01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 1, 2005

Developer Stephen Karp, of Newton, is representing a powerful strain of contemporary New England economic culture by bidding $55 million for property that would give his company ownership of at least 50 percent of downtown Nantucket's commercial property, maintaining the pattern of powerful outsiders taking over pretty New England towns.

Mr. Karp is into high-end quaintness, a very popular commodity in parts of the region's shore, and not just among Americans. Many foreigners like it, too: Nantucket (and Martha's Vineyard) have their share of rich Europeans and others. They like New England's quaint old summer resorts and quaint old colleges, and are willing to pay the steep price of admission.

Of course, real industry -- a very messy and brutal one, whaling -- built the live-in museum we known as Nantucket. But that was then. With the disinclination of many New Englanders to have anything redolent of modern industry, or even energy generation, near them you'd sometimes think that they'd like all of the region to turn into a Nantucket-style theme park. But if that happened it's hard to see how you'd have anything more than a Caribbean island economy -- with the money all coming from outside the region (mostly when it's warm), not much of the cash staying here and permanent residents mostly people dependent on tips.

-- Robert Whitcomb