Sunday, May 18, 2008

The generational battle is forming

The Villages in Florida is now, according to this article, the world's largest gated retirement community. The complete segregation of seniors from the rest of society in this retirement Fantasyland has larger implications for America:

Q. Will the baby-boom generation reinvent retirement living?
They already are, in the sense that many such communities being built in the North are closer to cities and family, as well as within commuting distance for work. But age-segregated communities - even ones designed by developers - are still utopias, and utopias invariably fail. When people are segregated, they lose touch with their commonalities, and cooperation is replaced with strife. One of the nation's oldest age-segregated communities, Sun City in Arizona, defeated 17 school-bond measures in 12 years.... I'm left wondering how generous these schoolchildren will feel when they grow up and inherit nearly $10 trillion in national debt as well as senior entitlement programs on the verge of bankruptcy.
We're facing an America with tens of millions of retirees who have no use for the younger generation except through the Social Security checks they pay for. Plus, the only thing that seniors love more than "Matlock" is voting to make sure they get their checks. What's the logical conclusion to a scenario where a majority of voters decides that the minority should pay for the humongous accumulation of entitlement and pension liabilities? It's not going to be pretty.

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