OFFSHORE COMES ONLINE

AS MANY OF NEW ENGLAND’S INDUSTRIAL CITIES fell into decline in recent decades, the wealthier residents of Martha’s Vineyard, a regional center of affluence and privilege, have gotten richer, building and rebuilding beachfront megamansions. But their good fortune has hardly benefited everyone on the island, where economic inequality has run rampant. For Michael Friedman, a 55-year-old IT engineer, rising prices driven by rich residents’ expanding wealth have made it harder to stay and raise his family on the tree-covered Massachusetts island where he grew up. “What can you say?” he says, driving past the Obama family’s Vineyard property in late October. “We’ll try to make a go of it.”

Now, 15 miles off the island’s coast, a new green-energy project is getting under way that many hope will begin to spread the wealth. In a matter of months, workers will begin erecting 837-ft.-tall wind