Appreciate this! But I think the real problem is less an urban planning one and more a psychological problem of getting people in their late 70s to make plans for the end of their health and driving span. We have financial planners who focus on estate planning. We might need a professional category of social worker who helps people through this process. It’s not easy to do it with one’s own aging family if they are resistant and in denial.
I don’t think it’s a problem at all. Unless they’re suffering from some serious cognitive decline, it’s up to individuals to figure that out for themselves. Makes me glad I didn’t have children because I don’t have anyone trying to mind my business.
"I don’t think it’s a problem at all. Unless they’re suffering from some serious cognitive decline, it’s up to individuals to figure that out for themselves."
I agree with you. In the early 90s my parents planned for an elderly age without being able to drive, and they were an anomaly amongst people they knew.
The common attitude of "I'm not going to leave my home" because of aging is the contemporary update to "Don't put me away in a facility" that the previous generation often invoked in that it's a (to put it harshly) societally bred knee-jerk concept that assumes leaving your home is bad and that you’ll be uprooted or abandoned, doing something you’re being forced to do by others. And now it's being furthered by the promotion of, as you mention, “aging in place” as a goal, morphing it into an assumption that aging in place is always better. I'm hoping that our generation (yes, I'm a boomer) can get past this.
My wife and I are fortunate to currently live in a 15-minute neighborhood so we don’t have to worry about drivespan. But we’ll still have to find a new place in the not distant future that doesn’t have stairs, and it would be great if it included a vibrant community, preferably intergenerational in order to avoid the “packing me off to a home” scenario. Interaction with others is essential to healthy aging. (As with many of our urban boomer friends, we don’t have children of our own.) Regular apartment buildings can sort of meet this description but still fall far short in terms of community and facilities. I’ve been holding out hope for an intentional cohousing community. However, I haven’t identified anything like that yet in a setting that we’d want to live in. Cohousing has yet to really take off in cities, despite – I think – there being a real need and market for it.
I know that Lloyd has spoken often of the need for design, housing, communities and services for our aging demographic. But we need to figure out how to actually make it happen – fast. I’m reminded every time a friend tells me they’re retiring.
"The question isn't how do I age in place — it's how do I get out of this place" stopped me in my tracks. Drivespan is such a striking way to frame it, and a question more of us should be sitting with ✨ feel free to check out my account if you like beautiful places!
There has been and continues to be much chatter and moaning about affordable, appropriate housing for Millennials and Gen Z and unfortunately it's turned into a 'blame-game' pointed at Boomers. It's time attention was paid to the whole housing picture. Urban Planning for the vehicle created the burbs and everyone had/wanted/needed a vehicle. But - for many reasons different age groups need different housing solutions. Aging folks need/desire size appropriate housing in neighbourhoods that have services close by - accessible with short distance public transport or walking. Younger folks starting families need larger housing close to schools, hockey rinks and playing fields and work. We need to stop this linear thinking and look at the larger and real picture of multi-generations that have multiple needs that should be addressed by multiple housing solutions and that would include transportation choices. We need to stop urban planning for the vehicle. That would also alleviate the great infrastructure costs for multiple miles/kilometres of water/sewer/asphalt roadways. Suburbs are reaching the end-of life cycle for infrastructure and need to repair/replace or build new.
The emphasis on housing is important but insufficient. I am 65 and my spouse and I have planned to stay put because our house is in the most walkable and transit accessible location. Our “senior housing” is at the fringes and requires driving or the facility bus to get groceries and everything else. There are some apartments which are walkable but we also have large dogs which aren’t allowed. We have planned our house to be accessible when we can’t climb stairs and are building a one level ADU which could house a caregiver or us. But environment matters too - all those 5 over 1s filled with old people are so much less appealing than a neighborhood with kids, teenagers, and old folks.
It sounds like you planned this well. I worry about the people who think a bathroom renovation will let them stay in their homes without thinking about how they will get around. Like you, I am in a walkable neighbourhood well-served by transit, with my kids living upstairs. But it was not cheap or easy to do!
Multi-generational homes were long extent early last century, especially as parents were trying to give their kids a leg up. Heck, I offered both my boys to add on here but they politely refused (much preferring to be elsewhere).
However, we now have a family fight on our hands - BOTH boys want us to go live with them at their places. It's amusing to see how it can circle around.
No, it is not cheap! Much of my planning is a result of my uncle’s relocation from a lovely, walkable community (but a big house he no longer wanted to care for) to a pretty faceless retirement community among the strip malls - not the car-centric and old-centric environment I wanted to live in. But out here in the American midwest, we’ve really built ourselves into a corner with driving.
I’m confused. You wrote, “73% of Americans live in suburban and rural communities” and then proceeded to do nothing but discuss issues related to urban planning?
What about the other demographic trends of more single households and childless couples that present more of a logistics issue when there is no one to rely on for the most basic of aging concerns even before discussing one’s drivespan?
With some good illustrations I think you have the germ of a great book in this & similar articles. The crux of the issue is the myth of choice, we don't have much choice in North America when it comes to planning and housing choice since the followers of Robert Mosses et al dominated the design of how we live. Libertarian dogma has just fuelled this false choice narrative.
I obviously disagree. Given the size and vastness of America, almost any choice someone truly desires it out there. Sure, location, pricing, taxation, et al are factors for that choice but saying that "choice" is a myth?
Everything, as economists are wont to say, is a tradeoff. Choice is ferreting out that multi-dimensional solution that best fits ALL of your needs (optimal, sub-optimal, or worse case).
I'm sure that size may matter to some, but that's really not a thing in this context. While some "choice" still exists for some of the cognoscente, but for the vast majority of us regular schlebs we really ain't got much of a choice when it comes to accessible neighbourhoods. I'm sure that you & I disagree on the definition of what this means in urban planning terms. McMansions & heck! even suburban tract homes don't pay their full freight, while apartment dwellers pay way more than their fair share of a city's budget. It's just how N.A. cities have been built in the last 80 years. So there's not really an effective "choice". The urban sprawl model is like many things, Welfare for the well healed & Capitalism for the rest of us.
"I'm sure that size may matter to some, but that's really not a thing in this context."
Actually, it DOES matter. The point I was trying to make is that the US has such a large land mass, one can, pretty much find what one wants given the context of Lloyd's point.
