CAMDEN – Selectmen from neighboring Camden and Rockport will meet Tuesday to discuss how they can cooperate in providing services for residents.

The towns have much in common. They are both affluent, both have large populations of retirees, both have harbors favored by recreational boaters, and both have historic villages. Children from the two towns are educated from kindergarten to grade eight in SAD 28, and then attend the Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport, which opened this fall, replacing the old high school in Camden.

At the same time, the towns have key differences.

Camden, with a population of about 5,000, has a busy downtown village, which is a major draw for tourists. Motels, inns and bed-and-breakfasts proliferate there, as do restaurants and tourist-oriented shops. Route 1 winds through Camden’s downtown, causing traffic delays from June to October.

Rockport’s village, off Route 1, is smaller and decidedly quieter. The town’s commercial center has shifted in recent years to Route 90, west of Route 1. Rockport’s population is estimated at less than 3,000.

Though some residents talk about bad feelings between the two towns years ago, most see those days as being over. In the last two years, the towns collaborated to land grants for pedestrian and bicycle paths linking the two communities, and worked together to purchase land near their border on which a new YMCA will be built.

Those successes prompted town officials to explore new ways of working together.

The agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting – set for 7 p.m. at the Washington Street Conference Room in Camden – is ambitious.

The list includes: creating a joint research park campus; exploring opportunities for sharing police, fire and public works equipment and personnel; reviewing opportunities to expand recreation programs through two-town cooperation; researching ways in which computer technology can be shared to lower expenses and increase productivity; discussing other opportunities for shared grant programs; and talking about staffing for mutual land use issues.

The meeting will be broadcast on Channel 11 in both towns.