This Exeter Life: On Purpose

I live here on purpose. Do you? 

I recently heard Peter Francese, demographer and Exeter resident, talk about the composition of our town and what I learned was a little surprising. 

Despite the ongoing warnings that New Hampshire is the fourth oldest state and aging fast, I see Exeter as a town blossoming with families. Walk down Water Street any afternoon or through Swasey Parkway during the Thursday Farmer’s Market and what you’ll see are countless mothers (granted, they are a bit older than the national average) pushing strollers, tending to wobbling kids on bikes and dragging forlorn looking dogs in their wakes. In the evenings, you get the impression that the rest of your fellow neighbors are 50 and 60-somethings whose kids have (hopefully) flown the coop and who are enjoying a new phase of life in this walkable community with a few good restaurants, historic architecture, and a nice array of shops—including the all-important independent bookstore. 

Yet according to the 2010 Census, the reality of who makes up our town doesn’t fit my perception. Only one in five households, really just 19%, are married couples with kids and there are actually 200 fewer children in Exeter than there were in the year 2000! The largest single category (32%) of folks living in our town is actually people living alone. More than half of us are over the age of 45. 

I moved to New Hampshire and to Exeter when I was 29. From a statistical perspective, it now seems I was an outlier. But I didn’t know it at the time. All this new data has me wondering how and why I was attracted to a place that—at least in public policy terms—has virtually set up barriers at the state line to discourage the likes of me from entering. 

As it turns out, we’ve done a lot in Exeter and in New Hampshire to encourage people over the age of 55 (and in Exeter that’s 41% of you out there) to move or stay here. Things like creating age exemptions on property taxes and building age restricted housing. Conversely, we’ve done little to encourage people like me to stay after college graduation, move here from other places or return from “away.” 

For six years, I have wrestled with a job market that offers you a place to start, but no where to go. I have had to come to terms with the reality that while real estate prices are lower in New Hampshire than in other places I’ve lived, so too is my earning potential. And yet I continue to live here very much on purpose. In the coming weeks, I hope to explore the reasons why—despite the odds—I chose to live in this wonderful town along the river. 

Maybe some of the reasons will be yours too.