Urban Nocturne
Youngtown, Arizona started the retirement community concept in 1954, the year of my birth. Sun City didn’t open until 1960, but by then, age-restricted communities meant for those who wanted to be with other retirees, were well-rooted in the sun states. That is not an official starting gun or anything, it’s just my simple handle on when thinking about how to retire came into vogue. It’s like saying pensions began after WWII when we know for a fact that they were first introduced by Bismarck in 1889 with his Old Age Act or even Duke Ernest the Pious in 1645 with his Widow’s Fund. The point isn’t when some obscure enactment took place, but rather when it was put into broad practice. I think it is safe to say that the growing wave of retirees has built steadily since the official start of retirement communities.
Baby Boomers represent the peaking of birth rates around the world between 1946 and 1964, that period after WWII when global peace swept the world with an optimism that made everyone want to repopulate the globe. This generational cohort represents 23% of the U.S. population. That sounds big until you see that the Millenial cohort represents 27%. However, given that estimates imply that Baby Boomers represent 80% of U.S. wealth, and that the Baby Boomers are starting to retire (they are aged 55 – 73), it is valuable to examine their trends in retirement to understand what trends are likely to take hold. The earlier notion that retirees want to go to the sun has had serious SPF slathered on it. I’m not sure Global Warming has had a deleterious effect, but it certainly can’t help.
My personal observation is that the older you get, the less tolerant you get with the cold of winter. There is almost assuredly and observably a desire by older adults to spend more time away from winter and in a sunny spot, whether they sunbath or not. Florida has a certain draw to some and a stigma to others. All those jokes about the Two-for-One Specials and 4pm dinner calls don’t spring from respect for Florida as a retirement Valhalla. For some reason, Arizona doesn’t seem to suffer the same image erosion, but its lack of humidity has a certain desiccating effect on its desirability as a permanent go-to spot.
I have taken the time to analyze my life and where I have lived over those years. This is skewed by an adult life spent working and mostly living in NYC, but I have spent 47% of my life in urban settings, 27% in suburbia and, in last place, 26% in a rural area. That’s actually not an unusual split except perhaps in its broad diversity. I’ll bet that if I polled my friends I would see a 50/50 split between urban and suburban time spent in their lives. I never lived much in an urban setting until high school in Rome, but that never slowed me down from heading to the Big Apple after graduating from business school.
In my lifetime, the U.S. population has steadily shifted from 67% urban to now, 84% urban. That’s pretty damn significant as a trend that shows little evidence of waning. That compares to a global trend or urbanization that has the entire world going from 30% to 55% urban over that time span. I think it is safe to say that human existence is becoming an urban existence. The question I am asking though, is whether retirement is still about suburbanization or if it is shifting to an urban retirement?
Until recently, few would have heard of people retiring to the city. The city is a place of work. I will even suggest that the city has credibly become a place of vacation, urban tourism being a distinct trend in travel. But is the city really a place for leisure? All my working life in NYC I have heard people who lived in the city in their youth and then moved to the suburbs when children came along, speak of moving back to the city in their golden years. However, the implication of that was that there was still a work reason for living in the city and this was a way to reduce commutation irritation. There was the added benefit of being closer to cultural activities, fine dining and upscale shopping.
Now add to that the effect that Millenials, who represent the majority of Baby Boomers’ children, are trending heavily (95%?) towards urban lifestyles. What do we know about modern sociology? We know that the nuclear family replaced the extended family. We know that there has been a growing trend towards looser family ties rather than tight inter-generational bonds. In the Middle East, families build homes with multiple levels to accommodate three or four generations, one atop another. The survival modes involve providing housing that leans on means and needs of the changing family dynamic. That is very different from the model of the U.S. with Grandma’s farm or Mom and Dad’s condo in Florida.. The U.S. had adopted a more remote family configuration. But is that now changing?
My children are here in the NYC area. I’m not certain that lasts forever, but moving for work doesn’t happen as much anymore, and I see few forces that will act strongly on that lifestyle. Both my wife’s and my siblings all live out in the sunshine of the west, mostly Southern California. Our “retirement” home is out in Southern California for that reason. So where should we retire? Do we move to where the sibs are and where “the livin’ is easy”? There’s lots to commend that plan, not the least of which is that we have already set it up, as one does in this day and age.
Both my wife and I happen to be the youngest of our three siblings. That means that demographically speaking, they are more likely to pre-decease us (don’t tell them that). Maybe the play here is to move out there for a few years, get our sibling bonding fix and our sunshine and casual leisure fix, and then move back to the urban setting where our kids are hanging out. That presumes we are fit enough to make a switcheroo at that point and can afford it all. Perhaps more importantly, is that what the kids would want?
Kids will always insist that they want mom and dad nearby. They are trained to think that way and say those things. I have always been a believer that birds gotta fly and that kids need to be left to themselves to fly. But these days, life is decidedly harder and the prosperity represented by that Baby Boomer 80% wealth concentration makes this a somewhat more complex dynamic. The kids may want/need you closer for financial support (not that proximity is a necessity for financial support, but it is a more convenient ask with proximity). The kids may prefer their space (in-law dynamics contribute to this the most, but there is plenty of parent/child dynamics at play as well).
I think we will see more and more urban retirement for a host of reasons. I also think there will be more and more retirement mobility. And lastly, I predict that the world becoming a somewhat harsher place will drive the sociological trends back towards extended families by necessity. All that says to me that the city is now an inextricable part of life. Country cottages as a symbol of peacefulness will gradually be replaced by high rise apartment views of the horizon.