And again, having spent a decade on our BudComm, I KNOW that "suburban tract homes" pay their fair share of taxes based on the NH property tax protocols allowable. Our budgets ALWAYS had to be in balance.
And if you didn't like what was going on, one could always go to the home of the person/people who were raising spending and yak with (or scream at, depending on the context).
THAT is a great tool to have in one's pocket. And yes, I had people "visiting" me because I was saying no to more spending because I, alone on the BudComm, was trying to watchout for those living in the trailer parks in town (while the Progressives were always going after the millionaires homes on the lake so as to take more to be able to spend more - they never put two and two together in what they did to THEIR targets really did affect the low income folks).
"...that you & I disagree on the definition of what this means in urban planning terms."
Actually, I am an agnostic as to what goes on in urban areas. If a city really wants to screw themselves up (I'm looking at Chicago as one "fine" example), let them. I could care less.
I spent 10 years on my town's Budget Committee that was in charge of both the town and the school board. Even here in NH, people complain about the cost of taxes NEVER realizing that when they blithely vote to approve the budgets ( often got overruled over waste and stupidity line items by "the Progressives"), they made life harder for themselves. I grimaced every time I heard one of these "degreed Yahoos" who complained twice yearly about their tax bill EVEN AS I HAD TOLD HIM/HER that's what was going to happen.
But then, again, our Edu-Industrial Complex barely teaches math - oh yeah, THAT'S why the school system is often 2/3rds of the typical NH town budget. Keep voting to approve the "new contract" with the teacher Union that cost millions more every year - in a town of only 7,000 people.
"It's only a cuppa coffee!" I'm told. Sure thing pal; after a few years of that, you find that you're trying to pull a couple of tanker trucks with your hands for all the "cuppa" you've had to absorb over a few decades
Towns here pay their own way - State pays very little. That's one reason why NH is often rated for being the best ROI state in the union. And even for my rant above, while NH property taxes are among the highest in the nation, that's pretty much the ONLY tax individuals pay - no income tax, sales tax, et al - we consistently are in the bottom three States for overall tax burden.
I was fortunate enough to learn to hate suburbs when we moved to one the year I started high school. I was also fortunate to have parents who expected me to figure out how to get most places without being driven there. That usually meant walking.
I’ve lived where I really needed a car and somewhat reluctantly driven, but not often. Car-centric suburbs seem almost as isolated to me as a wheat field on a farm on the Prairies. I can’t understand why people don’t want to walk to get groceries when the sidewalks aren’t icy. That’s the real problem for me - icy roads and sidewalks in the winter that make even walkable neighbourhoods difficult to navigate. But because the majority of the adult population drives, it’s not seen as a problem.
One problem is the way the marketplace is structured. We probably pay double what my daughter does because we shop in the local Fiesta Farms, and she drives to Costco. Others go to Walmart and fill their SUVs with a week’s worth of food. I suppose that if you subtract the cost of owning and operating a car, you come out way ahead, but it is a hard sell.
Simple economics of Supply and Demand, Lloyd. Costco buys in volume - large volumes and thus can get much larger discounts than smaller stores.
That's the linchpin that NYC Marxism Mamdani is using in building his $30 million grocery store (which the private sector would spend $5-10). Govt can buy in much larger quantities and getting purchase price discounts that the local small bodegas can't even approach.
Voila! Monopoly Govt Groceries! Well, at least at the start as history shows us what happens medium to long term. Is that what you want - Govt regulated "low" prices?
You know what happens later? The price may stay the same but the "regulation" will them move to "availability" - meaning less and less product on the store shelves. Which is exactly the "come on" that Mamdani is using having put the private sector competition out of business.
It's called "The Used Car Salesman's Bait and Switch" scheme. It's a wonderful shill to play when you're using taxpayer money to get Govt to be the only supplier.
Lloyd, you made your choice in giving up your car - and have forfeited those lower Costco pricing. EVERY decision has a consequence - primary, and then secondary, tertiary, and beyond.
TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
The hardest sell may be the time it takes to shop on foot or public transit.
I lived over a decade within a couple of blocks of a plethora of little specialty markets and other shops. The farmers market was a bit further but a pleasant walk on the weekend.
I’m now in a similar neighbourhood that doesn’t offer as much choice and do my herb shopping on the other side of two that means a fifteen minute walk, a half an hour on two metro lines and a fine twenty minute by bus. That doesn’t include the waits for transfers. It’s worth it though because the Persian market sells fresher and tastier herbs, not only at a lower price but also without the excess packaging.
"The hardest sell may be the time it takes to shop on foot or public transit."
Ayup, ain't public transport a delightful means to waste your time in trying to get where you want to go. Perhaps a low price but the politicians NEVAH talk about the Total Cost of Your Time.
Only you can know which tradeoff suits your needs or wants.
I never wait more than 7 minutes for my good old 63 Ossington bus that takes me to the subway in about ten minutes and takes me anywhere in town for C$2.50. I can read or look at my phone while I travel. Why anyone would sit in traffic and then search for a parking spot that costs 2.50 for 15 minutes is beyond me. Transit in a properly served city is a far better use of your time than sitting in a car.
Ah yes, the infamous "Boston T" (officially, the MBTA). Once I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment, I learned that both the above ground and tunnel trolleys were the pits. Often, what ever scheduled they were supposed to meet was about as real as being determined that the lottery ticket held in your hand was going to hit. No, the best I can be about the T is "haphazard" at best.
And don't get me started about waiting 45 minutes during a New England Nor'Easter getting blinded by the snow, made freezing cold by the raw whipping winds, and only to find out that the trolleys were canceled because the rail snowplow failed (again, and again, and...).
And the regular subway cars weren't much better due to breakdowns in the middle of two stations - or waiting for some other train to get fixed so that ours could proceed.
Seven years, I put up with that crapola until the degrees were done and I vamoosed North to the burbs. And then much further North later on.
Exactly. The wait is long where I live now which is why I want to sell the place and move as close as possible to a rapid transit station, preferably one that’s just a few steps away and doesn’t require crossing a parking lot. Once I’m on public transit I can actually get things done. Driving stresses me out.
I also hate the suburbs. Growing up, we either lived far out in the country or right in town. Never anything in between. I didn't learn to drive until I was almost 40, being a city mouse.
