I had never heard of The Villages before driving through this area of Florida in February 2023. The Villages is a huge, active, over 55 retirement community that’s larger than Manhattan and covers three Florida counties.
It has over 54 golf courses, 70 pools, 3,000 social clubs, golf cart paths that parallel each standard road, immaculately kept grounds, and themed small-town squares built in Disney-like fashion that are loaded with bars, restaurants, and shopping. A lot of people (over 130,000 in fact) don’t just call the area home, they call it paradise. After all, it provides a lot of important things that studies show are needed to age well – plenty of mental and physical activities and social opportunities.
On the other hand, there’s a Stepford Wives feeling that it’s just too perfect. Some might say, fake.
There’s no doubt that the bright golf carts whizzing past carrying the Villagers (as they like to be called) to happy hour, book clubs, quilting, or pickleball sounds like the way everyone should be able to live out their retirement. But the pumped-in, feel-good music, the ambulances that turn off their sirens when in the community, and the unmarked funeral cars to make sure everyone’s at their happiest, feels off kilter. The main newspaper and a radio station are produced by the developer with Fox News leanings and has been criticized by many. Lastly, the demographics show there’s little to no diversity – retired, Caucasian, and overwhelmingly republican. This insular community is called “the bubble” for a reason. People who live here don’t need to leave the community as everything is provided, and many don’t want to because in “the real world ” they find they suddenly feel old (when not surrounded by everyone their age or older) and on top of that, they’re faced with bad (or simply real) world news.
Doug watched an interesting 2021 documentary on The Villages called “The Bubble” on YouTube by writer/director Valerie Blankenbyl, if you’re curious to learn more. One thing Blankenbyl said about her experience in making the documentary that’s stuck with me is that she feels the bigger issue is that our society hasn’t really created any better options for seniors.
Doug and I agreed that while the activities sounded fun, we want to settle in a more diverse community with kids, parents, and people from different backgrounds. We think there’s more to learn from these interactions than there are from scheduled Villager ones.
Anyway, the whole social experiment is thought provoking. It’s worth examining what may be your own bubble. It’s worth thinking about the constructs and people we each surround ourselves with or exclude. Your life might not currently look like the Villagers, but there still could be a bubble or two worth bursting.
