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Show same community were they have been living. Many of these seniors will downsize by selling their high maintenance single-family houses and buying into low maintenance (for them) condominiums or senior apartments. There have been a number of senior housing complexes built in the Capital District in the last twenty years; and there will be many more built in the future to accommodate the growing elderly population. To meet the demand of seniors who wish to continue living in the same community, many of these senior developments have been built in suburban towns. However, many of these developments are isolated from nearby amenities and services, requiring auto or shuttle travel for all trips. These isolated settings tend to reduce the independence of those seniors who could otherwise still walk to services if they were in close proximity. The question then becomes, are there ways to better integrate senior housing with amenities and services so that complete auto-dependence is avoided? This will be difficult in many suburban settings because of the isolated nature of development patterns. In order to better integrate senior housing, the urbanizing areas will need to become more spatially integrated overall. A second option will be for seniors to move into older cities where integrated environments already exist. However, the unresolved question at this stage is how most seniors, particularly aging baby boomers, will view cities, even with their many amenities. Will the positive features of cities be great enough for seniors to overcome their other concerns about cities, especially urban crime? A final observation about an aging population is how seniors will view the political choices related to land use. Will seniors generally support or reject public expenditures for public amenities? And more broadly, will seniors support land use changes that are contrary to the status quo? To the first question, there is some evidence that seniors, many of whom are on fixed incomes, may be adverse to new public expenditures that are viewed as benefits to others but a new tax burden for themselves. As for the support seniors will give to changes in the status quo, such as changes in the way growth is designed and regulated, Professor Francis Fukuyama has suggested that the continuation of a basic paradigm depends not just on the empirical evidence supporting or rejecting it, but also on the physical survival of the people who created that paradigm. As long as the elderly sit on the top of age-graded hierarchies (such as peer review boards, foundation boards of trusties, planning boards, town boards), the status quo will remain unshakable. According to Fukuyama, "It stands to reason, then, that political, social, and intellectual change will occur much more slowly in societies with substantially longer average live spans." [2] Immigration and the Latinization of the U.S. According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the United States admits approximately 900,000 legal immigrants every year. In addition, approximately 5 million illegal aliens currently reside in the United States, with approximately 300,000 entering illegally each year. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that approximately 46,692,000 new immigrants will be added to the U.S. population by 2050, which is 36% of the total projected population increase. 1/7/2010 Effects of Alternative Development Sc… cdtcmpo.org/policy/june07/wa-doc.htm 38/60 |
