A blueprint for aging boomers

What will the aging of the baby-boom generation mean for America's communities? Will the folks whose sheer numbers and market mastery brought us endless subdivisions, monster malls and life in the SUV lane want to keep sprawling out in the ample swath of golden years that modern medicine seems to promise them?

Or will many want a return to the more walkable, accessible town and neighborhood settings of yesteryear?

The questions pop out from a read of a new "Blueprint for Action" on how smart communities can adjust to and capitalize on the oncoming tidal wave of seniors, prepared by Partners for Livable Communities for the MetLife Foundation and the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging. The report was released in Washington last month (www.aginginplaceinitiative.org).

The overwhelming number of seniors, it notes, won't be moving off to the Sunbelt (if they're not already there) or be residents in nursing homes. Most will choose to "age in place," in the same homes or close to the same communities they've lived in for years.

But needs often shift at 65-plus — or if not then, 75-plus or 85-plus. Physical strength and reactions wane; eventually, most seniors either can't or shouldn't be driving. Friends, doctors' offices, stores, places of entertainment all become harder to reach. The big house becomes excess space. A home may need new "accessibility" features such as wider doors or grab bars.

So localities, the new blueprint advocates, had better think hard about town planning and services that "aging in place" scenarios will be requiring.

A major target: post-World War II zoning codes that often make it literally illegal to re-create the intimate, mixed-use neighborhoods that marked all of earlier American history. Large minimum lot sizes, setting buildings back from street lines, the separating of residences, shops and offices, and requiring more-than-ample parking — all push us further and further apart.

So communities now need to look to an 180-degree turn — new land-use plans and zoning codes that actually encourage residences within easy walking and biking distance of such basic amenities as food markets, drug stores, cafes, banks and parks. Seniors then could have a normal life, even without a car.

A big potential: widening the supply of "accessory dwelling units" — also called "granny flats" or "mother-in-law apartments." These small upstairs and backyard units, spaced correctly for one or two people, were common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in towns both large and small. But they've been opposed in recent years by neighbors complaining they'll bring renters or undesirable people into communities, or create parking problems.

Enough already! Seniors can be tenants of such units attached to homes occupied by children or relatives. Or if they still own their homes, seniors can carve out and rent space in them to others, sometimes in exchange for household duties. Or if there's a garage in back, convert it to rental space for a young single person and pick up some extra income.

The new Blueprint includes a raft of new strategies for seniors. Richmond, Va., is among the communities that have instituted "walkability audits" to identify correctable barriers such as short pedestrian crossing cycles or broken sidewalks. For seniors who do still drive, the Michigan Department of Transportation has cut back on injurious crashes through brighter stoplights and larger street-name signs.

Refresher driving courses for older adults, more-flexible transit services, training of law-enforcement officers to detect and report elder abuse — the Blueprint list is extensive. It goes on to include arts and culture programs that involve people of all ages, training for computer literacy, a major emphasis on civic engagement, including seniors meeting to define community priorities and volunteering for counseling and mentoring of schoolchildren.

On the health front, the report lists exercise and active-living programs and a single areawide point of entry for information about services ranging from transportation to doctors' offices to home health care.

About the only recommendation that made me recoil was special property-tax exemptions for seniors, school taxes included. Bad idea! In this age of Medicare and Social Security, it's more often young working families who are caught in the worst fiscal squeeze. Anyway, the point is not to make seniors a privileged class. It's to create full communities in which seniors are full, living partners with us all.

Neal Peirce's column appears alternate Mondays on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is nrp@citistates.com