Leisureville: Adventures in America's Retirement Utopias

When author Andrew D. Blechman's next-door neighbors in a quaint New England town suddenly pick up and move to a gated retirement community in Florida he is bewildered by their decisions. A schoolteacher and his friendly, energetic wife, they were the perfect neighbors, and the kind of involved citizens the community could use more of, especially with a fight looming over plans to demolish a nearby park. But The Villages, the largest gated community in the world, had won them over. Their stories about "Florida's Friendliest Hometown" could hardly be believed. Larger than Manhattan, with a golf course for every day of the month, two downtowns, its own newspaper, radio, and TV stations, The Villages is a city of nearly one hundred thousand (and growing), missing only one thing: children.

More than twelve million Americans will soon live in such age-segregated communities. To get to the bottom of the trend, Blechman delves into life in the senior utopia and offers an entertaining first-hand report on all its peculiarities, from ersatz nostalgia and golf-cart mania, to manufactured history and the residents' surprisingly active sex life.

But Leisureville is more than just a romp in the retirement paradise. Blechman traces the history of this remarkable trend, travels to Arizona to show what has happened to the pioneers after decades of isolation, investigates the government of these instant cities, attends a builders conference, speaks with housing experts, and examines the implications of millions of Americans dropping out of society to live under legal segregation. A fascinating blend of serious history, social criticism, and engaging reportage, Leisureville is an important book on an underreported phenomenon that is growing larger every day.