Fast-growing retirement communities legally practice age discrimination.There`s a different kind of discrimination spreading in the UnitedStates. Despite all the popular rhetoric about family values, anincreasing number of Americans are choosing to live in age-segregated"leisurevilles," where at least one household member must be 55 orolder and enjoy living without children. No one under 18 may live there- ever.According to conservative industry estimates, more than 12 millionAmericans in the next decade or so will live in communities that forbidyoung families. This represents a drastic overhaul in our societalliving arrangements. Age-segregated communities were created half a century ago in theArizona desert by developers looking for a marketing niche. The firstwas Youngtown, a modest affair built by Ben Schleifer, an idealisticRussian Jewish immigrant who wanted to construct a kibbutz-likecommunity where older citizens could age affordably and gracefully. DelWebb, who drew from his experience with planned communities - theJapanese detention camps he built during World War II - liked the ideaand built the much larger and fancier Sun City right next door. Expertson aging assumed that seniors would resist moving away from theirfamilies and that those who did so would wither from loneliness anddepression.The experts were wrong, and the two developments were very successful.Now, Youngtown is desegregated and Sun City is getting ratty around theedges. But age segregation has never been more popular. And by 2015,those age 50 and older will represent 45% of the U.S. population.In a dimming housing market, "active adult" communities {most residentsare in their 50s and 60s} remain the industry`s sweet spot. Hundreds ofcommunities are breaking ground each year, often in the North. But manyare large Sunbelt leisure plantations, such as the Villages in Florida,the world`s largest retirement community. It is nearly twice the sizeof Manhattan and will have a peak population of 110,000. The Villages has two manufactured downtowns owned by one person {athird is on the way} with faux historical markers, more than threedozen golf courses and golden oldies pumped out of lampposts. Residentstool around on 100 miles of golf trails, often in carts pimped out tolook like Hummers and Corvettes. There are continuing educationcourses, but many of the seniors prefer golfing and nights of linedancing to baby boomer classics like Fleetwood Mac`s "Don`t StopThinking about Tomorrow."Ten years after the introduction of Viagra, retirees are taking fulladvantage of what a child-free environment provides: lower taxes,untrampled lawns and better sex.Like many of us, older Americans are thirsting for community, and thesedevelopments seemingly provide it. Suburban sprawl is not onlyalienating, its car dependency makes aging-in-place there nearimpossible, and with Americans moving, on average, 12 times duringtheir lifetimes, few can return "home" - everyone`s gone. Add to thisour fiercely youth-centric culture, the deteriorating civility of oursociety`s younger members and the wide disparity among local tax rates,and you have a recipe for secession.But though secession may be a pleasant experience for some, it comes ata steep price for society. Age segregation only reinforces negativestereotypes, leads to a willful forgetting of commonalities andencourages our less charitable instincts.In Youngtown, for example, a couple was fined $100 a day for shelteringtheir grandson from a physically abusive stepfather. And in Sun City,residents defeated 17 school bond measures in 12 years {beforede-annexing from the school district} because they had little interestin educating another generation of children. Meanwhile, students in theneighboring communities were forced to go to school in staggeredshifts. Even Schleifer was embarrassed by the co
www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-blechman8-2008jul08,0,2015598.story