Building Connection through Housing
As Gen X and Boomers Age, They Confront Living Alone (New York Times)
Do me a favor and if you were born before 1980, read this article. However you define Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, we are two generations that are living alone and not been giving enough options for housing. I am in the age bracket they are writing about, and I do live alone, and I do think about who’s gonna take care of me when I retire and do need to remind myself to be social. Now don’t get me wrong, living alone with two dogs and being able to do my own thing is quite fantastic, but this article brings up some good thoughts on what conversations we need to behaving with ourselves and our community. Do we know what we are going do when we retire? Are we preparing for a stronger housing stock with housing choice? Do we know how we will manage a number of retirees without family support? Culturally, how do we help each other versus making it worse through bad policy?
Loneliness is an epidemic in our country. We are creatures that need to be social but yet we constantly build to separate and sit in a car to do something. When will we see we need each other and we need access to each other and not in a phone or text but a simple wave and a hug?
The 26 million people living by themselves in the USA is quite the group. What’s worse is that we didn’t create good housing options for the folks that don’t need that much space or do want to live in a community but there are no options in their area. The families that need the 2500 sqft house are making do in a smaller home with the longer commute while the empty nester that lives in the big house worries how they will fix their roof and where they can downsize their way to happiness. Divorce rates are way up. All of these point are excellent. Funny enough there’s not the right housing stock to match. This hits home with me since I was born in 1980 and I do live alone BUT I live in a pocket neighborhood. I’ve already seen the benefits of the cottage community and I do think about where my age group falls within their age categories (even though there’s always a debate of where 1980 actually lies whether we are Gen X or millennial) the fact we don’t have the housing to match this new population is scary. Because I’m in the same boat I’m in my 40s, I live alone, but luckily for me, I live in a house that affords me the ability to interact with others.
