I live in one of those communities you find so unappealing. Florida is full of them. The old-timers (mostly working-class retirees) live here BECAUSE there are no young people, which means no teen-agers, loud music, street crime, racing muscle cars, couches on porches, refrigerators in the front yard, cars on blocks on the street, or gunfire. The surrounding neighborhoods, similar in architecture and layout, but without these restrictions, are slums. The old timers here are not trying to abandon their grand kids, their children have pretty much abandoned them as families split up and travel to where the jobs are. These neighborhoods are not the cause of community collapse, they're the result of it. The problem with affluence is that people give up everything else chasing it. And the left-over people get nothing. If you want a nice Wally Cleaver house and neighborhood you have to shell out almost a megabuck in S. Florida, hoi polloi have to rent, double up, or go condo. It's the American Dream from hell.

An unexpected bonus of this arrangement is that since only 55 and older can live here, the houses, which would be ideal for young families, can't be sold to them. With half the normal buyers ruled out, and with the residents dying off at an alarming rate, it's a buyer's market and housing prices are about half what they would be for comparable housing in other parts of town, all else being equal. This is great if you're a retiree, or close to retirement and a first-time homeowner like myself.

I moved here 8 years ago, but fortunately, my wife is older than I and she qualified. The place is under seige, though, with real estate prices skyrocketing, people are constantly trying to sneak in (often keeping their kids hidden indoors, or pretending their live-in token oldtimer is the only adult) to avoid the deed restrictions. The Homeowner's Association has lawyers to run them off, but there is pressure to abolish the system since business is now complaining that people can't afford to live in S. Florida at the salaries they're willing to pay them. Of course, if they succeed in making 55+ illegal, the house prices here will double overnight anyway, solving nothing. I would not have been able to afford a 15 year mortgage in this town on a County employee's salary without this system. And with any luck, the system will hold together until just before I'm ready to retire to the RustBelt where real estate is cheap because there are no jobs at all.

I have no problems with this. Kids and young adults are not forbidden here, they can come visit, even spend summers with gramps, they just can't reside here year-round. The price I pay for this is that if I should move, I won't be able to sell my house for what comparable houses sell outside the neighborhood. And I can't afford to replace my house anywhere else in town without doubling my mortgage. I won't be able to retire on what I get for the house and move to where there are no jobs and real estate is cheap. I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about all this, the system has been in place here since way before I moved here.

To make a long story short, economics is destroying family and community. It's the price we pay for cheap, imported consumer goods and a service economy, and plenty of illegal immigrants to keep salaries down.

As for what I would do to counteract this trend? I can do nothing. All I can hope is that I can keep my job and my health long enough to be able to retire and escape, hopefully before business gets its way and redevelops the land. There's already been talk of the city I live in eminent domaining my neighborhood out of existence and replacing 500 perfectly nice suburban homes with 900 high-density units. Mondo Condo. Rents go up, quality of life goes down, property tax revenues go up, developers and contractors get rich, every body makes out except the pensioners and widows who live here.