Posted on 10/05/2009 5:57:56 PM PDT by Lorianne
They represent a migration that turns conventional wisdom on its head. Urban planners have until now proceeded on the assumption that retiring baby boomers will downsize to a high-rise and spend their days lapping lattes and taking the streetcar to the art museum.
A lot of them will. But new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture says baby boomers will head to the country in big numbers, in the Northwest changing the face of rural Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
And it's not just because the 83 million boomer generation is the largest in U.S. history and all of their movements are out-sized. Demographers are talking about a genuine "deconcentration" of population near metro centers. Urban areas will see a net loss of people age 55 to 75, while in non-metro areas that age group will increase by 1.6 million nationally during the next 10 years.
Migrating boomers will have an especially deep impact on small towns and rural counties on the outer ring of Oregon's metro areas. If you're the economic development director of a small town in a scenic setting, researchers say, you'd be better off developing golf courses and bike trails than competing with every other city to lure the next big manufacturing plant. While you're at it, make sure your medical facilities are up to date.
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
Obviously I should have worded my critique more carefully.
I meant no disrespect to current military or veterans.
Father served on USS Chopper submarine WWII
Brother 1 Served US Navy, Stationed In Saigon during Vietnam
Brother 2 Served USMC peace time.
Just always wondered why such a pervasive social change came in the late 60’s
Again, my apologies
TW
In less than 10 years, the ‘big’ American cities will make “Omega Man” or post-apocoliptic movies look like a sunshine and roses look a the future...
I agree with you 100%! Some of the people on this thread are downright nasty like we are all liberals. Almost everyone I have met that has retired here in Oklahoma is a conservative. I don’t think liberals want to move to a state that only voted 34% for ZERO.
What makes them think we were hippies. I detested the hippies and worked for the Air Force as did many of my friends. None of my friends were hippies or anti-war. I hung out with the military and civilians that were pro-military.
A lot of us helped elect Ronald Reagan and were part of the volunteer force behind the people elected by the Contract With America. Most of us have been Conservative for years and years. I have been a Republican since I registered to vote and before then a Teenage Republican. Always leaned Conservative. I resent big time some of the comments and called names from one poster.
I have lived in rural areas or small towns most of my life and now live in Norman on the outskirts so it is still like a rural area. I have cattle grazing less then two blocks from my home and see them everytime I leave the house.
Oklahomans will be glad to welcome Boomer Conservatives to Oklahoma to make our state even more RED.
Yep. And you'd better like the way Mom brews it, or you're SOL. LOL
Boomer parents had kids. Boomers did not.
Funny how that comes back to bite you in the ass. I agree that Boomers aren’t going to live as long as their parents did. I just hope we can fix most of what’s wrong before things go too far!
Some of us have decided to take a pay cut and get out while the getting is good. We did that 23 years ago, landing on some acres that would allow us self sufficency if necessary. We could have made a lot more money had we gone to a large coastal city... but wouldn’t live like that.
We are conservative. We don’t want the city crap, the dirt, the hostility, the “services” that are provided, that is why we are HERE and not THERE. We accept and support the volunteer fire department. We volunteer with our community. If push comes to shove, we have good neighbors who we can support, and who will support us. We also fight the creeping liberalism.
Many of us know the crash is coming, and you can’t grow a garden in the 100 square foot condo yard, or help house your kids and grandkids in a 2 bedroom apartment. That it is the “boomers” who are leaving may mean that they are now financially stable enough to be able to do so. Or just wise enough to see what is ahead.
The fed and the state will artifically determine your miles driven and impose the implied taxes you failed to pay to upkeep the roads.
Generalities about the "Boomers" are gonna kill this thread.
Yes, there is a certain segment of Boomers who delayed marriage and children for so long, that they lost the race with Father Time, and will forever be childless.
Naturally, most of them are of a liberal bent. I've known quite a few, and counted a lot as friends. They got that one thing completely wrong, and their politics, as well. I feel sorry for them.
I've known an equal or greater number of Boomers who went the other way, and raised families, started businesses, vote conservative, etc. I've done all three, and was a long-haired teen in the flower power generation.
Not all of us got it wrong.
Crap man!
We’ve been sucked dry and just want to find a place we can afford!
I lived for 16 years in the country outside of a small town. I hated it. the people acted friendly only long enough to find out something about you so they could go and gossip. We still own a ranch there and my husband raises cattle but I wouldn’t live there again for anything.
As a Midwestern Boomer and former 1960's jock-turned-hippie-turned-conservative libertarian, let me tell you (1) A lot of us saw the light and (2) Who the heck wants to live with all the wackos out west or east for that matter?
I’m 54 and have done my share of drugs when younger, but never a Leftist. Now, still competitive in electronic design & picking back up on weight training using a York set with the big plates. I plan to be around a while.
Lifespan is increasing right now because we are in the last act of an unrealistic economy. That is, that since WWII, the US has been spending beyond its means, raising vast amounts of debt, to do all sorts of things we couldn’t have done otherwise.
But by itself, we could have gotten away with it a while longer, except that we compounded the unrealistic spending. Using the excessive spending itself to create the illusion that our means were greater than they really were.
Look at health care. Place a sliding scale on it as if it was based on cash, not insurance or government subsidy; but if you got a broken arm, it was up to you to pay the full cost of that broken arm.
Some 70% or more of our health care spending is typically spent on people “in the last four years of their lives”, which means a lot of things, but should be looked at for its face value.
Mostly that instead of throwing around vast sums of money on these people, nobody is going to subsidize them. This slashes the amount of medical care they are going to get. So they die quicker, and the life expectancy drops.
Put that template over the 83 million baby boomers, and a lot of them are going to have to accept the fact that if they get an expensive disease, they are going to have to live, and die with it. Because they can’t afford it, and nobody else can, either.
This shows why "urban planning" is right up there on an intellectual par with "Womyns Studies." If these idiot academics had ever bothered to interview some real live actual "older people," they would have discoverd that by retirement age most have long since outgrown that pretentious adolescent rubbish.
Lattes and art museums indeed. Nobody does that crap anymore but divorced menopausal liberal uglies. And then only until they get over themselves and get a life.
I hear-by challenge EVERY FREEPER who has not made a donation to Free Republic to make a donation of just $10 and see what happens to the Freep-A-Thon!
I would think that every Freeper could donate at least $10 to help keep FR up and running! :)
They do that here too.
LOL! Yeah, you're speaking about my ex-next-door neighbor. San Diego boy, comes up, gets ripped off for 3 acres and a house that's like something out of an M.C. Escher painting, craps all over the neighborhood, gets his Escalade stuck in a ditch at the first sprinkling of snowfall (California street tires in Northern Idaho?), has his new generator buried under four feet of snow (they don't work so well like that), runs screaming back to Southern California when he hasn't seen the sun in a month, and promptly dies there. He actually was a reasonably nice guy to me but the rest of the locals were for lynching the poor bastidge.
Mind you, I have nothing wrong with somebody who is willing to adapt. But a lot of them think a sufficient amount of money will force the country to adapt to them. It doesn't work like that.
Don't you get it? Nobody over the age of 60 gives a sweet sh*t about Starbucks. We are all old enough to know that better coffee is found at MickeyD's for a lot less money. Starbucks is for 30-something jerkoff artists who like to pose as adults.
Waddia talking about?
We don't have enough jobs for the people we have, and we're told to save water, gas, electricity..Our cities, highways, schools and hospitals are jammed and you suggest more people will help?
lol...
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