Age 55 or better: active adult communities and city planning

Active adult, age-restricted communities are significant to urban history and city planning. As communities that ban the permanent residence of children under the age of nineteen with senior zoning overlays, they are unique experiments in social planning. While they do not originate the concept of the common interest community with its shared amenities, the residential golf course community, or the gated community, Sun Cities and Leisure Worlds do a lot to popularize those physical planning concepts. The first age-restricted community, Youngtown, AZ, opened in 1954. Inspired by amenity-rich trailer courts in Florida, Del Webb added the “active adult” element when he opened Sun City, AZ, in 1960. Two years later, Ross Cortese opened the first of his gated Leisure Worlds. By the twenty-first century, these “lifestyle” communities had proliferated and had expanded their appeal to around 18 percent of retirees, along with influencing the design of intergenerational communities.