I lived in the 'burbs growing up, lived in the city getting my degrees, and then did the slow migration out to the rural areas so I've experienced the Trifecta for all of them.
I'll stay here in the rurals until they carry me out in a box.
Oh, I've spent plenty of time in the suburbs in other people's homes. Nice homes, they love them, as I hope they would - everyone deserves to love and enjoy where they live. Similar to how a lot of people in suburbs experience cities, and think "I'd never like to live here." Most city dwellers don't get offended if someone says they hate cities, though.
I once new someone that was in the military that went to a school in California for 2 weeks. That person said that they did not like California and would never go back. Wonder if you are that person.
No. I had family down there. In total, I probably spent two years going back and forth visiting. It was a bit like wintering in Florida except I was in my twenties. I got to know Californians, went grocery shopping, took my niece to parks and beaches and even helped out at a non-profit where I met people from the upper middle class who worked there and their clients who were less fortunate.
There were things I liked and things I didn’t. I learned enough to know I would never feel at home there but wouldn’t say I didn’t like the people. The weather was amazing. The suburbs were awful.
I learned to hate suburbs by living in several of them. I’ve also lived in the real countryside, large and small cities and, although I’ve never lived in one, am familiar with what it’s like to live in a small village. Suburbs are the worst of all worlds. You’re isolated like in the country, have to drive everywhere but still can’t have a couple of chickens in the backyard.
There are people who don’t like driving and for them suburbs are a form of hell. They ruin your life and sometimes even your marriage. It’s no fun waiting up to an hour for the bus in a Canadian winter or depending on others to go anywhere, including work. I’ve lived that life too.
What’s wrong with wanting to die in the home you’ve lived in for decades? Where I live, in a very rural area, there are many options for when I can no longer drive. The regional transportation system offers free shuttle service for elders to doctor’s appointments. And, since Covid, between door dash and Instacart, I can be quite content to stay at home with everything I need.
Yeah, in the middle of the night, the walls will deliberately fall in on you and your gas stove and oil furnace switch themselves on to asphyxiate you?
From infancy to mid teens, we drive our children everywhere and tolerate it, other than perhaps school, for those on a school bus route. The portion of life past the "drive span" is roughly the same, about 15 years, but providing transportation for the elderly is viewed as a "burden" by them and perhaps by those tasked with providing it. And yet, the amount of mobility required to stay connected to the world is not constant, multiple trips per day. More likely it is periodic shopping, attending church services, exercise classes, other mostly scheduled events that are not so difficult to incorporate into a transportation program. Keeping an automobile; capital cost, maintenance, fuel, insurance is no small item. Today, 200 Uber trips would be about $6000 per year for a suburban dweller, and municipalities often provide ride services for seniors. I think this is more about public will than completely re-engineering communities, although I am sympathetic to your concepts for more livable neighborhoods for people of ALL ages. Moving the elderly out of their homes does perpetuate the suburban experience since someone else is buying that home and its poor walkability score. The durable built environment for housing of our cities is probably at least 50 years and perhaps more like 75 years, so replacing it with something better will, of necessity, be incremental over perhaps 3 generations, even with very durable political and social will, which isn't our strong suit as a nation (that would be USA, not Canada). My home has three dwelling units on the property; reduced rent in trade for driving assistance would be a decent incentive for some younger individuals, I believe. Yes, I have no great desire to move the older I get. Bur, perhaps it won't be so necessary with the right social arrangements.
Very interesting. My parents retired to Vancouver Island in the early 90s, from a car-dependent community in the North. Since my mother never learned how to drive and was much younger than my dad, the idea was she'd likely live longer than him and would need a community where she could walk everywhere. He stopped driving at 88 (a few years later than we'd like, but you know how that goes), and died at 91.
She is now almost 90 and indeed walks everywhere! She is within walking distance of a grocery store, at the library, her doctor's office, a pharmacy, even some thrift stores which she loves. If she needs to go to the hospital, she can take a taxi.
She told me once she had no idea why so many people her age decided to move out into the country. I'm sure a lot of them wonder why now, as well. It also puts my mind at ease knowing that she is in a bustling place and I don't have to worry about her being isolated.
I just turned 79. Since I live in a rural area and have long driven at lower speeds than most of traffic, I don't have to deal with nearly the level of variables that most drivers do. It's still scary.
Obviously society isn't going to make any changes which improve this situation, since we have allowed all social designs to be based on the drive for increased profit for the few rather than increased survivability for the many.
I wonder how long I'll be able to harness up a team. At the speed of a walking donkey, even the higher speed of a walking or trotting horse or mule, I have a lot more time to evaluate risks and make decisions.
Our culture - all of industrial high energy culture - is utterly insane. It does make a few assholes a lot of money, though.
Why are you so fixated on this topic, Lloyd? Are you scared of dying yourself?
"It has become the death house."
After living in their houses, seniors (in which I consider myself to now be in that cohort) in which they raised their little ones to being (hopefully) functional and wise adults, the parties and the sorrows, are making the choice to leave this earth in the place where all those memories were created and remembered (hopefully for the latter). Their LIVES and selves are invested in those walls and that ("feet first") their leaving this mortal coil.
In other of your posts, this has come up before: WHY would they choose to go where they are surrounded by the unfamiliar? Their families are elsewhere and their friends are no longer available to visit. As to that latter, you rant and hate the suburbs and its "lack of public mobility". I'm waiting to here the expectation that if "bungalow legs" is hurting their ability to walk, how will moving to a fast moving (and smelly, and in rereading your writings, often hazardous due to air pollution because of its concentrated and density living (and not to mention hazardous due to those disposed toward crime and watching the "pickables" slowly walking of whatever crumbled sidewalks are present).
Or are you scared of others choosing to pass on in places and ways of THEIR choosing (and not listening to you)? That they reject the choice you would demand of them?
Sorry Lloyd, but you know I am an advocate that people should ALWAYS make their own choices for their lives - and now for their own plans for their deaths. Freedom, in the end, should always be respected.
You need to give this a hard think yourself. Your reaction is a telling form of denial of reality of aging. We are planning to sell up soon because we are not going to spend our older years heating an 8 room house while being confined to two rooms by mobility challenges and complaining about the cost of it all. As for familiar surroundings, none of that matters if you can't leave your house. Your denialist stance is highly maladaptive.
