Leisureville Page 14

  In many ways, the early settlers in Sun City were pioneers: they left behind all they knew for an untested and uncertain but hopeful future. Webb may have created a city out of dirt, but it was these pioneers who created a community from scratch.

  Although he personally had little to do with the day-to-day planning and development of the retirement community, a reverence for Del Webb, the man, permeates Sun City. There is an eight-foot bronze statue of him in the exterior courtyard of one of the main recreation centers. He is shown with one arm extended toward the future; his other arm holds blueprints.

  The interior of the residence housing the historical society is filled with photographs from an optimistic and somewhat glamorous era (we’re talking about a retirement community after all, not Camelot). The photos show residents dressed to the nines and posing in front of their new homes; listening to Rosemary Clooney and Lawrence Welk perform at the outdoor Sun Bowl; and gazing admiringly at a visiting Bob Hope on a golf course wearing a tam-o’-shanter and sharing a joke with Del Webb.

  What the photos don’t show is the mounting enmity and relentless quarreling between residents of the growing community, which often stemmed from Sun City’s ambiguous governing structure. To seek clarification and redress, residents often found themselves organizing angry petition drives and filing incessant lawsuits to tackle such mundane matters of governance as garbage collection, regulations regarding dog walking, and restrictions on guests.

  Webb was winging it when he built Sun City, and governance was something of an afterthought. His original vision didn’t adequately address how residents would establish rules and resolve conflicts. He was more interested in providing amenities and selling homes. Webb made this clear when he called the second recreation center “Town Hall.” As he stated in an early company memo: “We will build houses but we will not become involved with the population in any way, shape, or manner.” But such a policy proved untenable as early attempts at self-governance continually devolved into acrimony. The company was forced to step back in and remain involved for a lengthy transition process, which has since become a proud company hallmark.

  Webb soon set up a homeowners association and a nonprofit corporation to run the recreation centers in perpetuity. Neither of these organizations proved to be particularly popular, but the alternative—incorporation—was repeatedly dismissed by Sun Citians as too costly and unnecessary, even though the Webb Company recommended it. Sun City remains governed by these quasi-governmental entities with limited powers, as well as numerous very vocal special interest groups.

  Age segregation became an issue early on. Webb’s company attracted a handyman to the community, but to Webb’s chagrin, residents evicted him because he had young children. Residents also tried to kick out the community’s only doctor, an older man with a young son, but once they realized how difficult it was to recruit another doctor to the isolated desert community, they soon relented.

  But what concerned residents most was the inescapable feeling that as the development reached completion, their progenitor and protector was slowly abandoning the community altogether. And they were right: Webb had made his money and he was now detaching himself and his company from Sun City. First to go were the shopping centers; then the restaurants, the office buildings, and the professional plazas; and finally any vacant land—all sold to other developers for a quick infusion of cash. The company’s attention had already drifted to a dusty tract of land a few miles down the road named Lizard Acres, future home of Sun City West.

  Sun Citians had to threaten and cajole Webb’s company to build a final promised recreation center. The center was eventually built, but it has the cramped appearance of something designed on the cheap. A final shopping plaza was never built, because Webb couldn’t attract any tenants. In Sun City West, plans for a centrally located shopping center were scrapped for similar reasons, and replaced with additional housing. Residents had little say in the matter.

  Such are the vagaries of the marketplace when one developer owns an entire community: pieces of it can be sold off and projects abandoned at will. As with any developer, Webb’s fortunes ebbed and flowed with fluctuations in interest rates and the natural cycles of construction booms and busts. Sometimes a community project simply lost its financial attractiveness, and cutting bait was considered a prudent business decision. Early incursions into Florida and California fared badly and were soon deemed nonperforming assets. They were sold off, leaving residents stuck with the highest bidder. To hedge risk and save on costs, projects were designed smaller and smaller.

  As any honest developer will tell you, the building of these “communities” is a business and nothing more. Pursuit of profit is what guides decisions. Nearly three decades after Webb’s death in 1974, Pulte Homes, Inc., one of the nation’s largest home builders, bought Webb’s debt-laden company. Corporations are even less sentimental than individual developers. Their purpose is to make money for shareholders, and if a development is not sufficiently profitable, or in line with expectations, it is usually in their best interests to sell and move on.

  Five decades after its founding, Sun City is fraying around the edges. No longer a darling of the press, it feels anachronistic and dated. It’s nearly forgotten as a cultural icon, except perhaps as the butt of an old joke. Many younger Americans have never even heard of the place. Like the once luxuriously green medians that have been left to yellow as a cost-saving measure, optimism has been replaced with financial retrenchment. Most of Sun City’s residents are on fixed incomes, and because of that, they don’t like to spend any more money than they have to. In communities with a traditional mixture of ages, these sorts of financial concerns are brought up in town meetings and elections—and then often ignored by younger voters who are usually more eager (and able) to reinvest in their community’s schools and municipal infrastructure.

