American Boomers are well aware of what they want. They just don’t want what you think they should. That doesn’t make them clueless.
Most people don’t consider nearby libraries, theaters, and bookstores to be a primary driver of where they want to live, especially in a world of Amazon and streaming. I read a LOT. I only go to the library for writers’ group meetings, and I buy my books online.
Retired people typically don’t shop and eat out as a primary source of recreation. People want to live near their friends and the communities they love, not randomly spend money for fun.
The hospitals, doctors, and specialists most people in the US use are in commercial corridors and medical parks, not neighborhoods.
Churches and community groups have “geezer transit”, and Uber exists. So do private helpers. Most of us in our sixties have helped our aging parents through this transition, and are well aware of what is and is not available. We typically have seen ten to twenty years of post-driving life with our parents.
Cleaning services and yard care are readily available and generally reasonably priced. See also, private helpers. Many of us are using them long before we become feeble.
Grocery delivery and online shopping are extensively used by ordinary older people, not just the rich. For example, WalMart is the largest grocer in the US, and has a cheap and widely used grocery delivery service.
It’s also much easier to move in a helper or housemate with a regular house, versus an apartment.
In general, no, Boomers do not want to use public transit, although private transit such as church and retiree group buses are generally well accepted by those who can’t drive.
Given that I don’t care about a walkable community or walkable nearby stores now, while I am working, why would you think I would suddenly want them when I stop driving? I shop online, and I don’t frequent coffee shops. My idea of recreation is gardening, bird watching, night sky watching, visiting friends at their homes, visiting family at their homes, going to the farmers market in my local exurb, and attending agricultural fairs and festivals.
I can do any or all of that after I stop driving with currently available local transportation resources. When and if I get too feeble to attend those, I will also be too feeble to walk about in a regular walkable community, as that’s the time to consider entering elder care.
The problem is not lack of preparation. I am prepared just fine. My grandparents died still living at home. Both of my parents died, no longer driving, still living at home. I know what is ahead. The issue appears to be that you disagree with those preferences, not lack of information or planning.
Generalizations so rarely describe the texture of life and surveys are not reliable in establishing an accurate narrative. Older people don’t want to move. Aging is hell on your body and mind and socially because people keep writing articles about how selfish and stupid old people are. Aging people are facing an enormous amount of change: their family and friends and lovers are dead or dying. They’re grieving. And yet somehow they’re supposed to move to a condo downtown, redecorate, and take walks to the library and theater? With their broken hearts and bodies, they’re supposed to do this on their own on a fixed income? You know why they don’t want to live by family? Most of them are dead and the living ones, like their kids treat them like a chore.
“The wife works a lot of hours” Why do you suppose that is? What’s her life like working a lot of hours and taking care of your dad? Do you imagine being close to her work is something that matters? They moved closer to you but he drives two hours to see you, you don’t drive to see him? Yet he lacks insight? Hmmm.
I think the assumption that self driving cars will magically be available to all when they need them is foolishly optimistic. The only way to make them safe enough is to have dedicated travel lanes -- you know, like the bike lanes Doug Ford wants to rip up in Toronto.
Based on the observable evidence, humans are incapable of planning much beyond next week and it is that inability to address reality that is the biggest threat to our survival. Perhaps this would be a good time for people to re-read Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves To Death?"
« Amusing Ourselves to Death » is etched in my Top 10 books. Roger Waters released the album « Amused to Death » in 1992 and it remains a top 5 concept album. I highly recommend having a listen to it.
Another Neil Postman classic that is worth the read is « Technopoly ».
AVs CAN be made to be much safer than human drivers. The question is which computer settings are chosen. I predict an aggressive setting will be chosen because the politics favor cars and mobility, so we will optimize for those, as we have for the last four generations.
I am 70, born & raised in Toronto and have lived in Great Britain since 1975. Learned to drive in Canada and GB, hated it and gave up entirely by age 30, so nobody has to prise car keys from my wrinkly hands. Seriously, I have never missed it. Buses & trains are my preferred means of transport, although I do have a partner who is a diesel-head and drives nearly everywhere. Suburbia is also not my favourite place, though it is quieter (we live in a one-bedroom dormer bungalow) than living on a main road. My ideal would be to live in a 15-minute neighbourhood with small independent businesses and medical amenities close by, so it looks like I'm not your typical 'boomer' as defined in this article. And give me a range of ages to live alongside, the thought of 'pensioners village' makes me shudder!
