Reality shows like “Jersey Shore” and “The Real Housewives of Some Godforsaken Backwater” will now have to compete with “Sunset Daze,” which follows some residents of an age-restricted, active retirement community in Surprise, Ariz. You have to be 55 or older (there is no upper limit) to buy a home there, and you have to know how to drive a golf cart at NASCAR speeds so you don’t waste an extra moment getting from one of the development’s myriad golf courses to one of their tennis courts, swimming pools or the nearest singles bar.
This suburb of Phoenix is in one of the fastest-growing areas in the country, the Southwest. No other places in this country are growing, are they? For the first time in years, Florida actually lost population last year. It may be the economy, or maybe Florida is full to the brim with retirees and can’t take any more – while Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico still have plenty of empty deserts to fill.
Plenty of room to build one-story houses free of hip-breaking stairs, with maintenance-free rock gardens instead of lawns to mow, without a snow shovel in sight, without roving gangs of self-centered, needy teens who think the world should stop when they walk into the mall. Surprise! Surprise doesn’t need them.
One of the selling points, besides all the golf, swimming, tennis, activities riff-raff-free lawns and sunshine is that local school taxes are low or non-existent. Why? Because no one under 55 is allowed to live there; who needs a school? Let the suckers up North pay for them. Then there’s the other big selling point, no screaming grandchildren. Oh, the grandkids can come and visit, but there’s nothing for them to do there, no kids their age to play with, so they want to leave almost as soon as they arrive. Many of these developments have rules that prohibit children under 18 for visiting more than 30 days a year. To some people this will sound like heaven, to others it will sound Scrooge-like beyond belief. But the folks that hate the idea of living in a place like this avoid doing so – the ones that do are all on the same coot wavelength. They don’t just like it, they love it.
