Prepare For The Glut, Geezers

I am part of a large and stable group of people. I used to think a lot like the majority of them do but recently things have begun to shift. I am a “Baby Boomer”. Though not one of the early ones, I am early enough to see our situations may not be as rosy as we once believed them to be.

I am now informed that I may consider myself to be part of the “Geezer Glut”. Eighty-eight million of us who have shaped this country's economy and culture for the last 50 years and then shipped it globally. We did it our way and it was fun, wasn't it?

As Ben Brown put it “We’re in the middle of one of our periodic – and probably our last – reality denial exercises.” With the science and technology that we have developed over our run, can our playtime can extend into infinity (and beyond)?  Have we learned nothing from watching our grandparents age and pass on, and then our parents?

Well, some have learned that if we place them in an “age-segregated housing unit” where they can socialize with their peers, we can continue our “active“ lives until it is time for them to go. Remember to visit often and take the kids.

I have posted about this three times over the past 2 years. How we possibly need to rethink the way we have arranged our community so as to accommodate our loved ones. How we may need to look at the legacy of a city that we will leave our children. How we might have been so busy living our “active” life that we misjudged how we will use the deceleration lane. 

And I am not alone.

“We suffer from a severe lack of foresight, a shortage of personal and community planning when it comes to where and how to age. We’ve separated our elders from their extended families without replacing what their relatives might once have provided: a decent quality of life, until the very end.”

Linda Selin Davis on The Atlantic Cities blog of October 3

As I have said before, I am reading the book Walkable City and looking to relate what I read to what I know about Lexington.  Part of the idea of building a walkable city is to diversify the city life experience for all of residents of a city. It is not just making the roadways capable of accommodating pedestrians, but for pedestrians of all ages and capabilities. It is not about the distance one can walk, whether it be exercise or not, but the ability to use walking as a mode of everyday travel.

What was once a series of neighborhoods, each with their central civic amenities (schools, church, retail...), diverse housing types and not so readily apparent edges, are now expanses of residential sameness separating those now edge defining, civic amenities. Is it so easy to tell where one transitions from Ashland Park to Chevy Chase and yet the jump from Palomar to Beaumont is quite dramatic? The areas which do have a somewhat centralized component of non-residential uses, are of such massive size as to deter all but auto-centric access.

This shortage of personal and community planning, the planning for unaided interpersonal connectivity, has brought on a certain level of isolation. Isolation which the Millienials have recognized and seem to be rejecting. This same isolation will complicate every challenge found in old age as it is designed into the places most American Boomers call home.

Most Boomers will age in neighborhoods that are unlikely to sustain any kind of care network system. That is fine, if you don't need the care or are responsible for one who does. While it is often a complicated endeavor to drive the kids to their daily destinations, what will be the solution for the aged? The presumed connectivity by car will exile anyone without the ability or desire to drive.

The $51 billion industry, which is the “retirement community” movement has a less than stellar reputation, as documented in numerous places, and at this point of our fiscal health may become a less likely option for most. Our home builders and re-modelers can certainly provide scenarios for aging at home. But aging in places that isolate seniors in their homes, regardless of how easy it is to live in, barely scratches the surface of the problem.

What we need are strategies that will allow for "successful" aging in place. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has amassed a lot of research about ways neighborhood design and transportation policy affect community health. Just as we have a concept of “Safe by Design”, can we not dovetail a “Healthy by Design” into the dialogue?

It may be that for so long we have been designing and planning our community for who we are or who is already here and not for who we will become or who we want to come. I am part of the Geezer Glut and we will be part of the future, but we are not the future. We had that chance and I am not so sure that we did a good job. 

 Now is a time for better thought.

A New Face On Residential Land Use?

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has just about confirmed it in their recent report What’s Next? Real Estate in the New Economy, our unsustainable lifestyle of college graduates getting good jobs and a place of their own, then a starter house while the parents downsize and the grand-parents move to someplace warm to grow old together. It was nice while it lasted but, as evidenced by some long history, it was an aberration and not a realistic scenario.

We have had a hint of its failure over the last decade or so. Fewer folks are making the great salaries and bonus packages than used to and the retirements funded by 401(k)s or Social Security have taken major hits with this latest recession (and even before). Housing prices and the foreclosures debacle have left many without equity or nest egg from which to rise again. Things are NOT going to change over the next decade, even if we come out of this recession, so what are you going to do about it?

“To save money, more of us must either live in larger households or in smaller units.” says the ULI. I can tell you that Mrs Sweeper has been saying that for several years now. That does mean living in mufti-generational houses with the parents living in one area and the grand-parents living in another while the working family has the main space. To many people today, this sounds more like Communist Europe than the late 19^th century standard for most of the world.