So Boomers should be striving to move in their later years to communities that don’t presently exist on a scale that would solve your complaints? But we’re clueless? M’kay.
Yes, and supposed to move from a home that is paid for, to an expensive-as-hell retirement community. I don't guess the younger generations understand the boomers having gone through economic depression, rationing, saving up for purchases, etc. As many times as I've asked elderly people why they don't spend their retirement monies on making themselves more comfortable and safe, the answer is usually that they want to leave an inheritance to their kids. 🙄
I’m curious how the questions were phrased regarding the cannabis shop and whether respondents viewed it as just a question of whether they would like a new shop to pop up next store. In my state, there does not appear to be any zoning or regulation on how many cannabis shops can be within a certain area, these shops often strive for more attention-getting names and decorations, and there is plenty of money to start one but often not enough to keep it running. So ugly pot shops are probably the most recognizable business change and perhaps the thing that would stand out most to a visitor whose state doesn’t have the same phenomenon.
Really? The generation that gave us this sprawling nightmare of a built environment wants to keep it just as it is forever and ever and ever? I'm shocked! shocked! to discover dissociation from reality going on in this establishment. UGH.
The exact thing you described here happened to my mother when she moved from our semi-walkable, public-transitable neighborhood in Vermont back to our home state of Ohio to be "near" her great grandkids. She moved into the only available subsidized apartment she could find at the time, located in a rural-industrial area with random retail services in shopping strips along a multi-lane state highway that includes no pedestrian infrastructure. The parents of the great-grandkids moved ALL the way out into the country, leaving my mom behind without a car, without company, and so disabled by rheumatoid arthritis that she could no longer walk the 1/2 mile to the local "corner store" (Dollar General) for milk. A couple months later, the grandkids found her nearly dead in her apartment, an event that set off a cascade of new medical issues, ending in her death from rapid-onset congestive heart failure a few months later.
I'm not saying her living situation killed her. There were many factors and complications. But being old and sick and lonely with very little support was a major and precipitating factor. But hey, she was "safe" from "migrant crime"!
A hard question - Why didn't her immediate sons and daughters take her in instead have the burden on the grandkids? Was it fair to them to have that obligation thrust upon them, especially if unannounced and not wanted? Do you think that the parents were in the wrong for moving?
Was there still family left for her in VT?
We are lucky - our sons both left our area (1 is over 3 hours away, the other 1.5 hours away) but they both want us to move in with them. While Lloyd just can't seem to understand why people won't live their lives in places he approves of ("walkable communities), I certainly know what others like us, in suburban and rural areas, are refusing to move - it is THEIR friends and THEIR communities that would be taken from them. That can be almost as important as being with family.
Imagine moving to an unknown area, not knowing a soul, and having (perhaps) a mere few handful of years to replace such long-term and necessary relationships with others. It isn't just "what's close" and it isn't just "walkable" - it's the people part.
And if one can't drive, they may well not be able to walk very far, either. I know - my wife is disabled with respect to walking and has been for years. So for her, walkable communities are irrelevant. I assume that there are a lot of others in the same situation.
Self-driving cars. Being a former techie, I am amazed at how fast FSD capabilities are appearing in just the last couple/few years. With the exploding AI capabilities being trained via real time driving (e.g., Grok and Tesla, et al), I believe that it will be fairly usable in as little as 5 short years (plus or minus) in certain conditions (highways first, crowded urban areas later). So in this, I disagree heartily with Lloyd's rather dim view of AV short term horizon.
"I believe that it will be fairly usable in as little as 5 short years (plus or minus) in certain conditions (highways first, crowded urban areas later)".
Boy, was I pessimistic! Watching things this year, that time is ALMOST here. No, not by the end of the year but Tesla's FSD 14.2 software is seemingly 95-98% there and its capabilities logarithmic increasing between major version releases.