  But Sun City is anything but a mixed community. According to recent census data, the median age in Sun City is seventy-five. Sun City is also about 98.5 percent white, and 0.5 percent black. What happens when you create a community consisting almost completely of senior citizens living on fixed incomes? A number of things, and few of them pleasant.

  In order for a community to survive, let alone flourish, it must continually reinvest in its future, with current generations investing in future generations just as past generations invested in them—a generational giveback of sorts. My wife is German, and every time we travel to Germany, I am always impressed by how the Germans build public structures to last for generations. They don’t skimp on materials; nearly everything is built with stone or a correspondingly high-quality and long-lasting material. Why build something that will stand for hundreds of years, well beyond our lifetime? A society that builds with stone clearly cares about its future generations.

  By comparison, my town is repaving many of its sidewalks for the first time in decades. Because of mediocre building materials and a lack of craftsmanship, these sidewalks probably won’t last fifty years before they rapidly deteriorate. Today’s taxpayers are saving money by using cheaper materials and less craftsmanship, but tomorrow’s taxpayers will eventually have to foot the bill.

  Sun City is a place where seniors choose to live out their final years. They don’t want to plan for ten or twenty years down the road. They might not be around then, and whose future would they be investing in, anyway—the next round of retirees?

  For the most part, people who retire to age-segregated communities have already jettisoned their obligations to the community they left behind—the one that invested in their future many years earlier. The residents of Sun City have also made it abundantly clear that they don’t much care about the new communities in their midst, either.

  When it first opened, Sun City happened to be within the boundaries of the Peoria school district. This inconvenient fact let to the area’s first generational war. Over the course of twelve years beginning in 1962, the residents of Sun City defeated seventeen scho
ol bond measures. School programs were cut and children were forced to attend school in staggered sessions. At its wit’s end, Peoria finally acceded to (some say embraced) Sun City’s demands, and de-annexed the retirement community from the school district. After another prolonged battle, Sun City West was also de-annexed from its school district. With these communities no longer a part of any school district, the average retiree’s tax rate is less than half of what surrounding families pay.

  Some Sun Citians are ashamed of this history and the long shadow it cast on their community, but others point out that residents still contribute just like everyone else in the form of state taxes, which help fund school districts throughout Arizona. In reality, they don’t have any choice.

  A community that does not reinvest in itself is in real danger of petrifying into a geriatric ghetto, or—worse yet—a necropolis. Further complicating matters for communities like Sun City is that they are monocultures, the societal equivalent of an economy dependent on a single cash crop, such as coffee, bananas, or rice. The problem with such economies is that they have no diversification. If demand for the commodity suddenly drops, the local economy can crater. Real economies—those not owned by a single corporation as in a banana republic—demand diversity. And so do communities. What happens if demand for Sun City’s single crop—decades-old leisure housing for retirees—falls precipitously? Similarly, what happens in twenty or thirty years when the baby boomers begin to die off in significant numbers and there is a glut of age-segregated communities?

  A meandering drive around Sun City gives one the feeling that such a fate has already arrived. Many of homes are petite and dated by today’s standards. Today’s retirees want more: an expansive kitchen, Jacuzzi tubs, home office with broadband access, and all the latest appliances. By contrast, when the first homes in Sun City were built, air-conditioning was optional.

  And that’s just the homes. Sun City’s recreational centers—its historical selling point—are badly in need of updating. Whereas yesterday’s retirees were content with a small dipping pool, a few bowling lanes, and a few shuffleboard courts, today’s prospective residents are looking for lap pools, yoga rooms, full-service spas, and professional kitchens for cooking classes. Even a rock-climbing wall is not out of the question.

  Local businesses have already had a taste of the future, as evidenced by the slowly withering strip malls at Sun City’s commercial core. From the look of it, the top tier of today’s aggressive retailers has already concluded that this city’s sun is setting. Not only do I see a number of vacant businesses and discount retailers in the community’s badly aging retail core; it’s what I don’t see that is more troubling—businesses designed with baby boomers in mind, such as upscale coffee shops, organic groceries, and trendy restaurants. Investors are clearly more interested in chasing younger, more free-spending consumers housed in leapfrogging subdivisions just beyond Sun City’s periphery.

  To get a better idea of how Sun City is addressing these critical issues, I meet with Doug Kelsey, president of the Sun City Home Owners Association (HOA). Located in a small building beside a strip mall, the HOA has a staff of seven, four of whom are part-time.

  Kelsey, who describes himself as the closest thing Sun City has to a mayor, greets me enthusiastically and invites me into his office. He was born in the Midwest, is the father of three grown children, and has six grandchildren. He wears a cardigan and white slacks; has a mustache; and has a thinning head of hair carefully combed flat. Framed copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights hang on the wall.

  “Used to be we were the big dog out here,” he tells me. “We could get our way on a lot of issues. But the towns have grown around us and they’ve surpassed us in sheer numbers. They’ve taken away our clout.”

