Comments on: Trading your yard for a hip downtown loft? http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/news/trading-your-yard-for-a-hip-downtown-loft Public Policy Research Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:41:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Steve@Pioneer http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/news/trading-your-yard-for-a-hip-downtown-loft#comment-1271 Steve@Pioneer Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:44:10 +0000 http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/?p=638#comment-1271 I've regularly heard this meme about retired people moving into cities. Its a key component of MAPC's MetroFutures projections. And the Globe can be relied on for a thrice yearly feature on "empty nesters moving to the South End". But I'm not sure the data is there. And I also think its an end-run around education issues. To be frank, there's a mobile corps of upper middle class parents who leave the cities (if they ever went there in the first place) because of the quality, or perceived quality of the schools. Moving in retired people frees you from addressing this problem. And the last two folks I heard espousing the 'retired people to the cities' notion at MetroFutures were from Sherborn and Hamilton. I'll wait until they are from Lynn and Brockton before I believe it. I’ve regularly heard this meme about retired people moving into cities. Its a key component of MAPC’s MetroFutures projections. And the Globe can be relied on for a thrice yearly feature on “empty nesters moving to the South End”.

But I’m not sure the data is there. And I also think its an end-run around education issues. To be frank, there’s a mobile corps of upper middle class parents who leave the cities (if they ever went there in the first place) because of the quality, or perceived quality of the schools. Moving in retired people frees you from addressing this problem.

And the last two folks I heard espousing the ‘retired people to the cities’ notion at MetroFutures were from Sherborn and Hamilton. I’ll wait until they are from Lynn and Brockton before I believe it.

]]>