Here it can be viewed as a cycle. We get the population shifting to the suburbs and the city budget declines due to tax revenue declines. Services are cut. Businesses leave. There are fewer customers and the neighborhood declines, forcing more people to move to the suburbs and continuing on this cycle of decline. Now, this leads to something called urban blight. Blight is just a general term to describe the contamination, abandonment, or vacancy of properties in urban neighborhoods. Here are some examples of what urban blight looks like. So we see decaying industrial buildings, dilapidated historic buildings. We see aging highway and road infrastructure boarded up and abandoned housing within neighborhoods. Now you may be asking, what do these images have to do with me? Well, they're actually of your own community, New Befford, Massachusetts. To understand how Newfford dealt like this, let's look at a brief overview of New Befford's economic history.
So first we get the whaling era. New Befford is very prosperous and it is actually the richest city in the world uh per capita uh due to the whaling industry and it is a very vibrant city. We see um a big center for the abolition movement and moving on to the decline of whaling 1860 to 1920. Kerosene replaces uh whale oil as the primary fuel for lighting in homes. And as a result, there are lots of wealthy boat owners that now have to divest their resources into other areas. So they decide to invest into textiles and manufacturing in general. So the city sees a renaissance economically from this. Then between 1930 and 1950 we see commercial fishing begin to rise again primarily through scolops and flounder. And at the same time after the second world war particularly the manufacturing and textile manufacturing in the city start to see some uh competition from the south and overseas.
Then between 1960 and 1990 we get economic decline in the city. This decline is as a result of over fishing beginning to catch up with the commercial fishing industry and that competition that we spoke about before with manufacturing becoming more intense. This all culminates to the period between 1990 and 2010 for the city where we get the perfect storm of economic consequences and this leads and this caps off with three major events. the collapse of the ground fishery which was the result of the over fishing, the North American Free Trade Agreement or better known as NAFTA which led to many factories that were still existing in the city uh out uh offshoring to Mexico or Canada and then the great recession capping this all off which led to very high unemployment. So this takes the city from prosperity to blight. Now, here are some numbers to show you.
So, by June of 2009, unemployment rate was 11.6 in the city of New Befford. And manufacturing employment dropped from 23.7% in 2000 to 15.7% in 2005. And there was also environmental consequences because when these factories closed, yes, the business left, but the building stayed and so did the property. And as a result, there was contamination that was left from these factories production. And this was by way of something known as legacy pollution, which is chemicals that are produced by industry that remain in the environment long after they were produced. This leads to something called brownfields, which is just a broader term to describe uh contaminated properties that are seeking to be redeveloped. So a lasting consequence you see of this environmental degradation is if any of you like to fish you know that you can't you can't actually fish in the Kushnet River because the fish are contaminated with something known as polycllorinated bifphenols that are known as PCBs and there were of course social issues uh in in 2008 New Befford was ranked eighth in violent crime and population declined from 120,000 in 1920 to 95,000 by 2010.
But you may be wondering, is this the same city that I take the ferry to the vineyard in and I go to restaurants and and shops and see a show at the Z? It is. And in fact, there has been significant progress in the city. We see that between 2010 and pre and to the present, the population in New Befford has actually grown by 7,000, up from 95,000 people to just over 101,000 people. The downtown area attracts 1.4 million tourists every year and household income has increased by 10.24%. So we see hotels, restaurants and retail and arts and culture. And this all begs the question, how did Newf do it? Now back to our example with clean energy. The vineyard wind project, which was recently completed, could be an answer, and it has had major economic impact in the city. Over 3,700 part or full-time jobs over the decade of development were created, and 1.9 billion in local economic output has been to date.
And it seems that ever since the city broke ground on Foss Marine Terminal, which is the construction and uh staging port for the offshore wind turbines, the city has seem to have been on an upward uh trajectory. But what if I told you that the reason for New Befford's forward progress has been a little bit more complicated and pro and part of a broader plan than just this one project. And it's actually as a result of something known as urban sustainability. Now, sustainability is often a word that's thrown around in a lot of different contexts, but at its core, sustainability just means to uh meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of future generations. In the urban context, this also uh goes to social, economic, and environmental concerns as well. So, what does this look like in a city setting? Well, we we get walkable neighborhoods, compact housing, mixed land use, and urban gardens.
