The Villages® retirement community in Central Florida is home to 700+ holes of golf, 200+ pickleball courts, 100 recreation centers, 100+ swimming pools, 3,000+ resident clubs and organizations, 100+ restaurants, a wide range of shops, grocery stores, and medical offices, free live entertainment nightly, and to top it off, nearly everything is golf cart accessible. With all of that in mind, it's no wonder why 130,000 retirees call it home.Yes, it's an incredible place, but it's not for everyone. Thousands of people buy and move here every year, but thousands more take a close look and decide it's not for them. This book was written to help you decide if it's the right place for you.
Ford and Mercedes Barclay have decided to spend their twilight years in the lovely village of Turnham Malpas - but will these two newcomers be made welcome?
Ford and Mercedes Barclay have decided to spend their twilight years in the lovely village of Turnham Malpas. Ford has ambitious plans for the village, but Mr Fitch, the village benefactor, is less than impressed by Ford's generosity and it isn't long before the two come to blows. Meanwhile a letter arrives at the rectory that causes consternation. The rector's twin children, Alex and Beth, have had little contact with their birth mother, but now she wishes to build a relationship with them. Should they get to know their real mother - and what of Caroline, who has raised and loved them?
2004 winner of the Robert E. Park Book Award from the Community and Urban Sociology Section (CUSS) of the American Sociological Association Although the death of the small town has been predicted for decades, during the 1990s the population of rural America actually increased by more than three million people. In this book, Sonya Salamon explores these rural newcomers and the impact they have on the social relationships, public spaces, and community resources of small town America. Salamon draws on richly detailed ethnographic studies of six small towns in central Illinois, including a town with upscale subdivisions that lured wealthy professionals as well as towns whose agribusinesses drew working-class Mexicano migrants and immigrants. She finds that regardless of the class or ethnicity of the newcomers, if their social status differs relative to that of oldtimers, their effect on a town has been the same: suburbanization that erodes the close-knit small town community, with especially severe consequences for small town youth. To successfully combat the homogenization of the heartland, Salamon argues, newcomers must work with oldtimers so that together they sustain the vital aspects of community life and identity that first drew them to small towns. An illustration of the recent revitalization of interest in the small town, Salamon's work provides a significant addition to the growing literature on the subject. Social scientists, sociologists, policymakers, and urban planners will appreciate this important contribution to the ongoing discussion of social capital and the transformation in the study and definition of communities.
From an award-winning journalist comes a fascinating exploration of the life-enhancing customs that immigrant groups have brought with them to the U.S. and of how Americans can improve their lives by adapting them.
Immigration and health care are hotly debated and contentious issues. Policies that relate to both issues—to the health of newcomers—often reflect misimpressions about immigrants, and their impact on health care systems. Despite the fact that immigrants are typically younger and healthier than natives, and that many immigrants play a vital role as care-givers in their new lands, native citizens are often reluctant to extend basic health care to immigrants, choosing instead to let them suffer, to let them die prematurely, or to expedite their return to their home lands. Likewise, many nations turn against immigrants when epidemics such as Ebola strike, under the false belief that native populations can be kept well only if immigrants are kept out. In The Health of Newcomers, Patricia Illingworth and Wendy E. Parmet demonstrate how shortsighted and dangerous it is to craft health policy on the basis of ethnocentrism and xenophobia. Because health is a global public good and people benefit from the health of neighbor and stranger alike, it is in everyone’s interest to ensure the health of all. Drawing on rigorous legal and ethical arguments and empirical studies, as well as deeply personal stories of immigrant struggles, Illingworth and Parmet make the compelling case that global phenomena such as poverty, the medical brain drain, organ tourism, and climate change ought to inform the health policy we craft for newcomers and natives alike.
Gentrification is transforming cities, small and large, across the country. Though it’s easy to bemoan the diminished social diversity and transformation of commercial strips that often signify a gentrifying neighborhood, determining who actually benefits and who suffers from this nebulous process can be much harder. The full story of gentrification is rooted in large-scale social and economic forces as well as in extremely local specifics—in short, it’s far more complicated than both its supporters and detractors allow. In Newcomers, journalist Matthew L. Schuerman explains how a phenomenon that began with good intentions has turned into one of the most vexing social problems of our time. He builds a national story using focused histories of northwest Brooklyn, San Francisco’s Mission District, and the onetime site of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project, revealing both the commonalities among all three and the place-specific drivers of change. Schuerman argues that gentrification has become a too-easy flashpoint for all kinds of quasi-populist rage and pro-growth boosterism. In Newcomers, he doesn’t condemn gentrifiers as a whole, but rather articulates what it is they actually do, showing not only how community development can turn foul, but also instances when a “better” neighborhood truly results from changes that are good. Schuerman draws no easy conclusions, using his keen reportorial eye to create sharp, but fair, portraits of the people caught up in gentrification, the people who cause it, and its effects on the lives of everyone who calls a city home.
Traces the lives of twenty-two immigrant teens throughout the course of a year at Denver's South High School who attended a specially created English Language Acquisition class and who were helped to adapt through strategic introductions to American culture.
Join thousands of current and future "Villagers" who have learned from The Villages Florida Book.If you have big dreams of one day retiring to The Villages, but you just don't know where to start gathering the best information - you are not alone. The Villages Florida Book is designed to help you separate the fact from fiction about America's most popular retirement community, and begin your new life in The Villages with confidence.The Villages is one of the most popular Central Florida retirement communities. Ask anyone who lives there and they'll probably tell you there were things they wish they'd known more about before buying in The Villages. The Villages is a great place to live. But there are several important things that you need to know.The book's author, Ryan Erisman, runs the popular website TheVillagesFloridaBook.com and is the editor of The Villages Monthly, the only unbiased monthly newsletter published today about The Villages. The founder of For Boomers Media, he is also a contributing writer to several publications focused on retirement community living including 2nd Home Journal, Boomers On The Move, and others. Ryan's books have been featured in publications such as Where to Retire Magazine, Florida Home Builder, Florida Realtor Magazine, Top Retirements, and more.The Villages Florida Book was written to help people like you because there was no other complete resource on this popular retirement community. This is the most comprehensive book of its kind about The Villages available anywhere.
