Boomers in Paradise

Have you noticed that the people in the ads for Florida retirement communities are usually just goofing off? Sure, they’re having a good time—shopping, sailing, sunset-watching, whatever—but what does it all amount to? A nonstop schedule of fun and games will turn your brain into oatmeal after a while, and that is a terrible waste. Florida retirees are among the most talented people in America. They have money, brains, good health and time. They should be doing something more worthwhile than riding around in golf carts.

Fortunately, few of the actual people who retire to Sarasota fit into the marketing stereotype. More are like Mike Mahon, 65, who was an oil company executive in Singapore when he and his wife went looking for a retirement destination. “We made a list of all the things we wanted—warm winters, water, good healthcare, no big-city hassles, and an airport,” he says. “Being near a university was also a big deal for us. We visited a lot of places, and Sarasota did these things better than anywhere else.”

Mahon tried to goof off when he moved to Sarasota, but he failed. A friend invited him to check out the Lifelong Learning Academy at the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus, and one thing led to another. Now he has spent six years on the academy’s board, the last two as its president. The academy itself has grown from offering two classes in 1995 to 180 in 2010-11. It has a few paid staffers, but volunteers do the teaching and planning. “Our teachers are retired executives and Ph.D.s,” says Mahon. “Many of the students are, too. The depth of experience in this organization just knocks me out. And everyone really wants to learn.”

Sarasota’s Lifelong Learning community is going to get a lot bigger, because it is an early ripple in a new wave of Florida retirees. People who will move to Sarasota in the next decade will be more educated and healthier than previous generations were. They will be more focused on realizing specific, personal goals, and they will usually succeed by relying on a lifetime of good habits—things like networking, flexibility and an eagerness to embrace new ideas. They’re baby boomers.

The baby-boom generation happened when births in the United States rose sharply at the end of World War II and stayed high until 1964. As a result, one-quarter of the U.S. population in 2011 is packed into the ages of 47 to 65.

Boomers are exceptional for their numbers, but also for their training. Most of them attended college, making them the most educated generation in American history. They have been creating consumer markets and redefining every stage of life they pass through since 1947, the year they made Howdy Doody a star. Their next act will be to retire the idea of retirement.

Fortunately for Sarasota, boomers share one important thing with previous generations. They still dream of taking it easy in places that are warm, sunny and near open water. Some boomers will happily buy into the golf-and-cocktails lifestyle, too. After all, there are 77 million of them, so a few should be interested in just about anything you could name. But most boomers will never see themselves in the current crop of retirement ads. There are two reasons why.  

The first is the Great Recession. When the bottom dropped out of the U.S. economy in 2007, millions of middle-aged Americans were knocked off the path to retirement. Most working-age families in the United States are no longer on track to retire at age 65, according to Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research—a big change from a few years ago. Even among high-income households, 42 percent were falling short in 2009. And most households that do have enough assets to retire will not be able to move until they sell their houses. So even though home prices are low in Sarasota, don’t expect too many people to move here in the next few years from New York City, Denver, St. Louis, or other markets where houses aren’t selling.