These are some of the ways that cities can uh be more sustainable. And in New Befford, through the NB resilient plan, they have divided their sustainability goals into six focus areas. climate and energy, public health and safety, transportation and land use, economy and jobs, natural resources, infrastructures in infrastructure, utility, utilities and waste. And here's a look at some projects in each of these areas. So, as we talked about, offshore wind is a project that falls under this sustainable focus area, but there's also solar projects that the city has undertaken, such as this installation of solar canopies at the park and ride in the north end of Dubford that also fall under this category. So, it's not just the vineyard wind project or other offshore wind projects that are part of their sustainability goals. It's part of a more broader plan. Under the next area, New Befford Public Schools recently unveiled their new central kitchen, which aims to meet the nutritional needs of those in the city and in communities that face food insecurity for transportation and land use.
The city has developed their blue lane over the last two decades. And many of you have probably been on the harbor walk above the hurricane barrier and that's one part of the blue lane. They're also in the process of developing the river walk which goes up the Aushnet River. for economy and jobs. New Befford has recently unveiled plans to build an advanced manufacturing campus on Hathway Road on the site of the Whailing City Golf Course. And this aims to create a thousand jobs in a more sustainable way because advanced manufacturing is different than typical or traditional heavy manufacturing because it it does not release as many uh emissions as traditional manufacturing does. So this is a more sustainable techbased research and developmentbased uh manufacturing. And for natural resources, the Kushnet River cleanup, we talked about it being contaminated. This is a major effort that the city has undertaken over the past two decades in partnership with the EPA to return this area back to the residents of the city and allow them to use this natural resource.
And for in infrastructure, utilities and waste, the replacement of the new Befford uh vioaduct, which is just the bridge structure that brings traffic into the downtown area, is a major transportation project that the city has undergone. And what makes this project sustainable rather than just being a regular uh highway upgrade is that as you can see kind of as you can see here in this area um they're building a park and installing drainage and all that below the highway which adds to the sustainability of the project. So you may be asking what can I do because all of this seems pretty high level government not really based in the community. Well there are actually many things you can do and the the best thing that you can do not everyone in here is 18 but many will soon be. The best thing you can do is advocate uh for policies that uh support sustainability and vote for politicians who promote sustainable goals.
And here are some daily practices that you can uh implement in your daily life to live more sustainably. So I'll leave I'll leave you with this. How can you live more sustainably? Because this is how I make waves for a better tomorrow. Thank you Andrew Mice for your uh informative and presentation on clean energy and community. Um that concludes our presentations for period 3. Thank you very much. Okay, welcome to our 11th TEDex DHS event. The TEDex DHS club is thrilled to present to you this exciting event here at Dartmouth High School. This is an independently organized event and this year we will have both a live audience and we will be broadcast via liveream by DHS TV Media Productions. Our theme this year is making waves for a better tomorrow. You may be new to TED and may be wondering who this TED guy is.
Well, there really isn't a TED guy. TED is an acronym for technology, entertainment, and design. The TED organization has covered many ideas worth spreading in various fields of study. You will see the same diversity in topics being presented to you here today. Before we begin, we would like to remind our audience to please be respectful of all the hard work that our presenters have put into this. We ask that you keep all your electronic devices silenced and put away. That includes earbuds and refrain from talking during presentations. Okay. Our first presenter for period 5 today is going to be presenting the influence of mental routines on athletic performance and that is going to be Finn Sperry. Finn is a senior here at DHS. He is captain of the sailing team and is joining the TEDx GHS club for the first time. Finn wanted to combine his love of sailing with his love of presenting in an authentic experience and he thought that being part of the TEDex club would be a great way to accomplish that.
Finn has been sailing since his childhood. He has competed in local Cape and Islands circuit and moved on to national and international competitions all over the United States. Upon graduation, Finn plans to take a gap year to work with companies such as New Bedford Research and Robotics and More Brothers Fabrication and Engineering. He also plans to sail from the Caribbean through the Panama Canal and eventually to Tahiti. I want to go. Uh after his gap year, Finn plans to study aerospace engineering and wants to be part of his school sailing program. Please welcome Finn Sperry. Have you ever wondered what makes sports entertaining? What gets you nervous and excited about watching something you might not even understand? And I'm not talking about the flash or the fireworks of a Penn State game because people showed up to watch curling matches in the late 1800s without any of that.
I'm talking about why you would show up to watch a sport in its most basic form. If you paid any attention to the Winter Olympics this year, you would have heard that Lindsay Vaughn, one of our top candidates for gold in women's downhill skiing, shattered her leg on a run and had to be airlifted off the mountain. Now, because of Van's reputation as a top skier, this incident generated as much, if not more media coverage than the actual medalists. A similar upset occurred during the much anticipated performance of Ilia Malinin, aka the quad god, when the athlete fell during a routine, he has a reputation for executing perfectly. So, what do these two examples have in common? Well, apart from the media covers they generated, both these athletes were expected to dominate their competition. But it was these expectations that put them under a crippling pressure while the whole world was watching.
