Community Formation in a Nascent Retirement Village

Abstract

Retirement communities are a rapidly growing phenomenon in the United States. These settings provide a variety of services and recreational activities to retired persons in an attempt to create an age-segregated community.

This study comprises an analysis of the community formation process in a nascent retirement community located in a midwestern state. The first three chapters describe the nature and types of retirement communities (Chapter 1), methods used to analyze community structure (Chapter 2), and previous studies (Chapter 3). The next four chapters describe the setting (Chapter 4), social structure (Chapter 5), services and supports (Chapter 6), and everyday life (Chapter 7) at the retirement community being studied. The concluding chapter (Chapter 8) provides an assessment of the community formation in light of the data described in earlier chapters.

The dissertation is based primarily on ethnographic data gathered over a sixteen month observation period. Other primary source materials include interviews with residents and management staff, as well as newspapers and journals, and contemporary published works.