"Welcome to Florida" podcast on The Villages
 

Welcome to Florida: The Villages • St Pete Catalyst

They interview the author of "Leisureville" so expect quite the slant and agenda.

Interesting comments about TV taking over the local governments.

That dialogue is filled with misinformation, disinformation, urban myth, nonsense and bias.

I thought the podcast was great and it was nice to hear Blechman talk about The Villages. He agreed that almost all of the people here love this place.

At the end, he admitted TV has been very successful but he thought our life style would not be "tenable" in the long term.

Do you have any idea why he thinks that? Maybe he thinks young people are used to more diversity and would not want to live in a community like ours where people are all pretty much the same.

Or perhaps the younger aren't saving any money. I've seen some crazy numbers showing how much people have saved for retirement. Never afford this place in a few years.

I think he makes reference to it when talking about Sun City in AZ.
The residents will vote down any increase in taxes that doesn’t serve them. So no money for schools or road improvements or police, etc.
Also, the demographic bubble of Baby Boomers will shift and there won’t be enough people to fill the houses. In 20 years or so there won’t be enough 55+ people to fill the vacancies.

He also wrote a book called Leisureville about the Villages.

Thanks for addressing my question. Your answers make a lot of sense.

Of course, most people do not want any tax increases that do not serve them.

The Villages is planning to develop the Rick Scott Industrial Area and a new medical center just south of Monarch Grove, so maybe our supreme leaders are trying to plan for the era when there are not enough 55+ people to keep our community growing.

Anyway, I liked the book Leisureville, I liked hearing Blechman talk, and we love living in The Villages.

To the OP, thanks for the heads up on this podcast. The more information we can get before moving, regardless of the particular bias or slant (which is pretty easy to discern), the better.

That book brought me to visit TV the first time as I had never heard of The Villages. I visited a few other 55+ communities in central Florida on its east and west coasts on that trip but found TV offered the most in many ways.