Carly Regan is one of those restaurant servers who tourists hope to meet.
She’s attentive, and her smiles are genuine. And, most importantly, she’s an expert about all things Portsmouth. If you want to know the best places to eat breakfast, play pool, or get a good cup of coffee, Regan will tell you. She can also tell you about the owner of each business, their families, and even the history of the building each is located in.
Regan has worked in Portsmouth restaurants for more than 12 years — four years and counting at the Oar House, eight at the Rusty Hammer, and a summer season at Harpoon Willy’s. But when her shift is over, Regan drives 20 minutes to her home in Newmarket. She grew up in Portsmouth and loves the city, but she can’t afford to live here.
“I live, eat, breathe, and work Portsmouth,” Regan said. “It would be nice to be able to sleep there.”
It’s more expensive than ever to live in Portsmouth. Median home prices and rents have increased sharply in the last decade. And Regan is not the only one getting priced out of the city. But while stories like hers are common, they don’t provide a full picture of the ways in which the city’s demographics are changing. It’s easy to look at housing prices and luxury condo developments and conclude the city’s being overtaken by old, rich out-of-towners while young people like Regan are fleeing to surrounding communities.
Demographic studies tell a slightly different story, though. Portsmouth isn’t getting older, but it is getting richer. And, according to analysts, it’s a shift that could prompt even more changes in the city’s makeup in years to come.
“I live, eat, breathe, and work Portsmouth. It would be nice to be able to sleep there.”
— Carly Regan
Young and wealthy
While the average age of residents statewide is climbing, Portsmouth is mostly holding on to its youth. The city’s median age in 2013 was 41.4 years old, about on par with the state’s median age of 41.5.
However, when Brian Gottlob, principal of PolEcon Research, a Dover-based economic research firm, analyzed U.S. Census data from 2000 to 2010, he found that Portsmouth’s median age — while increasing — was doing so at a rate slower than the state as a whole.
During that time, Portsmouth’s age only increased 1.8 percent, compared to 4 percent across the state and in Rochester, 4.3 percent in Exeter, and 5.4 percent in Stratham. Dover also maintained its youth, with a median age increase of only 1.1 percent over the decade.
And the young people in Portsmouth are working. In 2013, 30.3 percent of the city’s working-age population (25 to 64 years old) was between the ages of 25 and 34, according to data provided by Gottlob. Statewide, only 19.8 percent of the working-age population is in that age range.
The city is also getting richer. Data from the 2010 U.S. Census placed the median household income in Portsmouth at $45,195. In 2013, that median income rose to $64,916, according to the American Community Survey, an ongoing census survey related to the larger U.S. Census.
That’s an increase of 43 percent, despite a countrywide recession during that time. Meanwhile, statewide median household income increased 31 percent, from $49,467 in 2010 to $64,916 in 2013.
“There are a lot of well-educated people (moving to Portsmouth) who are earning a good living and can afford it,” said Gottlob.
According to the American Community Survey, 53.2 percent of Portsmouth residents over age 25 have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 33.7 percent statewide. In 2000, that figure was 34.7 percent in Portsmouth.
Marion Cheney, a local real estate agent and president of the Seacoast Board of Realtors, said she has seen a big change in Portsmouth homebuyers in recent years. Her typical clients are looking for homes $300,000 and under, a price point that’s become very competitive.
“It’s so hard to obtain that in Portsmouth,” Cheney said. “They’re going to Hampton or over the bridge to Dover. It’s a testament to where people are living when you see the (Spaulding Turnpike) bridge traffic in the morning.”
On the surface, a city full of young, educated high-earners doesn’t sound like a bad thing. But Gottlob said the trend is troubling. Increasing housing prices are creating a homogenous city that skews toward young, wealthy, single professionals. And homogeneity is rarely a good thing.
“I’m a believer in balance,” Gottlob said. “Portsmouth is probably less (balanced) now. I’m seeing a significant decline in families with children. They change the orientation of a community. They invest in the community.”
Pushed out
In the grand scheme of urbanization issues, there are worse problems than the ones Portsmouth faces. But the city’s demographic changes represent a growing divide between people like Regan — service professionals who once would have earned more than enough money to live in the city, and represent a huge employment base for Portsmouth’s tourism economy — and new residents who can afford the city’s lofty housing prices.
“A lot of the people who have come here and are living in luxury apartments are transplants,” Regan said. “They are complaining about music downtown when there has always been music downtown. Those are things people in Portsmouth enjoy. They grew up with it.”
The city’s creative class faces a similar problem. A 2012 survey by Americans for the Arts found that arts and arts organizations generated $41.4 million in economic activity in the greater Portsmouth area during the 2010-2011 fiscal year. But the artists who fuel that activity are struggling to remain in the city.
“People move to one neighborhood, then it gentrifies and they move farther out to the next neighborhood. People will be pushed farther and farther.” —Brian Gottlob of PolEcon Research
Jasmin Enright is a North End resident, photographer, theater professional, and one of the organizers of Keep Portsmouth Loud, a local group that started when noise complaints by a small number of residents threatened to shut down Prescott Park Arts Festival’s weekly movie night. She’s been renting in the city’s North End since 2002.
Enright, a transplant from New York and Boston, watched with excitement as Portsmouth evolved into a major destination. But she also noticed an unintended effect.
“In our group of friends, we have had about 10 people leave, artists of all varying types,” Enright said. In those cases, most moved to cities — like New York, Boston, or Chicago — that would typically be deemed more expensive. But, as housing costs rose in Portsmouth, housing prices in more metropolitan areas became more competitive, and her friends decided they could pay a similar amount for housing and have more opportunities for work.
Not all young artists and service professionals are fleeing. Both Regan and Enright said they know several peers who live in Portsmouth despite the financial burden. Most, Regan said, live in small studio apartments, forgo car ownership, or live with roommates. But Enright said most of these people are younger, typically in their early 20s or 30s. Once they get married or start a family, they often move out, she said.
The ripple effect
Where do those families go? Some go to neighborhoods elsewhere in the city; others move to surrounding communities.
Gottlob said he has seen this kind of “ripple effect” on a larger scale as he has analyzed demographic data in the state.
As Portsmouth has gotten more expensive, he said, people with similar educational backgrounds and ages are moving into Strafford County — not just Dover, but the northern part of the county as well.
“We see it in places like Boston all the time. People move to one neighborhood, then it gentrifies and they move farther out to the