It’s not a matter of “being in denial of the realities of aging” to want to live in your own home for as long as possible. Home is, as the saying goes, where the heart is. If you have the financial means to stay where you’ve always wanted to live, why should you move simply because you hit some specific age threshold?
Elders die in falls, accidents, and fires daily because they don't do the cognitive work of understanding how they are trapped by nostalgia in places that are no longer suited to their most basic physical needs. Our society sadly enables that at great human cost. After seeing this play out repeatedly with older generations of my family I'm planning ahead. My paternal grandparents got it right and lived fuller lives in much more appropriate surroundings.
"...because they don't do the cognitive work of understanding how they are trapped by nostalgia..."
And you know this....how?? Are you wishing to take that choice away from them simply because they think and believe differently than you? Glad to see that your grandparents and you are making decisions for yourselves that will make you happier than where you are.
But one should not keep excoriating others that choose differently.
I'm going after her suppositions, not her. However, since you brought it up, are you going to rebuke her takes on me in being even handed in moderations?
MamaSelkie: Your denialist stance is highly maladaptive.
MamaSelkie: You need therapy.
And all I asked for is how she knows that that other people are stupid ("...do the cognitive work"...) in this area. Making a statement like that should be paired with academic rigor (e.g., "show all work") so that the supposition(s) can be checked against known information. Mere question on information isn't "going after commenters" - it's asking "how can I verify the facts that statement present are true".
Indeed! The only reason why my mother is staying in her house at her age is because my parents moved to a vibrant community when my father retired where they could walk to everything when they weren't able to drive anymore. They also planned for cheaper heating bills, moving from the north down to a coastal community. As an adult daughter, I am extremely grateful for their planning! But they seem to be anomalies, with their way of thinking
I am VERY amused with your response. Am I "Death Denialist"?
Hardly. Unless Christ returns, we ALL physically die at some time (science has yet to unlock our bodies "Fountain of Youth". In addition, what is it that you know about me to hurl such a description my way? You have no idea of my physical being nor my mental acuity.
I'm sorry that you chose your housing poorly due to aging - but that was your personal choice. I have chosen otherwise and my situation is far different.
However, you are correct - if you can't move around in your house, it matters not WHERE you are unless you have friends and family that know where you are and visit often. Being moved to another town or city to die in a "rest home" is generally a death sentence. Why live where there is no hope?
Rest home? Lol. A two bed flat is not a rest home. An eight room multiple level house full of brown furniture and throw rugs is a death trap for seniors.
Since you used the word "flat", you're not from "around heah" are you?
BTW, that's simply the old term for "nursing home". Either way, it's the place where the old and infirm go to die (and according to one commenter at Lloyd's Gerontocracy post said, die alone because their "loving families" never showed up to visit).
I navigate those crumbled sidewalks every day, finding solutions even on the days when their icy surface makes them hazardous. It’s a myth that suburbs are less disposed to crime and one that needs to be countered.
I’ve lived in two of the largest cities in Canada where I have never been afraid to walk after midnight. I regularly walk over a kilometre from the nearest metro station because I don’t have patience waiting for a bus. Suburbs, on the other hand, with their empty sidewalkless streets and major roads and where everyone lives in the bubble of a single-family home seem truly scary. I never got to know my neighbours when I lived in one.
It’s way different when you live in a dense neighbourhood where people walk to do their daily errands and where encounters at the local cafe, or hardware store or dog park mean you actually know their names instead of just the make and model of the car they drive because the only time you see them they’re behind the wheel.
Canada is not the US. I think that you'd find things different walking in the Southside of Chicago, South Bronx and Brooklyn in NYC and East Harlem in NY City. Add to those Bed-Stuy and Jamaica in Queens.
LA: South LA, Skid Row (for a short list)
Many cities are none too safe (Memphis, St. Louis, Oakland, Baltimore, New Orleans).
As to your statement of "It’s a myth that suburbs are less disposed to crime and one that needs to be countered." US FBI stats (I looked them up) definitely show that Urban areas >Urban > Suburban > Rural. Thus, I'm hard pressed to see how you can "one that needs to be countered."
I lived in Boston for 7 years - I'd never go back.
Every time I visited a city in the U.S. I’d take the bus and explore neighbourhoods. I talked to people from all socioeconomic levels there and found most of them friendly when you actually showed interest in them.
Back when I had relatives in San Diego, I walked through many of the neighbourhoods adjacent to the city centre and a few further out. When I told people who lived there about my adventures, they were genuinely shocked. I was surprised about their paranoia. There are people in Canada like that too, just not so many. They really need to get out more. BTW - I’m female and have been doing this since the age of ten and am now in my seventies.
Crime statistics will show higher rates of crime in more populated areas because more people live there, not because it’s more prevalent on a per capita basis. The highest per capita crime rates in Canada are in car-dependent small cities like Chilliwack, Red Deer and Kamloops which have a lot in common with suburbs.
You forgot to mention "culture" - that which is in most suburbs, and rural areas even more so, are FAR different than those in the dense urban areas here in the US.
Having been a "nondriver" for life I'm aware, and now, at 75 I am working to create a volunteer driver program in my small and rural town. It will take initiative and awareness; did you know that somewhere around 30% of our US citizens can not or do not drive? These are not children; and yet, as usuall in a democracy, the majority rules. Wise elders must begin to realize that aging in place will leave them stranded----aging by themselves without the necessary social and physical interactions that make life a beautiful thing. Any age is the right age to take action. There are loads of resources available to advocate for transit and work toward programs like volunteer driving so we must get busy and not malinger in despair.
Appreciate this! But I think the real problem is less an urban planning one and more a psychological problem of getting people in their late 70s to make plans for the end of their health and driving span. We have financial planners who focus on estate planning. We might need a professional category of social worker who helps people through this process. It’s not easy to do it with one’s own aging family if they are resistant and in denial.
I don’t think it’s a problem at all. Unless they’re suffering from some serious cognitive decline, it’s up to individuals to figure that out for themselves. Makes me glad I didn’t have children because I don’t have anyone trying to mind my business.