The current rate of home ownership is way higher than historically shown to be sustainable and must come down. At the same time the rental market, both smaller units and the larger complexes will see a rejuvenation and may see huge rate hikes for the better maintained ones. The ULI report calls for an expected 300,00 units annually to be built nationwide and I hope that most of them are designed to fit neighborhoods better that he standard complex of today.

I don't see why the apartment houses of the early 20^th century could blend in so well, yet the ones designed after the zoning codes were refined could not. The apartments of Ashland Park or Chevy Chase do not detract from the neighborhood but the units along Alexandria or Cambridge Drs. Seem so out of place. The larger suburban developments just about scream that their residents are just temporary. They might as well be student housing.

One trend that we have seen lately, especially in the newer off campus student housing around UK, is the three and four bedroom apartments with a central entertainment room with kitchen and separate bed/bath suites for the roommates. Gone are the days of shared bathrooms down the hall like in the dorms. Living off campus is more like living at home and for some it is much better. Perhaps this style of apartment living could work for urban families, if we could get past the notion that all children need a yard to play in. What is really needed is the pedestrian access to restaurants, cafes, and parks or recreation centers which adds real value.

The decline of “McMansionized” housing is well documented but they may not be gone for long. They may follow the path of the old style Victorians built in the late19th century and be the typical housing of the multi-generational family culture on the horizon. For a number of our recent immigrants the situation already exists.

One scenario which exists is that with tightening lending standards, (putting down some equity and exhibiting a sound credit history) the rental market re-emerges to meet the multifamily demand. The vacancies will fall and the rents will rise and the institutional investor will re-enter the game. To keep these units affordable, many will need to be located around nsit stops and walkable commercial developments. Massive parking lots around these apartments will not exist.

Our older citizens will increasingly find that, as their financial situations continue to fluctuate their ability to be part of that “gray wave” of seniors relaxing on the beach or cruising the Caribbean is ebbing away. Many more will be aging in place right here in Lexington.

I, along with many others do not care for the idea of living in a “retirement community” and wish to remain a part of the whole community. As such, many of the housing units will have to be age friendly and include the ability of community social services to be provided. This may be done in condominium or apartment style although single family/duplex arrangements may work.

Now is the time for Lexington to look at how and where we will begin to take on these challenges. We can little afford to believe that keeping the long-time “stable” neighborhoods as exempt from change. All neighborhoods are changing. It is just a question of rate of change. In a matter of years, conditions may change which could swing any neighborhood in any number of directions. Plans should be in place to deal with such changes.

Greying In Lexington

I read an interesting piece the other day out of St. Louis County, Mo. Interestingly enough, St. Louis County and the City of St. Louis are not a merged government nor is one inside the other. The city of St. Louis is called an independent city and is separate from any other city or county in Missouri. This story had to do with the suburbs and exurbs of the city of St. Louis and their governmental futures.

In the once bustling communities on the outskirts of the city proper, many aging baby boomers are now finding that their comfortable homes, designed for life built around the auto and deemed a safe place to raise kids, have become much more quiet in the last few years. Most of the kids have been raised and sent off to college, but the parents have remained and life has taken on a whole new set of challenges. These places are becoming the land of the empty-nesters.

Homeowners in communities like these seem to have just two choices when this happens, move downtown or move away completely. Rarely will it be in their best interest to remain as they are.

These homeowners will look much closer at the availability of shopping and the need to drive everywhere. They will be less inclined to vote for tax increases for schools and parks. Their need for medical services and transportation will increase. Their isolation will grow as their ranks thin and the look and feel of the neighborhood will change as they can participate in the daily activities of suburban life.

This environment is a product of the monoculture of development that has been the norm since the sixties. Building block upon block of cookie-cutter style houses, each one similar enough to its neighbor that they could be easily confused at night. All of the daily needs of the residents are carefully placed far enough away so as to not intrude on the calm residential feel of the area. There is no way to remain in the neighborhood while downsizing or even getting out to the market or community center to shop or visit friends. Such neighborhoods are designed and built for one thing, raising kids.

Think of it like you would a thoroughbred horse operation, laid out and developed for specific uses in a certain pattern. Very difficult to use for other crops be they animal or vegetable. Any change from one style to another is costly and unprofitable. And seldom do horses grow old on a typical breeding/racing based horse farm.

