[sowtime444]

Spanish Springs has a revitalization plan to make it more like Brownwood. And the big Reina building is being turned into apartments. As long as there is re-investment in "older" areas I think The Villages will continue to do well. Of course sometimes it takes a lawsuit to spur that investment (First Responders Recreation Center, etc.).

Let's face it. We all like the *idea* of a cute little downtown with boutique shops to browse in, but as a tourist on vacation or a special occasion shopping trip, not somewhere where we shop on the regular. And restaurants in general have always been a tough business.

I also wonder what, if anything, will cause The Villages to lose its shine and favor in the top spot. Not maintaining and reinvesting in older areas is certainly one possibility, but I don't see that happening.

I think it will be larger shifts in the public consciousness. For example, home ownership. Right now lots of younger people prefer to rent things on a subscription than own them. A ZipCar membership is easier than maintaining your own car for example, if there is a ZipCar parking bay near where you live. These younger people will grow up and in 20 years might be thinking about retirement. Do they want to maintain their own house, hire the lawn service, pest service, fix stuff that breaks? Maybe The Villages will have to buy back some of their own homes that they built and manage them themselves as rentals. Or build more apartment buildings with communal ground-floors where people can gather and socialize with their neighbors indoors as well as out at the pool. Other trends besides home ownership might come into play, and The Villages may need to come up with much more varied models of neighborhoods. For example neighborhoods with community gardens, if that becomes more popular. Neighborhoods with native grasses and maintenance-free lawns instead of Florida grasses from hell. They might need to knock down some older houses to make way for such new developments. But I'm talking farther in the future. If they don't change and grow with the times, The Villages will become a less attractive place to be.

It is easy to look at The Villages and ponder what we would do differently if we started from scratch today. I have my own list:
- There are over 100 pools in The Villages but only two of them are zero-entry and only a dozen or so are of any decent size. There are also too few of them in the north. If I were a billionaire I would build an entire water park. Maybe even one of those inland beaches that they are building near Tampa. At least a lazy river!
- I would have made rec centers and the surrounding grounds a lot bigger, to accommodate all sorts of sports at each location. I know this is heathenistic but the amount of golf here takes up way too much real estate.
- I would have left a lot more trees in place. No shaded walking trails in the north is a big bummer.

Of course even with the resources, if I were to start to build the above, there wouldn't be enough people moving there right away to establish 3,000+ clubs that The Villages has. And that "first mover" advantage is huge.

If rising sea levels really start to claim the coasts, that will just force more Floridians into places like The Villages, so I think it's popularity will remain high even if adverse global weather starts to creep up, at least temporarily. Of course if Florida in its entirety is under water that is a different story.