Quote:
Originally Posted by Chitown
I do love living here in The Villages, but I want all Villagers to stop and think for a minute. The Villages currently has a population of approximately 140,000 people. Considering the amount of land The Villages still owns that has not been developed, by the time the future villages are developed our population will be well over 200,000 people. Remember, The Villages is not a gated community but a community with gates. On any given day at any time of the day anyone from outside the villages has full access to every road every street every business and all the town squares. If for some reason a person or persons with Less than honorable intentions approach a gate at 3 AM in one of our villages and you do not live in the villages you simply press the red button the gate goes up and you enter. The 20% of the villages that have gate attendants are not allowed to ask you what your businesses is and are not allowed to stop you from entering any village at any time of the day or night. Also keep in mind that many of our seniors who live here in the villages are allowing their grand children and children to live with them. Everything I mentioned above including a community future population with over 200,000 people is bound to see a significant increase in crime and traffic. Go to On Top of the World, Dell Web, Margaritaville, or Stone Crest. Try entering the property without authorization and see what happens. You will not only be stopped but you will be asked to leave. I’m just saying.
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I’m not concerned about crime rising in The Villages if it expands while maintaining its current makeup. Consider that at our current size, if you exclude people who live together getting into fights or ex-boyfriends and girlfriends stalking, or that sort of rare thing, there is essentially no crime in our neighborhoods. There are no murders, no assaults, no shootings, no rapes, no burglaries. Despite what you consider inadequate security at the gates, our residential streets are quiet and virtually free of cars. It’s rare indeed to see people driving around who look suspicious.
The fact that nearly all residents are older makes crime much less common here. Also, the sorts of people most likely to commit crimes are more likely to buy in towns where the real estate is much less expensive. So if we maintain our present gate situation and keep prices high and buyers old, crime should stay low. If the developer were to change its policy and sell to young families, that could change, but apart from one neighborhood coming up that is aimed at employees of The Villages, I don’t see that happening. If the housing prices were half as high, or lower, that could bring in crime. My only worry about crime is building within Wildwood city limits, as Wildwood has much more crime. I wouldn’t want Wildwood drug addicts using drugs in the proposed park with trails connecting Wildwood with new villages or using those trails to get into these new villages and burgle homes. I would prefer a high wall with no entrance.