For many, this rollover of neighborhoods is natural and cyclical and has been going on for decades, but honestly the older neighborhoods (pre-1950) were not of such sweeping magnitude as those built in the '60s and later. The creation of Levitttown in New York brought examples of larger and larger subdivisions and the autos and Interstates made the possible. When you reached the end of particular phases of child rearing, you just moved. Today's economy will not allow such luxury.

The subdivisions of the last half of the last century also were built with housing stock which was designed for active families. They had great rooms and vaulted ceilings, three car garages and pools. Fine for raising a growing family or entertaining but way too much for an aging empty-nesters or a widow to take care of. Should we make our elderly move from their homes simply because we forgot to plan for their needs as they aged?

Other communities have begun to see their populations dwindle in these types of developments and with it a decline in tax revenue. This decline is accompanied with a rise in demand for services both of the transportation and emergency medical variety, many of them very specialized in nature. Lexington is fairly lucky in this regard as all of Fayette County is covered but the examples from St Louis County is a compilation of small cities and many unincorporated places. We shall see these same problems arise here but the impact should be lessened.

The upcoming Comprehensive Plan process will give us a chance to consider how we can set about to correct some of the possible problem areas and prepare solutions. Now is the time to begin thinking about it. How will you like to age in Lexington over the next ten years?

Growing Old In Lexington? (2)

Since we all realize that we will end up elderly at some point, it is now commonplace to think and plan that, in the future, an assisted care facility and maybe some visits from the kids is a done deal. You would think that we would site our planned facilities a little bit better.

It is only since the end of World War II and rise of the “Baby Boomer” generation that the idea of nursing homes and assisted living facilities has exploded as an industry. The image of the “The Waltons” TV show, where a multi-generational household lives and solves their everyday problems makes for great nostalgia, but it is not a lifestyle for today’s modern family. Living with your parents, or even fairly close to them, is looked upon with disdain and loathing. I think that it is something about having to be self-sufficient and making a life for yourself. Whatever the reason, in today’s world we have an ever increasing number of places to house our elderly.

Mayfair Village is located on Tates Creek Pike across from the Lansdowne Shopping Center. Hardly a great distance when measured form door to door, but there is a busy, four-lane divided highway and a very busy parking lot without a single sidewalk in sight.

Sayre Christian Village is off Camelot Dr and probably 1,000 feet, as he crow flies, from the Tates Creek Center. Winding through the neighborhood, down the hill and along Wilson Downing Rd makes walking to the center about three times as far, especially if you are going to the grocery.

Richmond Place is on Rio Dosa Dr. and not far from the Locust Hill Center but getting there without encountering heavy traffic and no traffic light is not something most seniors want to do.

Public funded facilities are not much better. Connie Griffith and Ballard Place, both located in the very walkable downtown are nowhere near a supermarket, pharmacy or general shopping type stores.

Church supported senior housing in the downtown area like Christ Church apartments or Central Christian’s place on Short St. have full access to the shopping that is downtown but again groceries and drug stores are a long way away.

These are just a few of the many elderly care facilities in Lexington but they all require driving somewhere for the basic necessities of life. Even recreational needs like walking to or in the park with the grandkids, or swimming, or….you name it, you HAVE to drive somewhere to do it.

Our seniors just don’t fit in out in the suburbs, stuck at home, unable to drive (or walk) to see friends, sometimes unable to do for themselves. They are then relegated to the facility of their children’s choosing (kind of like warehousing them for the time being) and visited by them if they have time. There they are safe, secure and we know where they are when we want to go see them.

Both of my sets of grandparents lived within a fifteen minute walk of where I grew up and I visited often. My aunts(one on each side) lived with them and we all got together on a regular basis. None of them went to a long term care facility. My maternal aunt did decide to retire to Florida when her circle of friends here began to dwindle and she could no longer drive. She had cousins and friends in Florida, but they were in the same shape as she and she soon returned to Kentucky, settling a block or two from where she had been.

Where we place our elderly care facilities is not so much an issue of land use or being allowed by the comprehensive plan or zoning because they are allowed in just so many zones. But where in those zones is the more important question. The higher density residential for the able bodied is usually placed adjacent to the shopping center and the elderly buffered just a little by less intensive uses some distance into the neighborhood. They don’t create as many peak hour trips as the apartments and shopping so their traffic impact will be minimal and won’t disrupt the neighborhood. We place them in the neighborhood but we don’t incorporate them into the neighborhood. And we wonder why they tend to just wither away.

We all will have to make a choice someday, either about your parents or yourselves, or it will be made for us. It seems to me that we should be working to make those decisions easier on ones who have to live with the outcome of those decisions.

Those are some of the things that we should be working on right now.