By Steve Moran

‘We’re Not Dead Yet.’ Baby Boomers’ Good Times Drive the Economy.

Headline from a July 6, 2024, article in the Wall Street Journal. It goes on to talk about Sun City Texas, an active adult community in Georgetown, Texas, the fastest-growing city in the U.S. Sun City’s current population is a bit over 17,000, and the median age is 73.

The city of Georgetown (pop 96,000) loves having Sun City as a part of the community. The town’s financial health is as good as it has ever been. It has a brimming rainy day fund. And Sun City is good for businesses because these residents carry with them money to spend.

What They Did

Here is what Sun City Texas is doing — what they have been doing for something like 65 years now. They created a vibrant community that says, “Come live your best life here.” Then they set out to create a platform where residents, not life enrichment directors, have the freedom and the resources to create experiences that meet the needs of the people living there.

While there is a bit of “done for you” in Sun City, it is mostly done with you, or done with resources the community provides to make it easier for people to do it themselves.

They have figured out what 65+ people with some affluence want for the rest of their lives.

In my late 20s and early 30s I spent some time knocking around Sun City in Southern California (I think the second one built). I remember thinking, “I would rather die than live in a place like this.” Now, four decades later, as I approach my 70th year, I have a much better appreciation for what they have done.

It is actually brilliant and simple. They have created a culture, an environment where community can happen. Perhaps the most shocking thing for me about growing older is how much harder it is to make friends. If you stay in the same community, you are probably set. If you move into another community, it becomes really tough.

They have solved that problem.

The Senior Living Problem/Opportunity

Senior living owners and operators look at what they do and how much they charge — how expensive it is — and they assume that if anyone is going to pay that much money, they want to have everything done for them. In order to do everything for everyone, things have to all be done the same way, with little variation and little room for individual preferences.

Letting everyone custom design their own “everything done for them program” would be massively and prohibitively expensive. It is not something even luxury resorts like the Ritz-Carlton can pull off. This in turn means that our real senior living message looks something like this:

“We will do everything for you, as long as you do it our way and on our schedule.” 

Imagine for a moment we really let the residents and their families control as much as possible what goes on in our communities. We let them design menus and programing and transportation and clubs and outings and … the list goes on.

Even in assisted living ….

There would still, of course, have to be guardrails, but it could be magical and amazing, cost less, and make people finally fall in love with what we are selling.