As it happens, she had no place to stay because her house had been repossessed. She also didn’t “retire.” When we moved her to Vermont, she simply didn’t get hired by anyone because of ageism. AARP does some good work, but it is a lobbying organization whose agenda is not entirely wholesome and an advocacy organization very focused on upper-middle-class reality. Which is fine, but there are a LOT of old people living in poverty in this country. Even if you start out middle class, at some point you probably won’t be able to age in place anymore unless you die prematurely, so you basically have to become one of the elderly poor to be eligible for Medicaid-funded nursing care. Only wealthy people can afford to get old here.
In another post, I/we had that argument with "Arthur" about we all are one tribe and that we must act accordingly. My retort is that, in no way, can he place such an obligation on anyone that demands that any of us, mandatorily, must take care of others - I MUST be everyone else's Keeper.
I did respond that I AM my immediate family's keeper - both by blood and by marriage vows. Secondarily, that extends (in a much weaker state), to friends. Someone in China, not at all - nor anyone that I don't know or have an existing relationship.
I have maintained that for my family, I AM the First Responder. We still call our sons to see how they and theirs are doing. We took in our 12 year old granddaughter for almost a year as part of that (until Govt realized that they got things HORRIBLY wrong) as that was our duty and responsibility (no going into the Foster Care system for her!).
So Family is responsible for family - and yes, VB, the bonds should depend on the generational inter-links more than just lip-service.
To return to the VT to Ohio scenario. I dare say that the biggest killer of the elderly, if in part if not in whole, is Loneliness. If you find, because of your age, you find that no one, especially family, is interested in you, why be interested in Life? That can be the beginning of the end and one can slowly just fade away from emptiness.
The urban/suburban culture war could be resolved with just four words:
To. Each. His. Own.
Maybe I want to live in a high-rise apartment. Maybe I want to live in a single-family ranch home on an acre lot. Maybe I want something in between. Let the mix of different types of developments reflect the aggregate of individual choices.
Of course, we do need to consider if there is a level playing field. Land use and transportation choices are subject to all kinds of taxes, subsidies and regulations pulling in different directions. The retired boomer selling his suburban home will take a big hit on capital gains taxes. But that inflated property value is, in part, the result of restrictive zoning and subsidized mortgages.
Shouldn't this study also apply when designing houses? For too long when designing dwellings infirmaties have been ingored to the point that most boomers are at the point where their houses do not work for them. i.e. electrical outlets too low, round door knobs are harder to grasp, stairs maybe too steep, etc.
In other words, shouldn't the building codes address this?
Old houses can be retro-fitted, and if the house is going to be remodeled anyway, they should be retrofitted so that the house will be comfortable for the handicapped, the infirmed and the elderly, be it one room at a time or the whole house.
New houses should be designed and built for the handicapped, the informed, the elderly from the first.
Nah, houses should be designed for children and the young. You know, the ongoing future of our country. Boomers (and me when I get there) will have to settle.
IF the house was going to be remodeled than, the homeownder. And, the cost is hard to determine, but the simple things such as raising the electrical outlets to three feet should not be cost prohibative, and certainly in new construction shouild cost no more than putting the electrical condutis at the regular height.
But if you're asking how much more it will design and/cost to design the house to those codes, then Lloyd would be the one to ask, as I'm sure he has more experience in this subject. As for my experience, I can tell you that when I was rebuilding my old farmouse, making the house multi-generational and handicapped purposed house was less expensive than one would think. All it took was repostioning elecrical outlets (as described before), switching door knobs from knobs to level did cost, but not that much. And the main reason for the rebuild was to make the house warmer and beef-up the insulation, which was no additional cost (except I should have chosesn a contractor rather than do it myself which of course would add to the cost.). So plumbing wouldn't cost more, electrical wouldn't cost more, and the rest I guess would be personal preference.
I will tell you the easiest and most cost-effective thing I did (payback was two months) was to put a timer on my hot water heater.
Thank you Lloyd. In psychological terms, when we blame we are constellating 'the child' in our psyche. And the child will always find something to support it's blame.
