Daily Real Estate News  |  October 12, 2009  |   Boomers Aren't Choosing Urban Retirement
Part of the prevailing wisdom of the now-late-lamented housing boom was the theory that baby boomers were ready to trade in their suburban ranch houses for an urban retreat, thus saving themselves from lawn maintenance and automobiles.

Now many of the condos that were built in urban centers in anticipation of that happening are sitting vacant.

“Someone who grew up living in 2,500 square feet with a driveway leading up to the front door isn't going to downsize to 850 square feet until he's ready for assisted living," says Joel Kotkin, a scholar on urban development who wrote The City: A Global History. "The new urbanists convinced the idiot development community there was going to be this massive move that never happened."

Do these empty buildings further doom the future of cities? Maybe not. "I wouldn't write off a storybook ending yet," says University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith. "It just depends on how many chapters it takes to get there."

Source: Orlando Sentinel, Mike Thomas (10/11/2009)