"I don’t think it’s a problem at all. Unless they’re suffering from some serious cognitive decline, it’s up to individuals to figure that out for themselves."
Bingo! This I can seriously agree with.
The time to think about it is when your housing no longer fits your life. Not when you can't any longer.
I agree with you. In the early 90s my parents planned for an elderly age without being able to drive, and they were an anomaly amongst people they knew.
The common attitude of "I'm not going to leave my home" because of aging is the contemporary update to "Don't put me away in a facility" that the previous generation often invoked in that it's a (to put it harshly) societally bred knee-jerk concept that assumes leaving your home is bad and that you’ll be uprooted or abandoned, doing something you’re being forced to do by others. And now it's being furthered by the promotion of, as you mention, “aging in place” as a goal, morphing it into an assumption that aging in place is always better. I'm hoping that our generation (yes, I'm a boomer) can get past this.
My wife and I are fortunate to currently live in a 15-minute neighborhood so we don’t have to worry about drivespan. But we’ll still have to find a new place in the not distant future that doesn’t have stairs, and it would be great if it included a vibrant community, preferably intergenerational in order to avoid the “packing me off to a home” scenario. Interaction with others is essential to healthy aging. (As with many of our urban boomer friends, we don’t have children of our own.) Regular apartment buildings can sort of meet this description but still fall far short in terms of community and facilities. I’ve been holding out hope for an intentional cohousing community. However, I haven’t identified anything like that yet in a setting that we’d want to live in. Cohousing has yet to really take off in cities, despite – I think – there being a real need and market for it.
I know that Lloyd has spoken often of the need for design, housing, communities and services for our aging demographic. But we need to figure out how to actually make it happen – fast. I’m reminded every time a friend tells me they’re retiring.
Seeing my parents go through this was a major motivation for my move to a walkable small city in Europe.
"The question isn't how do I age in place — it's how do I get out of this place" stopped me in my tracks. Drivespan is such a striking way to frame it, and a question more of us should be sitting with ✨ feel free to check out my account if you like beautiful places!
There has been and continues to be much chatter and moaning about affordable, appropriate housing for Millennials and Gen Z and unfortunately it's turned into a 'blame-game' pointed at Boomers. It's time attention was paid to the whole housing picture. Urban Planning for the vehicle created the burbs and everyone had/wanted/needed a vehicle. But - for many reasons different age groups need different housing solutions. Aging folks need/desire size appropriate housing in neighbourhoods that have services close by - accessible with short distance public transport or walking. Younger folks starting families need larger housing close to schools, hockey rinks and playing fields and work. We need to stop this linear thinking and look at the larger and real picture of multi-generations that have multiple needs that should be addressed by multiple housing solutions and that would include transportation choices. We need to stop urban planning for the vehicle. That would also alleviate the great infrastructure costs for multiple miles/kilometres of water/sewer/asphalt roadways. Suburbs are reaching the end-of life cycle for infrastructure and need to repair/replace or build new.
"...unfortunately it's turned into a 'blame-game' pointed at Boomers."
Indeed. One only has to read the comments from those that seemingly showed up for this one post to see the vitriol hurled at we boomers (Lloyd most read and commented upon post (pssst - Lloyd, write another one!): https://lloydalter.substack.com/p/we-have-maybe-five-years-before-gerontocratic
The emphasis on housing is important but insufficient. I am 65 and my spouse and I have planned to stay put because our house is in the most walkable and transit accessible location. Our “senior housing” is at the fringes and requires driving or the facility bus to get groceries and everything else. There are some apartments which are walkable but we also have large dogs which aren’t allowed. We have planned our house to be accessible when we can’t climb stairs and are building a one level ADU which could house a caregiver or us. But environment matters too - all those 5 over 1s filled with old people are so much less appealing than a neighborhood with kids, teenagers, and old folks.
It sounds like you planned this well. I worry about the people who think a bathroom renovation will let them stay in their homes without thinking about how they will get around. Like you, I am in a walkable neighbourhood well-served by transit, with my kids living upstairs. But it was not cheap or easy to do!
Multi-generational homes were long extent early last century, especially as parents were trying to give their kids a leg up. Heck, I offered both my boys to add on here but they politely refused (much preferring to be elsewhere).
However, we now have a family fight on our hands - BOTH boys want us to go live with them at their places. It's amusing to see how it can circle around.
No, it is not cheap! Much of my planning is a result of my uncle’s relocation from a lovely, walkable community (but a big house he no longer wanted to care for) to a pretty faceless retirement community among the strip malls - not the car-centric and old-centric environment I wanted to live in. But out here in the American midwest, we’ve really built ourselves into a corner with driving.
I’m confused. You wrote, “73% of Americans live in suburban and rural communities” and then proceeded to do nothing but discuss issues related to urban planning?
What about the other demographic trends of more single households and childless couples that present more of a logistics issue when there is no one to rely on for the most basic of aging concerns even before discussing one’s drivespan?
With some good illustrations I think you have the germ of a great book in this & similar articles. The crux of the issue is the myth of choice, we don't have much choice in North America when it comes to planning and housing choice since the followers of Robert Mosses et al dominated the design of how we live. Libertarian dogma has just fuelled this false choice narrative.
I obviously disagree. Given the size and vastness of America, almost any choice someone truly desires it out there. Sure, location, pricing, taxation, et al are factors for that choice but saying that "choice" is a myth?
Everything, as economists are wont to say, is a tradeoff. Choice is ferreting out that multi-dimensional solution that best fits ALL of your needs (optimal, sub-optimal, or worse case).
I'm sure that size may matter to some, but that's really not a thing in this context. While some "choice" still exists for some of the cognoscente, but for the vast majority of us regular schlebs we really ain't got much of a choice when it comes to accessible neighbourhoods. I'm sure that you & I disagree on the definition of what this means in urban planning terms. McMansions & heck! even suburban tract homes don't pay their full freight, while apartment dwellers pay way more than their fair share of a city's budget. It's just how N.A. cities have been built in the last 80 years. So there's not really an effective "choice". The urban sprawl model is like many things, Welfare for the well healed & Capitalism for the rest of us.
"I'm sure that size may matter to some, but that's really not a thing in this context."
Actually, it DOES matter. The point I was trying to make is that the US has such a large land mass, one can, pretty much find what one wants given the context of Lloyd's point.
