Aging Wisely by Robert A. Levine MD

Author:Robert A. Levine, MD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: undefined
Published: 2012-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Ghettoization

Another way ageism manifests itself is through the ghettoization of seniors. While it is true the desire of older individuals for separate housing has advanced this trend, it is at least partially because they are not made comfortable living with younger people, who are likewise ill at ease with those older. Thus, both segments of society are responsible for segregating people on the basis of age and both segments lose out because of this. Some might say there is nothing wrong with ghettoization since it is mostly voluntary, but it reduces the diversity in communities and does not allow for enough discourse and interplay between generations. This leads to a lack of understanding of the hopes and needs of each group, and a tendency for each to stereotype and denigrate the other. Conflict thus becomes inevitable and more difficult to resolve.

By ghettoization, I am talking mainly about the huge retirement villages that have sprouted up in various areas, not the smaller complexes for older people who remain a part of the general community in cities and towns for older people. Retirement villages contain hundreds or even thousands of homes or condominiums catering exclusively to seniors. Because older people seem drawn to warmer climates, these are particularly prevalent in the Sunbelt (Florida, and the rest of the Deep South, Arizona, Southern California), though they can be found everywhere. Their common characteristic is that younger people cannot live there. The usual cut off age is fifty-five, though some may raise the bar even higher. (A younger spouse is acceptable, as long as one half of the couple meets the age requirement.) While adult children of residents may also be allowed to live in these developments, younger children are prohibited. As an example of the ultimate in segregation by age, in March of 1999, the residents of the Leisure World retirement community in California voted to turn their gated community into an incorporated city, with its own mayor and city council.[13] This city of 18,000, called “Laguna Woods,” had an average age of seventy-seven, with more than 90 percent of the population over fifty-five.

The majority of the residents of these retirement villages are white and middle-class, usually without any overt discrimination on the part of management. However, some do try to attract specific ethnic groups, or people from particular areas of the country, believing their clients will be more comfortable with other people having similar backgrounds. Some complexes are also geared mainly to the affluent, offering more luxurious homes or condominiums with special amenities and pricing their products higher to insure economic selectivity. Some developments also try to recruit retired professionals like teachers, administrators, and the like, who may not be wealthy, but want to live in a nice community in a warm climate and are willing to forego some of the frills.

The actual physical and financial structure of these complexes varies. Living units may be in apartment houses, detached homes, or attached townhouses of one or two stories. Though the apartment houses

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