Judson Manor is a gracious former 1920s luxury hotel near The Cleveland Clinic, Case Western University, and many of the museums and arts institutions in Cleveland, Ohio. Today it houses 120 highly educated retirees with an average age of 79 — and seven 20-something graduate students.
The U.S. Isn’t Just Getting Older. It’s Getting More Segregated by Age.
In the past 100 years, the natural emergence of cross-generational relationships (between 20-somethings and septuagenarians, say) has been rendered nearly impossible in the U.S. The country has gone from being one of the most age-integrated societies in the world to arguably the polar opposite. Research shows that in the U.S., age segregation is as ingrained as racial segregation; the old and the young are roughly as segregated as Hispanics and whites. This broader pattern is reflected in U.S. neighborhoods. One study found that approximately 25% of people over 55 live in communities that entirely or mostly comprise people 55 and older. This makes it easier for both young and old to stereotype one another, and there’s a corporate consideration as well: Age-integrated teams have been shown to be more productive and produce higher-quality work.