And again, having spent a decade on our BudComm, I KNOW that "suburban tract homes" pay their fair share of taxes based on the NH property tax protocols allowable. Our budgets ALWAYS had to be in balance.
And if you didn't like what was going on, one could always go to the home of the person/people who were raising spending and yak with (or scream at, depending on the context).
THAT is a great tool to have in one's pocket. And yes, I had people "visiting" me because I was saying no to more spending because I, alone on the BudComm, was trying to watchout for those living in the trailer parks in town (while the Progressives were always going after the millionaires homes on the lake so as to take more to be able to spend more - they never put two and two together in what they did to THEIR targets really did affect the low income folks).
"...that you & I disagree on the definition of what this means in urban planning terms."
Actually, I am an agnostic as to what goes on in urban areas. If a city really wants to screw themselves up (I'm looking at Chicago as one "fine" example), let them. I could care less.
I spent 10 years on my town's Budget Committee that was in charge of both the town and the school board. Even here in NH, people complain about the cost of taxes NEVER realizing that when they blithely vote to approve the budgets ( often got overruled over waste and stupidity line items by "the Progressives"), they made life harder for themselves. I grimaced every time I heard one of these "degreed Yahoos" who complained twice yearly about their tax bill EVEN AS I HAD TOLD HIM/HER that's what was going to happen.
But then, again, our Edu-Industrial Complex barely teaches math - oh yeah, THAT'S why the school system is often 2/3rds of the typical NH town budget. Keep voting to approve the "new contract" with the teacher Union that cost millions more every year - in a town of only 7,000 people.
"It's only a cuppa coffee!" I'm told. Sure thing pal; after a few years of that, you find that you're trying to pull a couple of tanker trucks with your hands for all the "cuppa" you've had to absorb over a few decades
Towns here pay their own way - State pays very little. That's one reason why NH is often rated for being the best ROI state in the union. And even for my rant above, while NH property taxes are among the highest in the nation, that's pretty much the ONLY tax individuals pay - no income tax, sales tax, et al - we consistently are in the bottom three States for overall tax burden.
I was fortunate enough to learn to hate suburbs when we moved to one the year I started high school. I was also fortunate to have parents who expected me to figure out how to get most places without being driven there. That usually meant walking.
I’ve lived where I really needed a car and somewhat reluctantly driven, but not often. Car-centric suburbs seem almost as isolated to me as a wheat field on a farm on the Prairies. I can’t understand why people don’t want to walk to get groceries when the sidewalks aren’t icy. That’s the real problem for me - icy roads and sidewalks in the winter that make even walkable neighbourhoods difficult to navigate. But because the majority of the adult population drives, it’s not seen as a problem.
One problem is the way the marketplace is structured. We probably pay double what my daughter does because we shop in the local Fiesta Farms, and she drives to Costco. Others go to Walmart and fill their SUVs with a week’s worth of food. I suppose that if you subtract the cost of owning and operating a car, you come out way ahead, but it is a hard sell.
Simple economics of Supply and Demand, Lloyd. Costco buys in volume - large volumes and thus can get much larger discounts than smaller stores.
That's the linchpin that NYC Marxism Mamdani is using in building his $30 million grocery store (which the private sector would spend $5-10). Govt can buy in much larger quantities and getting purchase price discounts that the local small bodegas can't even approach.
Voila! Monopoly Govt Groceries! Well, at least at the start as history shows us what happens medium to long term. Is that what you want - Govt regulated "low" prices?
You know what happens later? The price may stay the same but the "regulation" will them move to "availability" - meaning less and less product on the store shelves. Which is exactly the "come on" that Mamdani is using having put the private sector competition out of business.
It's called "The Used Car Salesman's Bait and Switch" scheme. It's a wonderful shill to play when you're using taxpayer money to get Govt to be the only supplier.
Lloyd, you made your choice in giving up your car - and have forfeited those lower Costco pricing. EVERY decision has a consequence - primary, and then secondary, tertiary, and beyond.
TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
The hardest sell may be the time it takes to shop on foot or public transit.
I lived over a decade within a couple of blocks of a plethora of little specialty markets and other shops. The farmers market was a bit further but a pleasant walk on the weekend.
I’m now in a similar neighbourhood that doesn’t offer as much choice and do my herb shopping on the other side of two that means a fifteen minute walk, a half an hour on two metro lines and a fine twenty minute by bus. That doesn’t include the waits for transfers. It’s worth it though because the Persian market sells fresher and tastier herbs, not only at a lower price but also without the excess packaging.
"The hardest sell may be the time it takes to shop on foot or public transit."
Ayup, ain't public transport a delightful means to waste your time in trying to get where you want to go. Perhaps a low price but the politicians NEVAH talk about the Total Cost of Your Time.
Only you can know which tradeoff suits your needs or wants.
I never wait more than 7 minutes for my good old 63 Ossington bus that takes me to the subway in about ten minutes and takes me anywhere in town for C$2.50. I can read or look at my phone while I travel. Why anyone would sit in traffic and then search for a parking spot that costs 2.50 for 15 minutes is beyond me. Transit in a properly served city is a far better use of your time than sitting in a car.
Ah yes, the infamous "Boston T" (officially, the MBTA). Once I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment, I learned that both the above ground and tunnel trolleys were the pits. Often, what ever scheduled they were supposed to meet was about as real as being determined that the lottery ticket held in your hand was going to hit. No, the best I can be about the T is "haphazard" at best.
And don't get me started about waiting 45 minutes during a New England Nor'Easter getting blinded by the snow, made freezing cold by the raw whipping winds, and only to find out that the trolleys were canceled because the rail snowplow failed (again, and again, and...).
And the regular subway cars weren't much better due to breakdowns in the middle of two stations - or waiting for some other train to get fixed so that ours could proceed.
Seven years, I put up with that crapola until the degrees were done and I vamoosed North to the burbs. And then much further North later on.
Exactly. The wait is long where I live now which is why I want to sell the place and move as close as possible to a rapid transit station, preferably one that’s just a few steps away and doesn’t require crossing a parking lot. Once I’m on public transit I can actually get things done. Driving stresses me out.
I also hate the suburbs. Growing up, we either lived far out in the country or right in town. Never anything in between. I didn't learn to drive until I was almost 40, being a city mouse.
