[eweissenbach]

by Judith Trolander. Just finished reading this book - took me three or four weeks because I would read 50 pages or so, then put it down and not find myself motivated to pick it back up for several days or a week. The author is a professor at Minnesota-Duluth, and it is a scholarly, very well researched piece as you might expect. She credits Del Webb and Ross Cortese in the early sixties with the pioneering of the "active retirement community" we know today. It is not an easy read IMO, and the author repeats herself so often as to make it distracting. It has more information than the average person would really care to know, and keeps repeating it. She quotes Andrew Blechman, author of "Leasureville" liberally, as there have apparently been relatively few books written on the subject. While her book is very thorough, it has very few human interest stories, I found it rather boring and hard to read. Having read this, and Leasureville, I found Leasureville to be the more entertaining and well written, since it was authored by a professional journalist, as opposed to an academic, though some of Blechman's conclusions were flawed and his stories a bit contrived. Just one persons opinion.

[manaboutown]

Hi Ed, Yes, I initiated a thread on this book on 4/29/13 and you posted on the thread on 5/21/13, if I recall correctly.

Glad to hear you read it! Like you, I thought it a tedious read but I found it to be highly informative about the history of 55 and over communities. I am glad I bought it and retain it as a reference. Del Webb and Ross Cortese were true pioneers and literally invented many of the features built into such communities today. The developers of The Villages incorporated and improved upon many of their ideas.

[gomoho]

So spare me the expense and time of reading this book. Did these active retirement communities start in Arizona? When we were in our 50's (early 2000) and travelling in our RV the difference between retirement in Florida and retirement in any of the western states was obvious. We concluded the difference was the vast opportunity for outdoor activities in the west that were obviously missing in the east. Full disclosure - during this time we only drove by TV - did not spend anytime; however, we did spend a good deal of time in other costal retirement communities.

[eweissenbach]

Originally Posted by gomoho

So spare me the expense and time of reading this book. Did these active retirement communities start in Arizona? When we were in our 50's (early 2000) and travelling in our RV the difference between retirement in Florida and retirement in any of the western states was obvious. We concluded the difference was the vast opportunity for outdoor activities in the west that were obviously missing in the east. Full disclosure - during this time we only drove by TV - did not spend anytime; however, we did spend a good deal of time in other costal retirement communities.

Youngtown near Phoenix was the first dedicated retirement community developed in the fifties. It was not ultimately successful, but Del Webb subsequently developed Sun City next to Youngtown and the amenity rich golf course community was born beginning in 1960. Ross Cotese developed several communities in California under the Leisure World umbrella at approximately the same time in the early sixties.