Look at it this way. You work for years to pay off your House so you can live on your smaller retirement income. Then someone comes along & suggests you’re being an a-hole for not wanting to start over with a mortgage at age 65.
Yet one more argument in the pile that tells me I’m an outlier among my generation (as well as one more argument supporting my view that you can’t cram 75 million people into a single stereotype).
Unfortunately, I won’t be around to see it, but I pray to the universe that every single generation that is constantly slamming Baby Boomers grows old enough to be as denigrated and dismissed as useless to society as these clueless twits that think they are the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel and think they will be young forever.
I would love to see their comeuppance and I hope it is harsh. Every generation thinks they are so much smarter and capable than the last and that they will do things so much better than their parents’ generation. You ain’t and you won’t.
Don’t bother responding with insults. I’m a proud Boomer and at the age where I don’t give a flying fuck what you think.
I just turned 80. I live in an apartment in a large city in a highly walkable neighborhood and can do my daily errands on foot, which is a huge advantage since I’ve been without a car for the past 10 years. I use ride share to go to my volunteer position at a large medical center and for medical appointments. There is more than enough culture here. As much as I would like to live in a more peaceful place, my life would become much smaller. I’m staying put.
Let's just put everyone over 70 in a community and leave them alone….that is about how this sounds. People age…even you. But surprisingly a lot of aging people still function well. Both sets of grandparents lived in the country without any of these “helps”. And they died there. Aging is inevitable. But giving up is not.
American Boomers are well aware of what they want. They just don’t want what you think they should. That doesn’t make them clueless.
Most people don’t consider nearby libraries, theaters, and bookstores to be a primary driver of where they want to live, especially in a world of Amazon and streaming. I read a LOT. I only go to the library for writers’ group meetings, and I buy my books online.
Retired people typically don’t shop and eat out as a primary source of recreation. People want to live near their friends and the communities they love, not randomly spend money for fun.
The hospitals, doctors, and specialists most people in the US use are in commercial corridors and medical parks, not neighborhoods.
Churches and community groups have “geezer transit”, and Uber exists. So do private helpers. Most of us in our sixties have helped our aging parents through this transition, and are well aware of what is and is not available. We typically have seen ten to twenty years of post-driving life with our parents.
Cleaning services and yard care are readily available and generally reasonably priced. See also, private helpers. Many of us are using them long before we become feeble.
Grocery delivery and online shopping are extensively used by ordinary older people, not just the rich. For example, WalMart is the largest grocer in the US, and has a cheap and widely used grocery delivery service.
It’s also much easier to move in a helper or housemate with a regular house, versus an apartment.
In general, no, Boomers do not want to use public transit, although private transit such as church and retiree group buses are generally well accepted by those who can’t drive.
Given that I don’t care about a walkable community or walkable nearby stores now, while I am working, why would you think I would suddenly want them when I stop driving? I shop online, and I don’t frequent coffee shops. My idea of recreation is gardening, bird watching, night sky watching, visiting friends at their homes, visiting family at their homes, going to the farmers market in my local exurb, and attending agricultural fairs and festivals.
I can do any or all of that after I stop driving with currently available local transportation resources. When and if I get too feeble to attend those, I will also be too feeble to walk about in a regular walkable community, as that’s the time to consider entering elder care.
The problem is not lack of preparation. I am prepared just fine. My grandparents died still living at home. Both of my parents died, no longer driving, still living at home. I know what is ahead. The issue appears to be that you disagree with those preferences, not lack of information or planning.
Generalizations so rarely describe the texture of life and surveys are not reliable in establishing an accurate narrative. Older people don’t want to move. Aging is hell on your body and mind and socially because people keep writing articles about how selfish and stupid old people are. Aging people are facing an enormous amount of change: their family and friends and lovers are dead or dying. They’re grieving. And yet somehow they’re supposed to move to a condo downtown, redecorate, and take walks to the library and theater? With their broken hearts and bodies, they’re supposed to do this on their own on a fixed income? You know why they don’t want to live by family? Most of them are dead and the living ones, like their kids treat them like a chore.
This article has no soul or understanding.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thanks.
