These aging baby-boomers wanted to be safe and isolated in their gated communities. Ensconced in their fairway villas and green lawns. Far away from the nuisances of life, they would devote their golden years to playing dominoes and golf with like minded friends. Unfortunately the financial crisis caught up with them. Maybe they don't realize it is a good thing. Bring some new life in the game before their graveyard hideaway becomes just that.
Now they are forced to admit younger residents to help pay the bills. But with younger residents come children, teens, and young adults. Oh horror of horrors !
It is not just the aging adults in their protective cocoons who are complaining. Cities too are unhappy because now they will have to provide services like schools, etc. That cuts into their profits. In some cases, cities had granted tax breaks to the adult communities. Adding services that are unpaid for is not to their liking. However, it is not the profit and loss that strikes me as odd. Surely people will find a way to handle all that.
It is the very (sick) notion that drives people away from one another into secluded hiding with like minded individuals. Sadly enough, for seniors such an idyllic hideaway slowly decays in synch with their aging bodies. Soon enough they won't leave their homes. With nothing to watch except other aging creatures stumbling around on artificially green links, life will seem desperate indeed. I am not sure it is that much better than looking at an abandoned construction site.
Why these people want to depart the real world in order to cling to a virtual reality is beyond me. It is all part of consumerism I guess.
3 comments:
I understand the desire for being secluded, but I also see what you are saying. That said, I don't think retreating from others has to have anything to do with consumerism.
I've been thinking about this, and I'm starting to feel more and more that you are right. After reading your first sentence, it became more clear. However, there are families or people that run off into the middle of nowhere to be entirely self-sufficient. And yet, they need their own plow or tractor or what have you.
Perhaps religious hermits are the exception?
Take the following example from Green Households. Between 1950 and 1997 the population in the Netherlands increased by 55% from 10 million to 15.5 million. But the number of households increased 140% from 2.7 million to 6.5 million. (the same is now happening in China).
Apart from fewer houses, with less stuff in them, there are significant scale advantages of household size on the use of energy. Energy demands per additional member decrease rapidly, and so does waste generation. Water is less affected but also decreases somewhat.
More houses also means people are more spread out and need to drive more. More spread makes it harder to implement public transportation solutions.
The list is long, but there is no doubt that the decreasing household sizes were a key reason for the rapid growth in energy use and waste generation.
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