of the Free State Project is to move 20,000 people to NH, and proceed to take over and dismantle the state government, then threaten secession.

It's not exactly going as they planned. They claim to have 20,000 people who have committed to moving here. Many of the early invaders found that the climate sucks, that they have to work too hard to make it here, and it wasn't nearly as much fun as they thought it was going to be. One of the initial outposts was Keene, they thought it would be a good spot for recruiting college students. The Keene group proved to be incredibly embarrassing, getting national attention for harassing meter maids, for Ian Freeman's (leader of the Keene cult) radio comments that there shouldn't be an age of consent for having sex with children, and of course for Christopher Cantwell, who began as an anarchist advocating killing cops, and then morphed into the Crying Nazi of Charlottesville. He still lives in Keene, and is now designing video games. His newest game allows the player to be Richard Spencer shooting gay people in a nightclub.

Along the way, the FSP has gone from being a bunch of obvious malcontents to being a slick, corporate operation. They have an operation in Manchester, but they've really targeted the seacoast area, and are gaining a foothold in Portsmouth. They used to have a counter on their website that showed how many (they were claiming) had actually moved here. The counter was eliminated just before they declared "victory" with the 20,000 signers. Many of those who signed in the early years don't remember doing so.

oberliner is correct, a number of them have been elected to the legislature. Many run without ever mentioning to potential constituents that they are part of the FSP. They're encouraged to run under the banner of whatever party they think will be most likely to elect them, resulting in a few "Democrats" who vote with the Republicans most of the time. There is an organization they founded (though they deny it) called the NH Liberty Alliance, which produces a handout given at the door of the House chamber to all legislators that tells them how to vote on liberty issues. One of my friends sat next to one of the fake Democrats of the FSP, and she watched to see how he voted and then voted the other way. There aren't as many of them in the House this coming session. In a 400 member volunteer House, they stand a good chance of getting elected, since many voters only need to see an R next to a name to decide to vote for that person.

Last session a few of them made a big deal of changing from Republican to Libertarian. None of the Libertarians were reelected.

One of the things that really works against them is the way they speak. Most people don't respond well to the kind of rhetoric found in liberty land of "taxes at gunpoint," and so on.

In backroom chats, they speak of violence against the state. I am not convinced that they are the benign "peace lovers" they claim to be. It's my experience that people who come in peace don't come armed.

[matt819]

3. Curious state, this New Hampshire

Some thoughts.

Yes, our population is aging, which opens up potential opportunities for health care services in the coming years. (Not joking.)

Yes, our young people are not staying. My oldest left a year after he graduate high school. In contrast, his best friend lived and worked abroad for almost ten years, and he's come back. And I know of bunch of young people who have stayed (or returned) to work on family farms. So there's that.

I would argue that our two biggest problems are housing and property taxes.

There is a shortage of affordable housing throughout the state, especially in the college towns and larger towns/cities, including Keene, Plymouth, Hanover, Portsmouth, Concord, Nashua, Manchester. And where there is affordable housing, jobs are limited.

Then there's the property tax, which pretty much puts the entire tax burden on property owners. This is killing older, fixed income people whose taxes are going up but whose incomes are not. And it also doesn't help that many of the incomers are wealthier and can afford the property taxes without much, if any, burden. Very complicated issues.

As for the Free State Project, if memory serves one such glorious member of the FSP was the crying Nazi, Christopher Cantwell. Libertarians have made some inroads, but not much to write home about.

BTW, NH has taken a share of refugees, I think mostly in the Manchester area. But, again, the issue is jobs and affordable housing.

[seaglass]

10. Maybe sales tax and state income tax would shift the burden. Don't know. I'm from MA and do a fair

amount of shopping in NH, just a bit over the border from Nashua - if a small sales tax was implemented perhaps that would help.

[handmade34]

4. yes

I can attest to this concern in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine... 2 of my kids left (Arizona and Texas) for work... 2 have their own business here...

this week with the early snow accumulation and cold, I could be tempted.

[Mariana]

5. The population of New Hampshire is about 1.35 million people.

Tens of thousands of people is a tiny fraction of that, and few in the Free State Project were young people anyway. I don't know why you think that would have changed the demographics much.

[pwb]

8. It will pick up when the south turns to desert.

It will be a paradise.