kolchak-the-elder t1_j5em0az wrote on January 22, 2023 at 1:16 PM

I was born in westerly 56 years ago and still have a place there. It is not the town it was 50 years ago - in the summer there is a huge influx of tourists from New York. There is a big tax base due to the multi million dollar summer homes of various hedge fund types. This keeps the property tax rate low - but in spite of this investment in the school system is well below par. Aside from service jobs - most of the highly skilled work dried up do to corporate flight to lower cost geographies. This has been replaced by an influx of more transient workers attacked by the casinos.

In short a great town if you are wealthy and like the beaches - otherwise real career opportunities are limited - the middle class has been squeezed out

GossamerGlenn t1_j5fq1xo wrote on January 22, 2023 at 6:13 PM

It’s wild the random people who have ended up here. I met and was talking to rambling jack elliot once within ten years mentioned where I was from. Dropped watch hill as an extra piece not expecting him to know. I forget the time period but it was a long time ago since he’s in his 80s or 90s but he says something along the lines of “o yea Iv been there before Big waves”! It blew me away. Also he’s a bit of a traditional folk singer having traveled along with woody Guthrie and later becoming friends with a young Bob Dylan in the early 60s NYC scene