On the one hand, Obamacare just got a boost. On the other, the U.S. tax base is about to implode (bad news for growth-economists). There are so many implications from this, like the suburbs will empty even further and the need for nursing homes will increase exponentially. There won’t be much new land development, which I suppose is good news for environmentalists.

Living to age 90 is a worthy goal Americans are increasingly meeting. The number of people age 90 and older almost tripled from 720,000 people in 1980 to 1.9 million in 2010, according to a new Census Bureau report. And the 90-plus population is expected to more than quadruple between 2010 and 2050. Here’s a look at what life is like in the United States after age 90.

More women. Between 2006 and 2008, about three-quarters (74 percent) of the 90-and-older population were women. In 2006, life expectancy at age 65 was 19.7 years for women and 17 years for men. Women also experienced more rapid improvements in life expectancy than men between 1929 and 2006. Over the past eight decades, older women have added almost seven years to their life expectancy, or a 54 percent extension, compared with 5.3 years for men, a 45 percent extension. Among the age 90-and-older population, there are just 35 men for every 100 women. After age 95, there is approximately one man for every four women.

Married men and single women. Most women who make it to age 90 (84 percent) are widows. Only 6.3 percent of women in this age group are married. On the other hand, 43 percent of 90-something men are married and about half are widowers. “Women tend to marry older men. Traditionally, there is a four- to five-year age difference,” says Wan He, a Census Bureau demographer and co-author of the report. “When they get to age 90-plus, older men are very difficult to find.”

Living alone. Just over a third (37 percent) of people in their 90s live alone. About the same number of people (37 percent) live in a household with family members or unrelated individuals.

Read the rest at USNews

The “silver tsunami” — the ongoing surge of millions of baby boomers into the ranks of senior citizenry — began last year when the first boomers celebrated their 65^th birthday. For the next 20 years, another 10,000 will turn 65 every single day. By 2030, almost one of five Americans — some 72 million people — will be elderly, at least by conventional definition.

MinnPost

Excellent story from USNews.

usnews:

Suburbs May be Losing Their Luster to Home Buyers.

“Many dwellings built during the boom years—whether now offered for sale by banks or homeowners wishing to move—are in the wrong locations or badly configured,” Peter Morici, professor of economics at the University of Maryland, wrote in an E-mail. “Much of that housing was premised on cheap energy—far from jobs and requiring long commutes and expensive to heat.”

“Most cities, looking at shrinking budgets, cannot afford to subsidize or knock down ailing malls, and healthy retailers that are expanding — like H&M and Nordstrom Rack — generally will not open at depressed locations. So, as though they were upholstering polyester chairs from the 1960s with Martha Stewart fabric, urban planners and community activists are trying to spruce up and rethink the uses of many of the artifacts.

Schools, medical clinics, call centers, government offices and even churches are now standard tenants in malls. By hanging a curtain to hide the food court, the Galleria in Cleveland, which opened in 1987 with about 70 retailers and restaurants, rents space for weddings and other events. Other malls have added aquariums, casinos and car showrooms.

Designers in Buffalo have proposed stripping down a mall to its foundation and reinventing it as housing, while an aspiring architect in Detroit has proposed turning a mall’s parking lot there into a community farm. Columbus, Ohio, arguing that it was too expensive to maintain an empty mall on prime real estate, dismantled its City Center mall and replaced it with a park.”

NYTimes

This is from one of my top favorite tumblr-ers, MinnPost. Their local coverage is incredibly strong and passionate. These folks could teach the aging Boston Globe a thing or three. Here, they cover (surprise!) actual goings on in their neighborhoods. Flight from the suburbs creates inequality for local folks, and in turn becomes a looming shadowy problem for cities and politicians. Those very politicians are way behind the curve with respect to understanding constituent’s needs. For instance, I’m Gen-X, and there’s no way in hell I’m buying a home anytime soon. Anyway, MinnPost covers two local movies about local suburban problems (pssst, MinnPost, can I watch? Send me a link, please?).

Didn’t get to that see the movies or join in the community discussion about waning inner-ring suburbs here at home as well as across the nation, or learn how they’re handling their problems?

Well, here’s the reel replay: both “The New Metropolis” and its sibling, “New Metropolis Minnesota,” will be aired on Twin Cities Public Television, tpt, starting at 8 p.m. Sunday May 1. 

For a sense of the issues and the mood, this is what “New Metropolis” filmmaker Andrea Torrice told me in a phone interview last month: 

“I’m very concerned about all the communities in America, the way we are growing and the way we are becoming more unequal, both economically and in terms of racial segregation,” Torrice said.  

(via minnpost)