On the other hand, figure skater Alyssa Lou came out of retirement simply because she loved her sport, saying, "If I if there's no one else on earth, I would still skate." Lou was just returning to the game after retiring due to burnout. So, she decided to just be herself and have fun. And using this mentality, she was able to excel under pressure and win two gold medals. I would argue that the essence of sports that makes them attractive to watch is their unpredictable nature. But the irony of the matter is athletes spend their whole careers trying to avoid exciting incidents like this. You drill and practice every day so that you don't make mistakes. But as you get better, so do your competitors. And this can create a cycle that seems difficult to break. And many athletes are perfectly comfortable in this cycle. They're the ones that just play for fun in high school or get through college but don't declare for the draft.
But it takes a bit more bravery and determination to break this cycle and become an outlier. And this is where people begin to fold under pressure. It's tough to be an outlier in anything you do. And it might surprise you to hear that there were 29 other women on the ice that night that were just as qualified as Alyssa Lou to win that gold medal. The only difference is that Lou was the only one that was able to perform perfectly both physically and mentally. So, how do they do it? How does a top athlete like Michael Phelps break this cycle and win 23 gold medals? Two years ago, I was lucky enough to learn what it feels like to be in this position and what it takes to hold it. In the summer of 2024, I walked up to this pedestal with Peter Hurley, my teammate in the two person club 420 sailboat and was named national champion.
But when I returned the following year, I didn't even make podium. Now, you might be wondering, hold on a minute, did he just go backwards? My answer would be yes. It didn't feel great. Of course, the next logical question is why? What was the difference between how I race in 2024 versus how I race in 2025? To answer this question, we need to step back in time. For the past 3 years of my junior racing career, I attended an event in Newport, Rhode Island called the Brookens Advanced Racing Clinic. The purpose of this clinic is to expose junior sailors to some of the most advanced coaching and facilities available in the United States. To attend, sailor have to submit a resume of their sailing achievements and stand out in a competitive pool of prospects from across the country. One of the main highlights of this clinic occurs on the second night of training when a guest speaker gives a talk on a topic they've mastered.
In 2023, this guest speaker was 18 time national champion and three-time world champion Steve Hunt, a figurehead of the sailing community. Hunt described how he and his team prepared for worlds. How they tested their sails to see if factory imperfections would yield a different air foil when stretched under wind load to how they stowed every item in specific places so that their boat's weight was perfectly distributed in the water. But ultimately, Hunt made the point, why does all this matter if you can't deal with the pressure of a world championship while you're racing? You know how to do a perfect maneuver, but so does every other worldass sail you're racing against? Hunt ultimately believed that the difference between volatile messy finishes and consistent podiums is your ability to maintain flow state. And as we saw with Alyssa Louu, the trick to being able to make this flow state repeatable is by having a healthy, stable mentality.
And according to Hunt, the key to being able to make this mentality repeatable is by using a mental routine. Now flow state is a key term to understand in the study of athletes in the study of mentality and athletes. Steven Cutotler an avid writer and researcher on this topic was my inspiration to further study flow and use it to my advantage while competing. He wrote a book called the art of impossible which takes a deep dive into the science behind flow state and its roots in academia. And he also made a 7-minute YouTube video that gives you all the information you need at a glance. It's important to understand that flow state isn't just a popularized term for concentration. It's actually a biological response that can be triggered by little bursts of dopamine in everyday activities. And this can happen to people without them even realizing it.
This is the biggest misconception about flow state. It's not just something that professional athletes know how to access. You do it every day. The trick is learning how to access it when you really want to. Take Tik Tok for example. I'm sure we all know the feeling of being so engrossed in our phones that we can't even tell when someone's trying to talk to us. And while your mom might find it incredibly frustrating, the science says you're actually in a flow state. Tik Tok is giving you a little burst of dopamine, which is keeping you by design engaged and focused. Now, imagine if you could take the fixation you have with your phone and apply it to your sport. Some people I know would probably be in the Olympics right now if they did this. And this is where a mental routine can come in to give you the mentality to thrive in that environment.
Think of a mental routine as a tool you can develop to access your flow state whenever you want to. And if you develop this tool enough, you can accomplish this like you're flipping a switch. One of the most important mental routines I did was during the often overlooked period between races. After a 45 to 60 minute race, it's easy to cross the finish line and lose all focus. To combat this, my teammate and I would instantly debrief and decompress after the race to avoid any builtup tension that could negatively influence our following starting procedure. And then we would typically spend the remainder of our time in near silence, mentally rehearsing and going through our mental routine for the before the next race. The premise of the routine we developed was to minimize variables and stress. Think of a variable as something that can change during your race, something that can go right or go wrong or cause other things to go right or wrong.