"Should Older Americans Live in Places Segregated from the Young?"

A subject more interesting than it might first appear.
From New Geography:

Demographers frequently remind us that the United States is a rapidly aging country. From 2010 to 2040, we expect that the age-65-and-over population will more than double in size, from about 40 to 82 million. More than one in five residents will be in their later years. Reflecting our higher life expectancy, over 55% of this older group will be at least in their mid-70s.

While these numbers result in lively debates on issues such as social security or health care spending, they less often provoke discussion on where our aging population should live and why their residential choices matter.

But this growing share of older Americans will contribute to the proliferation of buildings, neighborhoods and even entire communities occupied predominantly by seniors. It may be difficult to find older and younger populations living side by side together in the same places. Is this residential segregation by age a good or a bad thing?

As an environmental gerontologist and social geographer, I have long argued that it is easier, less costly, and more beneficial and enjoyable to grow old in some places than others. The happiness of our elders is at stake. In my recent book, Aging in the Right Place, I conclude that when older people live predominantly with others their own age, there are far more benefits than costs.

Why do seniors tend to live apart from other age groups?
My focus is on the 93% of Americans age 65 and older who live in ordinary homes and apartments, and not in highly age-segregated long-term care options, such as assisted living properties, board and care, continuing care retirement communities or nursing homes. They are predominantly homeowners (about 79%), and mostly occupy older single-family dwellings.

Older Americans don’t move as often as people in other age groups. Typically, only about 2% of older homeowners and 12% of older renters move annually. Strong residential inertiaforces are in play. They are understandably reluctant to move from their familiar settings where they have strong emotional attachments and social ties. So they stay put. In the vernacular of academics, they opt to age in place.

Over time, these residential decisions result in what are referred to as “naturally occurring” age-homogeneous neighborhoods and communities. These residential enclaves of old are now found throughout our cities, suburbs and rural counties. In some locales with economies that have changed for the worse, these older concentrations are further explained by the wholesale exit of younger working populations looking for better job prospects elsewhere – leaving the senior population behind.

Even when older people decide to move, they often avoid locating near the young. The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 allows certain housing providers to discriminate against families with children. Consequently, significant numbers of older people can move to these “age-qualified” places that purposely exclude younger residents. The best-known examples are those active adult communities offering golf, tennis and recreational activities catering to the hedonistic lifestyles of older Americans.

Others may opt to move to “age-targeted” subdivisions (many gated) and high-rise condominiums that developers predominantly market to aging consumers who prefer adult neighbors. Close to 25% of age-55-and-older households in the US occupy these types of planned residential settings.

Finally, another smaller group of relocating elders transition to low-rent senior apartment buildings made possible by various federally and state-funded housing programs. They move to seek relief from the intolerably high housing costs of their previous residences.

Is this a bad thing?
Those advocates who bemoan the inadequate social connections between our older and younger generations view these residential concentrations as landscapes of despair....MORE

HT: Abnormal Returns

A couple weeks ago the Daily Mail did a piece on one of these communities:

The retirement community bigger than MANHATTAN: Florida oasis is home to more than 100,000 over-sixties and 45 golf clubs 

Baby boomers are putting their final stamp on the landscape even further out of town in age-restricted communities like The Villages in Florida 

At 34 square miles, The Villages is already bigger than Manhattan and approaching the size of central Paris, and it's still growing 

The Villages is a self-contained exurb, a housing island sprung like an exotic fruit from rural central Florida, untethered to a city

U.S. baby boomers have been on the planet for nearly 70 years, long enough to reshape almost every aspect of American life. Rock culture, consumerism and political activism are part of their legacy.

So too are the lasting changes they've made to the landscape.

The modern American suburb was carved out of the unspoiled countryside around established cities to serve as the boomer nursery. As many boomers remained there to raise their own families, suburbs sprawled outward exponentially, plowing under the forests, farmland and natural habitats and covering the land with asphalt and lawn turf.

Now in their retirement years, boomers are putting their final stamp on the landscape even further out of town in age-restricted communities epitomized by The Villages, a massive master-planned retirement development in Florida.

At 34 square miles (88 square kilometres) and still expanding, The Villages is already bigger than Manhattan and approaching the size of central Paris, which is 40 square miles.

A vanity license plate is pictured on the back of a golf cart

Though the expansive tract housing might look and feel like home to suburban retirees, a bird's eye view shows something else. The Villages is a self-contained exurb, a housing island sprung like an exotic fruit from rural central Florida, untethered to a city or anything else that came before it.

The Villages took root in the 1960s, far from Florida's famous sandy beaches, in remote cow pastures and watermelon fields in rolling Lake County. Like other land speculators of the time, Michigan businessman Harold Schwartz and a former partner doubled their money by selling home lots sight-unseen to northerners dazzled by the dream of a retirement paradise.

After the federal government banned mail-order land sales, the two were left holding land and began to slowly develop a trailer park they called Orange Blossom Gardens. By the late 1980s, the Gardens had more than 2,000 mobile homes....MORE

Bloomberg pegged the Morse Family net worth at $2.9 billion when H. Gary died.