Florida’s Planned Retirement Communities: Marketing Age, Religion, Ethnicity and Lifestyle

Abstract

Much of Florida’s significant growth, both demographically and economically, can be attributed to a large elderly migration stream from the Northeast and Midwest. This chapter first discusses the development of large scale, planned retirement communities such as Century Village, Greater Sun City, and The Villages. Some retirement communities directed their marketing efforts to the general retiree market. Others targeted specific population groups, such as Jews, Catholics, Finns, gays, and various occupational groups. While most elderly Floridians do not live in these large scale communities, their marketing efforts boosted the state’s population as a whole. A major contention then is that, while Florida would have developed into a major retirement center under any circumstances, the large scale developments like Century Village acted as a significant catalyst to the expansion of the elderly population. Next, this chapter examines the significant social service, economic, and political impacts of the three million elderly Florida residents. Note that while the development of competitive retirement communities in other states and the recession of 2008–2009 have somewhat slowed this growth, the impending retirement of the baby boom generation should result in another significant wave of retirees in the next decade.