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xchrom

(108,903 posts) Fri Jun 27, 2014, 06:58 AM Jun 2014

Fastest-Growing Metro Area in U.S. Has No Crime or Kids

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-27/fastest-growing-metro-area-in-u-s-has-no-crime-or-kids.html

For Jerry Conkle, life in America’s fastest-growing metropolitan area moves as slowly as the golf carts that meander through his palm-lined neighborhood at dusk. Most days, he wakes early, reads the newspaper, and then hops into his four-wheeled buggy for a 20-mile-per-hour ride to one of the 42 golf courses that surround his home.

“It’s like an adult Disney World,” Conkle, 77, said of The Villages, Florida, whose expansion has come with virtually no crime, traffic, pollution -- or children.

The mix has attracted flocks of senior citizens, making The Villages the world’s largest retirement community. Its population of 110,000 has more than quadrupled since 2000, U.S. Census Bureau data show. It rose 5.2 percent last year, on par with megacities like Lagos, Nigeria, and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

That the most rapidly expanding U.S. metro area is a Manhattan-sized retirement village -- with more golf carts than New York has taxis -- highlights the transformation of the world’s demographic profile. The over-60 set -- which the United Nations projects will almost triple to 2 billion by 2050 -- offers opportunity to marketers and homebuilders even as it confounds governments that must care for an aging populace.

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Fastest-Growing Metro Area in U.S. Has No Crime or Kids (Original Post) xchrom Jun 2014 OP

No visible crime, that is. hobbit709 Jun 2014 #1

It is also has the largest consumption of Viagra liberal N proud Jun 2014 #2

Very conservative place - Rick Scott likes to do bill signing events there, they are his sort of djean111 Jun 2014 #3

All hail H. Gary Morse. TheCowsCameHome Jun 2014 #4

No crime except white collar crimes. FSogol Jun 2014 #5

Sounds to me like a giant GATED community. You don't live there if you don't have enough money KittyWampus Jun 2014 #6

It is not an expensive place hack89 Jun 2014 #10

I guess they won't live long enough for sea level rise to kick them out. n/t n2doc Jun 2014 #7

Look! It's the Village People! dixiegrrrrl Jun 2014 #8

The Villages is a weird place mcar Jun 2014 #9

and it's huge! Phentex Jun 2014 #11

the Villages is where this happened Enrique Jun 2014 #12

oh, the place where STI's are running rampant? nt. uncle ray Jun 2014 #13

Looks like the set from the British sci-fi series elias49 Jun 2014 #14

All old white cult is what it is, some white folk like to be imprisoned for safety, all of America Fred Sanders Jun 2014 #15

It's a really weird place, even for us Floridians. Tommy_Carcetti Jun 2014 #16

Funny I didn't see a single person packing an AK-47 or an AR-15 so how could there Bandit Jun 2014 #17

Knowing the Villages, I'm sure there are plenty of well-armed citizens. Tommy_Carcetti Jun 2014 #20

How do their children live, who ultimately must support this? That will be a hint as to its Romulox Jun 2014 #18

This is good, keep them all in one place snooper2 Jun 2014 #19

hobbit709

(41,694 posts)

1. No visible crime, that is.