Thursday, July 12, 2007

Baby boomers take the town

Ambling home from work together this evening, I was grumbling to MetroHom, "I can't believe the amount of new apartment buildings they're putting up here in the city! And worse yet, they're all still selling!"
"It's the baby boomers," MetroHom told me sagely. "As they retire, they're moving to smaller apartments in the city so they don't have lawns to mow."

I thought about that a moment.
"No," I disagreed. "Retiring people may move to retirement communities. But they wouldn't come to the city! It's just too difficult." I thought about dirt, and the traffic, and the honking cabs.
"Sure they would, where else do you get your laundry delivered to your doorstep for a couple of bucks."
"But the city has rats and roaches."
"The city has doormen who protect you from everything."
"But they would have to walk to the supermarket."
"They would have Fresh Direct. They would never have to walk anywhere again."
"But they would have to deal with cabs honking at them if they took too long to cross the intersection."
"Have you seen the old people here? They'd just flick off the cabs!"
"But they would - "
"They'd get restaurant food home delivered," he cut me off.
That caught me in my stride.
"Hmm, you're right. The city is really is a pretty cool place to grow old in."

I'd momentarily forgotten that these were the same people pricing me out of the housing market. But let's leave that aside for now. I'm quite enjoying this romanticised image of New York.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, there have been several articles about how people who are significantly older are moving to cities, including NYC (those who can afford it anyway) for the conveniences your friend outlined.

Of course, there are still booming retirement communities in FL, etc.