The Boomer hate this guy epitomizes is so tired at this point.
"American Boomers are well aware of what they want. They just don’t want what you think they should. That doesn’t make them clueless."
"Immediately what came to mind was Hillary and her "deplorables" statement as well as Obama and his "bitter clingers"
“The wife works a lot of hours” Why do you suppose that is? What’s her life like working a lot of hours and taking care of your dad? Do you imagine being close to her work is something that matters? They moved closer to you but he drives two hours to see you, you don’t drive to see him? Yet he lacks insight? Hmmm.
I think the assumption that self driving cars will magically be available to all when they need them is foolishly optimistic. The only way to make them safe enough is to have dedicated travel lanes -- you know, like the bike lanes Doug Ford wants to rip up in Toronto.
Based on the observable evidence, humans are incapable of planning much beyond next week and it is that inability to address reality that is the biggest threat to our survival. Perhaps this would be a good time for people to re-read Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves To Death?"
« Amusing Ourselves to Death » is etched in my Top 10 books. Roger Waters released the album « Amused to Death » in 1992 and it remains a top 5 concept album. I highly recommend having a listen to it.
Another Neil Postman classic that is worth the read is « Technopoly ».
AVs CAN be made to be much safer than human drivers. The question is which computer settings are chosen. I predict an aggressive setting will be chosen because the politics favor cars and mobility, so we will optimize for those, as we have for the last four generations.
I keep wondering how well AVs will perform in Winterpeg ...
I see you’ve met my parents
I am 70, born & raised in Toronto and have lived in Great Britain since 1975. Learned to drive in Canada and GB, hated it and gave up entirely by age 30, so nobody has to prise car keys from my wrinkly hands. Seriously, I have never missed it. Buses & trains are my preferred means of transport, although I do have a partner who is a diesel-head and drives nearly everywhere. Suburbia is also not my favourite place, though it is quieter (we live in a one-bedroom dormer bungalow) than living on a main road. My ideal would be to live in a 15-minute neighbourhood with small independent businesses and medical amenities close by, so it looks like I'm not your typical 'boomer' as defined in this article. And give me a range of ages to live alongside, the thought of 'pensioners village' makes me shudder!
So Boomers should be striving to move in their later years to communities that don’t presently exist on a scale that would solve your complaints? But we’re clueless? M’kay.
Yes, and supposed to move from a home that is paid for, to an expensive-as-hell retirement community. I don't guess the younger generations understand the boomers having gone through economic depression, rationing, saving up for purchases, etc. As many times as I've asked elderly people why they don't spend their retirement monies on making themselves more comfortable and safe, the answer is usually that they want to leave an inheritance to their kids. 🙄
Yep. A lot of peoples’ goal has been to pay off the mortgage on the house they’ve personalized and adapted to their lifestyle.
What? Folks don’t want to have a convenient store on the corner? Frightened by a bar or cannabis shop. This is beyond NIMBY.
I’m curious how the questions were phrased regarding the cannabis shop and whether respondents viewed it as just a question of whether they would like a new shop to pop up next store. In my state, there does not appear to be any zoning or regulation on how many cannabis shops can be within a certain area, these shops often strive for more attention-getting names and decorations, and there is plenty of money to start one but often not enough to keep it running. So ugly pot shops are probably the most recognizable business change and perhaps the thing that would stand out most to a visitor whose state doesn’t have the same phenomenon.
Really? The generation that gave us this sprawling nightmare of a built environment wants to keep it just as it is forever and ever and ever? I'm shocked! shocked! to discover dissociation from reality going on in this establishment. UGH.
The exact thing you described here happened to my mother when she moved from our semi-walkable, public-transitable neighborhood in Vermont back to our home state of Ohio to be "near" her great grandkids. She moved into the only available subsidized apartment she could find at the time, located in a rural-industrial area with random retail services in shopping strips along a multi-lane state highway that includes no pedestrian infrastructure. The parents of the great-grandkids moved ALL the way out into the country, leaving my mom behind without a car, without company, and so disabled by rheumatoid arthritis that she could no longer walk the 1/2 mile to the local "corner store" (Dollar General) for milk. A couple months later, the grandkids found her nearly dead in her apartment, an event that set off a cascade of new medical issues, ending in her death from rapid-onset congestive heart failure a few months later.