I lived in the 'burbs growing up, lived in the city getting my degrees, and then did the slow migration out to the rural areas so I've experienced the Trifecta for all of them.
I'll stay here in the rurals until they carry me out in a box.
Yes, like all people you deserve to stay where you are happy and enjoy your life.
As I wish that for you and everyone else here - make your own choices, instead of being forced into what you hate, and be happy!
People that hate something they never experienced, typical.
Oh, I've spent plenty of time in the suburbs in other people's homes. Nice homes, they love them, as I hope they would - everyone deserves to love and enjoy where they live. Similar to how a lot of people in suburbs experience cities, and think "I'd never like to live here." Most city dwellers don't get offended if someone says they hate cities, though.
I once new someone that was in the military that went to a school in California for 2 weeks. That person said that they did not like California and would never go back. Wonder if you are that person.
No. I had family down there. In total, I probably spent two years going back and forth visiting. It was a bit like wintering in Florida except I was in my twenties. I got to know Californians, went grocery shopping, took my niece to parks and beaches and even helped out at a non-profit where I met people from the upper middle class who worked there and their clients who were less fortunate.
There were things I liked and things I didn’t. I learned enough to know I would never feel at home there but wouldn’t say I didn’t like the people. The weather was amazing. The suburbs were awful.
I learned to hate suburbs by living in several of them. I’ve also lived in the real countryside, large and small cities and, although I’ve never lived in one, am familiar with what it’s like to live in a small village. Suburbs are the worst of all worlds. You’re isolated like in the country, have to drive everywhere but still can’t have a couple of chickens in the backyard.
There are people who don’t like driving and for them suburbs are a form of hell. They ruin your life and sometimes even your marriage. It’s no fun waiting up to an hour for the bus in a Canadian winter or depending on others to go anywhere, including work. I’ve lived that life too.
What’s wrong with wanting to die in the home you’ve lived in for decades? Where I live, in a very rural area, there are many options for when I can no longer drive. The regional transportation system offers free shuttle service for elders to doctor’s appointments. And, since Covid, between door dash and Instacart, I can be quite content to stay at home with everything I need.
It can and will kill you.
Yeah, in the middle of the night, the walls will deliberately fall in on you and your gas stove and oil furnace switch themselves on to asphyxiate you?
(/sarc)
From infancy to mid teens, we drive our children everywhere and tolerate it, other than perhaps school, for those on a school bus route. The portion of life past the "drive span" is roughly the same, about 15 years, but providing transportation for the elderly is viewed as a "burden" by them and perhaps by those tasked with providing it. And yet, the amount of mobility required to stay connected to the world is not constant, multiple trips per day. More likely it is periodic shopping, attending church services, exercise classes, other mostly scheduled events that are not so difficult to incorporate into a transportation program. Keeping an automobile; capital cost, maintenance, fuel, insurance is no small item. Today, 200 Uber trips would be about $6000 per year for a suburban dweller, and municipalities often provide ride services for seniors. I think this is more about public will than completely re-engineering communities, although I am sympathetic to your concepts for more livable neighborhoods for people of ALL ages. Moving the elderly out of their homes does perpetuate the suburban experience since someone else is buying that home and its poor walkability score. The durable built environment for housing of our cities is probably at least 50 years and perhaps more like 75 years, so replacing it with something better will, of necessity, be incremental over perhaps 3 generations, even with very durable political and social will, which isn't our strong suit as a nation (that would be USA, not Canada). My home has three dwelling units on the property; reduced rent in trade for driving assistance would be a decent incentive for some younger individuals, I believe. Yes, I have no great desire to move the older I get. Bur, perhaps it won't be so necessary with the right social arrangements.
Very interesting. My parents retired to Vancouver Island in the early 90s, from a car-dependent community in the North. Since my mother never learned how to drive and was much younger than my dad, the idea was she'd likely live longer than him and would need a community where she could walk everywhere. He stopped driving at 88 (a few years later than we'd like, but you know how that goes), and died at 91.
She is now almost 90 and indeed walks everywhere! She is within walking distance of a grocery store, at the library, her doctor's office, a pharmacy, even some thrift stores which she loves. If she needs to go to the hospital, she can take a taxi.
She told me once she had no idea why so many people her age decided to move out into the country. I'm sure a lot of them wonder why now, as well. It also puts my mind at ease knowing that she is in a bustling place and I don't have to worry about her being isolated.
What about the worsening extreme weather factor?
Good question! Walking any distance or waiting for public transit in extreme weather is a big problem.
I just turned 79. Since I live in a rural area and have long driven at lower speeds than most of traffic, I don't have to deal with nearly the level of variables that most drivers do. It's still scary.
Obviously society isn't going to make any changes which improve this situation, since we have allowed all social designs to be based on the drive for increased profit for the few rather than increased survivability for the many.
I wonder how long I'll be able to harness up a team. At the speed of a walking donkey, even the higher speed of a walking or trotting horse or mule, I have a lot more time to evaluate risks and make decisions.
Our culture - all of industrial high energy culture - is utterly insane. It does make a few assholes a lot of money, though.
Why are you so fixated on this topic, Lloyd? Are you scared of dying yourself?
"It has become the death house."
After living in their houses, seniors (in which I consider myself to now be in that cohort) in which they raised their little ones to being (hopefully) functional and wise adults, the parties and the sorrows, are making the choice to leave this earth in the place where all those memories were created and remembered (hopefully for the latter). Their LIVES and selves are invested in those walls and that ("feet first") their leaving this mortal coil.
In other of your posts, this has come up before: WHY would they choose to go where they are surrounded by the unfamiliar? Their families are elsewhere and their friends are no longer available to visit. As to that latter, you rant and hate the suburbs and its "lack of public mobility". I'm waiting to here the expectation that if "bungalow legs" is hurting their ability to walk, how will moving to a fast moving (and smelly, and in rereading your writings, often hazardous due to air pollution because of its concentrated and density living (and not to mention hazardous due to those disposed toward crime and watching the "pickables" slowly walking of whatever crumbled sidewalks are present).
Or are you scared of others choosing to pass on in places and ways of THEIR choosing (and not listening to you)? That they reject the choice you would demand of them?