  Adding to Sun City’s woes, Kelsey tells me, is the community’s declining volunteerism. Sun City calls itself the “city of volunteers,” and since its inception, the community has relied heavily on its residents to perform many basic municipal functions. When I imagine a city of volunteers, I picture large numbers of citizens performing charitable work, perhaps for the needy. In Sun City, the motto has a slightly different meaning.

  Although a good number of residents volunteer in local schools and hospitals, the majority volunteer inside their own community because the free labor saves residents tax dollars. The Sheriff’s Posse, a neighborhood watch of sorts; and the much-celebrated PRIDES, who landscape medians and keep other public areas tidy, in effect serve as a police and public works department.

  “Volunteerism is the backbone of our community,” Kelsey says. “Without volunteers we have a big problem—and volunteerism is dropping. Boomers aren’t as interested in it. They’d rather write a check.”

  Also keeping taxes artificially low is Sun City’s dependence on Maricopa County for just about everything it needs—social services, planning and zoning, health inspections, and more. Some might argue that county government is not designed to handle the everyday issues of a de facto municipality with tens of thousands of residents. As Maricopa County continues to grow at a staggering rate (it is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country), Sun City must compete for the county’s attention. But Kelsey scoffs at talk of incorporation, calling it “just another layer of bureaucracy.” He tells me that this lack of bureaucracy helps keep Sun City “vibrant.”

  Although Kelsey compares the HOA to a city council, it is by its very nature a reactive organization with very limited powers (let alone voluntary membership), and thus seemingly ill suited to charting the community’s future. When I ask him what sort of long-range plans the HOA has for Sun City, he just shrugs his shoulders and says, “If something breaks, we fix it.”

  “What if volunteerism continues to decline?” I ask. “Then what?”

  “Damned if I know,” Kelsey responds.

  According to Kelsey, the HOA’s most important task is protecting residents from neighbors who violate neighborhood deed restrictions, such as by keeping messy yards and using nonconforming paint colors. The organization’s four part-time employees spend their time investigating these complaints, the biggest of which is the discovery of underage children. And it is here that Kelsey chooses to focus much of his energy.

  “It happens all the time,” Kelsey says of contraband children. “And it’s a public relations nightmare no matter how we handle it. Why? Because to a lot of people it just feels intrinsically wrong on a gut level to exclude children. But Sun City is not supposed to be a stopover place for kids in hard times. That’s a violation of the rules. Everyone who moves here has read the rules and signed them. If their circumstances change—well, I’m sorry, but it’s time to move on. Sun City is about lifestyle—and children are not included.”

  “Why live without kids?” I ask.

  “Why not?” Kelsey responds. “Kids can be rude and noisy. What’s so wrong with being in your sixties, having raised your kids, worked hard, and now wanting to live without children? It’s a lifestyle choice. So what if we live in a bubble? It’s our right. We pay our taxes. We vote.” He points to the Bill of Rights on the wall. “There’s nothing in the United States Constitution that says you have to have kids living next to you. I live like this because I can.

  “Look, I understand diversity. But I don’t want it shoved down my throat. Why can’t someone be allowed to be comfortable when being comfortable to them means living in, say, an all-white community? Don’t get me wrong; I’m a people person. I have friends of all persuasions. But I don’t want to live in a community with children. I love my grandkids. I just don’t want to be forced to live with them. People should be free to pick who they want for neighbors. Things weren’t so great in this country when we were all forced to live together. And if there’s something wrong with the way we live, then how come they’re building Sun Cities all over the country?

  “You know, people say we’re selfish. Well, let me tell you something. Down the street there’s a me
dical research facility. They have one of the largest brain tissue banks in the world. One day they’ll discover a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Where do you think they get all that brain tissue? Sun City residents donated it. That’s right—we volunteer our bodies and our brains. If you die, they can have your brain out within two hours. Ask those people what they think of us.”

  Over lunch, I meet a woman from Sun City Grand whose husband teaches in a neighboring school district. She says the children are wild, disrespectful, and impossible to discipline.

  I ask her if she thinks the area’s age segregation has anything to do with it. Surely the children sense Sun City’s antipathy toward them. Could it be that, by their actions, Sun Citians are exacerbating the generational divide, encouraging exactly the sort of behavior they fear?

  “I don’t know,” she tells me bluntly. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I can tell you that things were different at my husband’s last job. He taught on an Indian reservation. It was a traditional community, with elders. If a child misbehaved, my husband only needed to report the child to his elders and the trouble stopped.

  “Come to think of it, my grandmother lived with me when I was growing up and she taught me a lot. But things were different back then. Everything revolved around family. People are so scattered now. Even cousins are like a foreign concept. The kids here don’t really have elders, and their parents usually work long hours.”

  After lunch, I drive to the two-story doughnut-shape Lakeview Recreation Center, Sun City’s most iconic and kitschy building, for an interview with another quasi-governmental group, the Recreation Centers of Sun City, Inc. (RCSC), whose elected board of residents governs Sun City’s many amenities.