I'm not saying her living situation killed her. There were many factors and complications. But being old and sick and lonely with very little support was a major and precipitating factor. But hey, she was "safe" from "migrant crime"!
A hard question - Why didn't her immediate sons and daughters take her in instead have the burden on the grandkids? Was it fair to them to have that obligation thrust upon them, especially if unannounced and not wanted? Do you think that the parents were in the wrong for moving?
Was there still family left for her in VT?
We are lucky - our sons both left our area (1 is over 3 hours away, the other 1.5 hours away) but they both want us to move in with them. While Lloyd just can't seem to understand why people won't live their lives in places he approves of ("walkable communities), I certainly know what others like us, in suburban and rural areas, are refusing to move - it is THEIR friends and THEIR communities that would be taken from them. That can be almost as important as being with family.
Imagine moving to an unknown area, not knowing a soul, and having (perhaps) a mere few handful of years to replace such long-term and necessary relationships with others. It isn't just "what's close" and it isn't just "walkable" - it's the people part.
And if one can't drive, they may well not be able to walk very far, either. I know - my wife is disabled with respect to walking and has been for years. So for her, walkable communities are irrelevant. I assume that there are a lot of others in the same situation.
Self-driving cars. Being a former techie, I am amazed at how fast FSD capabilities are appearing in just the last couple/few years. With the exploding AI capabilities being trained via real time driving (e.g., Grok and Tesla, et al), I believe that it will be fairly usable in as little as 5 short years (plus or minus) in certain conditions (highways first, crowded urban areas later). So in this, I disagree heartily with Lloyd's rather dim view of AV short term horizon.
"I believe that it will be fairly usable in as little as 5 short years (plus or minus) in certain conditions (highways first, crowded urban areas later)".
Boy, was I pessimistic! Watching things this year, that time is ALMOST here. No, not by the end of the year but Tesla's FSD 14.2 software is seemingly 95-98% there and its capabilities logarithmic increasing between major version releases.
Next year, perhaps?
The AARP preference is staying in place, and not moving after retirement. Very different from your mom’s situation.
As it happens, she had no place to stay because her house had been repossessed. She also didn’t “retire.” When we moved her to Vermont, she simply didn’t get hired by anyone because of ageism. AARP does some good work, but it is a lobbying organization whose agenda is not entirely wholesome and an advocacy organization very focused on upper-middle-class reality. Which is fine, but there are a LOT of old people living in poverty in this country. Even if you start out middle class, at some point you probably won’t be able to age in place anymore unless you die prematurely, so you basically have to become one of the elderly poor to be eligible for Medicaid-funded nursing care. Only wealthy people can afford to get old here.
In another post, I/we had that argument with "Arthur" about we all are one tribe and that we must act accordingly. My retort is that, in no way, can he place such an obligation on anyone that demands that any of us, mandatorily, must take care of others - I MUST be everyone else's Keeper.
I did respond that I AM my immediate family's keeper - both by blood and by marriage vows. Secondarily, that extends (in a much weaker state), to friends. Someone in China, not at all - nor anyone that I don't know or have an existing relationship.
I have maintained that for my family, I AM the First Responder. We still call our sons to see how they and theirs are doing. We took in our 12 year old granddaughter for almost a year as part of that (until Govt realized that they got things HORRIBLY wrong) as that was our duty and responsibility (no going into the Foster Care system for her!).
So Family is responsible for family - and yes, VB, the bonds should depend on the generational inter-links more than just lip-service.
To return to the VT to Ohio scenario. I dare say that the biggest killer of the elderly, if in part if not in whole, is Loneliness. If you find, because of your age, you find that no one, especially family, is interested in you, why be interested in Life? That can be the beginning of the end and one can slowly just fade away from emptiness.
The urban/suburban culture war could be resolved with just four words:
To. Each. His. Own.
