Being from Calgary, Alberta, I can vouch for the vast Suburbanization of our cities. Although the downtown core is beginning to develop (slowly) for residential uses, it is still populated primarily by 9 to 5 companies. The examples of mixed use areas in Calgary are too far and few between to be considered as a regional planning effort.
Shawn
www.urbnblgr.wordpress.com
Hi,
I thought your blog audience might have an interest in my new book, Leisureville, which Jim Kunstler and Andres Duany blurbed for the back cover. It is about the proliferation of age-segregated retirement communities for people in their 50s and 60s. Children may visit, but their guest passes time out much like international visas, after which time they are basically reduced to the status of human contraband. In the book, I trace the history of this phenomenon to the Arizona desert of the 1950s, as well as profile the world's largest gated retirement community (in Florida). It's called The Villages and it is nearly twice the size of Manhattan, will have a population of more than 110,000, and no children are allowed. The growth of leisurevilles represents nothing less than a revolution in our societal living arrangements as well as the intersection of many themes that define us today: manufactured leisure and convenience, segregation, escapism, sprawl, fortressing, government by contract, and more. Twelve million Americans are expected to move to leisurevilles in the coming decade or so, and that's a very conservative estimate. This is not a sunbelt phenomenon -- the majority of leisurevilles are now being built in the North, outside major cities like San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia.
Below are two reviews from the New York Times Sunday Book Review, and The Washington Post Book World. (You can read the full reviews by hyperlinking on the newspaper titles.) You can also learn more about Leisureville by visiting my website: www.andrewblechman.com.
Best Wishes,
Andrew
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Fascinating…. Secession movements are an American instinct, and Blechman sees one afoot in the migration of young, well-off retirees to the land of golf and sunshine…. If you are squeamish at the thought of people over 55 socializing, having sex, drinking, smoking pot, line dancing and saying they are happy with their lives, avert your eyes now…. Blechman disappears down the rabbit hole.
— The New York Times Sunday Book Review
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After reading Leisureville, the first thing I have to say is: Listen up.
— The Washington Post
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