Why seniors are returning to cities

By Steve Yoder, The Fiscal Times

One focus of planners’ efforts is helping older adults get out and make connections, which is especially important for retirees who have moved away from family and friends. The Chamber of Commerce in Oxford, Miss., one of the state’s certified retirement cities, came up with a “newcomer’s club” that holds monthly events for relocated retirees and others, says Margaret Wylde of ProMatura, a market research firm specializing in consumers age 50 and older. In Auburn Hills, Mich., the city’s recreation and senior-services departments are collaborating to get older adults out and about with concerts, potlucks and fishing competitions, says Karen Adcock, the city's director of senior services.

Cities also are redesigning transportation systems to meet the needs of older adults who have hung up their car keys or want to. In a 2010 AARP survey, about half of respondents age 45 and older said living in a place where it’s easy to walk or living near church or social organizations was important to them. In Maryland's Rockville Pike corridor outside Washington, D.C., for example, planners are clustering housing units around transit hubs, tearing down large retail spaces in malls, and rebuilding the stores closer to the street to make them pedestrian friendly, says AARP’s Amy Levner.

In Philadelphia and elsewhere, it also means planners are covering basics such as making sure buses are handicap-accessible and putting roofs on bus stops so riders can get out of the rain. Other cities are creating districts with wider sidewalks and where traffic signals cycle more slowly to allow older adults additional time to cross. Many merchants have also agreed to widen aisles and put out benches, says John McIlwain of the Urban Land Institute. New York City and Charlotte, N.C., are using school buses to transport older people to shopping destinations after the buses have finished taking children to school.

Other cities are focusing on better services. In Auburn Hills, the city set up a senior home-repair assistance program that uses volunteers to do home repairs and provide services for older adults such as yard maintenance, painting and fixing faucets. Recipients have to pay for supplies but not the services, and the program has no income restrictions.

With more older adults wanting to keep working, city and county agencies and nonprofits in Miami are holding workshops for employers to encourage them to hire older adults. Planners there are also exploring how to use city parks to offer senior-targeted fitness programs. Some cities are ditching the old model of senior center services by turning the centers into hubs for skills development, putting in broadband and offering computer training and entrepreneurship programs, says McIlwain.

Jurisdictions also are preparing for the coming retiree wave by changing their building codes. For some new construction, Atlanta and Tucson, Ariz., are requiring wider doorways and hallways, no-step entrances and reinforced walls so grab bars can be added. Cities also are changing their zoning codes to allow homeowners to add small apartments where their parents might live, says McIlwain.

While the most popular urban magnets for retirees still lie in the country’s warmer latitudes, cities such as New York and Philadelphia hope their efforts will help them better compete as retiring boomers decide where to live. Along the way, better transportation hubs, increased walkability and other improvements will benefit not just those 65 and up, but everyone, says Levner.