Sorry Lloyd, but you know I am an advocate that people should ALWAYS make their own choices for their lives - and now for their own plans for their deaths. Freedom, in the end, should always be respected.
You need to give this a hard think yourself. Your reaction is a telling form of denial of reality of aging. We are planning to sell up soon because we are not going to spend our older years heating an 8 room house while being confined to two rooms by mobility challenges and complaining about the cost of it all. As for familiar surroundings, none of that matters if you can't leave your house. Your denialist stance is highly maladaptive.
It’s not a matter of “being in denial of the realities of aging” to want to live in your own home for as long as possible. Home is, as the saying goes, where the heart is. If you have the financial means to stay where you’ve always wanted to live, why should you move simply because you hit some specific age threshold?
Elders die in falls, accidents, and fires daily because they don't do the cognitive work of understanding how they are trapped by nostalgia in places that are no longer suited to their most basic physical needs. Our society sadly enables that at great human cost. After seeing this play out repeatedly with older generations of my family I'm planning ahead. My paternal grandparents got it right and lived fuller lives in much more appropriate surroundings.
"...because they don't do the cognitive work of understanding how they are trapped by nostalgia..."
And you know this....how?? Are you wishing to take that choice away from them simply because they think and believe differently than you? Glad to see that your grandparents and you are making decisions for yourselves that will make you happier than where you are.
But one should not keep excoriating others that choose differently.
I think this is more than enough, don’t go after my other commenters please, you scare them away.
I'm going after her suppositions, not her. However, since you brought it up, are you going to rebuke her takes on me in being even handed in moderations?
MamaSelkie: Your denialist stance is highly maladaptive.
MamaSelkie: You need therapy.
And all I asked for is how she knows that that other people are stupid ("...do the cognitive work"...) in this area. Making a statement like that should be paired with academic rigor (e.g., "show all work") so that the supposition(s) can be checked against known information. Mere question on information isn't "going after commenters" - it's asking "how can I verify the facts that statement present are true".
And her statement that I need therapy.
Indeed! The only reason why my mother is staying in her house at her age is because my parents moved to a vibrant community when my father retired where they could walk to everything when they weren't able to drive anymore. They also planned for cheaper heating bills, moving from the north down to a coastal community. As an adult daughter, I am extremely grateful for their planning! But they seem to be anomalies, with their way of thinking
"Your denialist stance is highly maladaptive."
I am VERY amused with your response. Am I "Death Denialist"?
Hardly. Unless Christ returns, we ALL physically die at some time (science has yet to unlock our bodies "Fountain of Youth". In addition, what is it that you know about me to hurl such a description my way? You have no idea of my physical being nor my mental acuity.
I'm sorry that you chose your housing poorly due to aging - but that was your personal choice. I have chosen otherwise and my situation is far different.
However, you are correct - if you can't move around in your house, it matters not WHERE you are unless you have friends and family that know where you are and visit often. Being moved to another town or city to die in a "rest home" is generally a death sentence. Why live where there is no hope?
Rest home? Lol. A two bed flat is not a rest home. An eight room multiple level house full of brown furniture and throw rugs is a death trap for seniors.
Since you used the word "flat", you're not from "around heah" are you?
BTW, that's simply the old term for "nursing home". Either way, it's the place where the old and infirm go to die (and according to one commenter at Lloyd's Gerontocracy post said, die alone because their "loving families" never showed up to visit).
Your word salads and faith in tech tells me everything.
"everything"
Such as?
I navigate those crumbled sidewalks every day, finding solutions even on the days when their icy surface makes them hazardous. It’s a myth that suburbs are less disposed to crime and one that needs to be countered.
I’ve lived in two of the largest cities in Canada where I have never been afraid to walk after midnight. I regularly walk over a kilometre from the nearest metro station because I don’t have patience waiting for a bus. Suburbs, on the other hand, with their empty sidewalkless streets and major roads and where everyone lives in the bubble of a single-family home seem truly scary. I never got to know my neighbours when I lived in one.
It’s way different when you live in a dense neighbourhood where people walk to do their daily errands and where encounters at the local cafe, or hardware store or dog park mean you actually know their names instead of just the make and model of the car they drive because the only time you see them they’re behind the wheel.
Canada is not the US. I think that you'd find things different walking in the Southside of Chicago, South Bronx and Brooklyn in NYC and East Harlem in NY City. Add to those Bed-Stuy and Jamaica in Queens.
LA: South LA, Skid Row (for a short list)
Many cities are none too safe (Memphis, St. Louis, Oakland, Baltimore, New Orleans).
As to your statement of "It’s a myth that suburbs are less disposed to crime and one that needs to be countered." US FBI stats (I looked them up) definitely show that Urban areas >Urban > Suburban > Rural. Thus, I'm hard pressed to see how you can "one that needs to be countered."
I lived in Boston for 7 years - I'd never go back.
Every time I visited a city in the U.S. I’d take the bus and explore neighbourhoods. I talked to people from all socioeconomic levels there and found most of them friendly when you actually showed interest in them.
Back when I had relatives in San Diego, I walked through many of the neighbourhoods adjacent to the city centre and a few further out. When I told people who lived there about my adventures, they were genuinely shocked. I was surprised about their paranoia. There are people in Canada like that too, just not so many. They really need to get out more. BTW - I’m female and have been doing this since the age of ten and am now in my seventies.
Crime statistics will show higher rates of crime in more populated areas because more people live there, not because it’s more prevalent on a per capita basis. The highest per capita crime rates in Canada are in car-dependent small cities like Chilliwack, Red Deer and Kamloops which have a lot in common with suburbs.
You forgot to mention "culture" - that which is in most suburbs, and rural areas even more so, are FAR different than those in the dense urban areas here in the US.
Having been a "nondriver" for life I'm aware, and now, at 75 I am working to create a volunteer driver program in my small and rural town. It will take initiative and awareness; did you know that somewhere around 30% of our US citizens can not or do not drive? These are not children; and yet, as usuall in a democracy, the majority rules. Wise elders must begin to realize that aging in place will leave them stranded----aging by themselves without the necessary social and physical interactions that make life a beautiful thing. Any age is the right age to take action. There are loads of resources available to advocate for transit and work toward programs like volunteer driving so we must get busy and not malinger in despair.