Maybe I want to live in a high-rise apartment. Maybe I want to live in a single-family ranch home on an acre lot. Maybe I want something in between. Let the mix of different types of developments reflect the aggregate of individual choices.
Of course, we do need to consider if there is a level playing field. Land use and transportation choices are subject to all kinds of taxes, subsidies and regulations pulling in different directions. The retired boomer selling his suburban home will take a big hit on capital gains taxes. But that inflated property value is, in part, the result of restrictive zoning and subsidized mortgages.
Shouldn't this study also apply when designing houses? For too long when designing dwellings infirmaties have been ingored to the point that most boomers are at the point where their houses do not work for them. i.e. electrical outlets too low, round door knobs are harder to grasp, stairs maybe too steep, etc.
In other words, shouldn't the building codes address this?
Yes absolutely.
Are you talking new houses or their existing house?
Old houses can be retro-fitted, and if the house is going to be remodeled anyway, they should be retrofitted so that the house will be comfortable for the handicapped, the infirmed and the elderly, be it one room at a time or the whole house.
New houses should be designed and built for the handicapped, the informed, the elderly from the first.
Really? That seems to be a reach.
Nah, houses should be designed for children and the young. You know, the ongoing future of our country. Boomers (and me when I get there) will have to settle.
Good question. Once again, the ever present questions: Cost? Who pays?
IF the house was going to be remodeled than, the homeownder. And, the cost is hard to determine, but the simple things such as raising the electrical outlets to three feet should not be cost prohibative, and certainly in new construction shouild cost no more than putting the electrical condutis at the regular height.
But if you're asking how much more it will design and/cost to design the house to those codes, then Lloyd would be the one to ask, as I'm sure he has more experience in this subject. As for my experience, I can tell you that when I was rebuilding my old farmouse, making the house multi-generational and handicapped purposed house was less expensive than one would think. All it took was repostioning elecrical outlets (as described before), switching door knobs from knobs to level did cost, but not that much. And the main reason for the rebuild was to make the house warmer and beef-up the insulation, which was no additional cost (except I should have chosesn a contractor rather than do it myself which of course would add to the cost.). So plumbing wouldn't cost more, electrical wouldn't cost more, and the rest I guess would be personal preference.
I will tell you the easiest and most cost-effective thing I did (payback was two months) was to put a timer on my hot water heater.
Thank you Lloyd. In psychological terms, when we blame we are constellating 'the child' in our psyche. And the child will always find something to support it's blame.
Look at it this way. You work for years to pay off your House so you can live on your smaller retirement income. Then someone comes along & suggests you’re being an a-hole for not wanting to start over with a mortgage at age 65.
Yet one more argument in the pile that tells me I’m an outlier among my generation (as well as one more argument supporting my view that you can’t cram 75 million people into a single stereotype).
Unfortunately, I won’t be around to see it, but I pray to the universe that every single generation that is constantly slamming Baby Boomers grows old enough to be as denigrated and dismissed as useless to society as these clueless twits that think they are the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel and think they will be young forever.
I would love to see their comeuppance and I hope it is harsh. Every generation thinks they are so much smarter and capable than the last and that they will do things so much better than their parents’ generation. You ain’t and you won’t.
Don’t bother responding with insults. I’m a proud Boomer and at the age where I don’t give a flying fuck what you think.
Age does have its privileges, kids.
I just think of my dad, how long can he keep getting wood n feeding the boiler...
The old white man insult hits me too. Like dude, thats my dad youre talking about. Soon enough me.
I always remember that AARP partners with United Healthcare. What's in it for United Healthcare?
I just turned 80. I live in an apartment in a large city in a highly walkable neighborhood and can do my daily errands on foot, which is a huge advantage since I’ve been without a car for the past 10 years. I use ride share to go to my volunteer position at a large medical center and for medical appointments. There is more than enough culture here. As much as I would like to live in a more peaceful place, my life would become much smaller. I’m staying put.
Let's just put everyone over 70 in a community and leave them alone….that is about how this sounds. People age…even you. But surprisingly a lot of aging people still function well. Both sets of grandparents lived in the country without any of these “helps”. And they died there. Aging is inevitable. But giving up is not.
Bravo!