After my last post, I got to thinking about other industries/trends that may defy any economic downturn. Elderly care is perhaps one of them. Much has been written of late about the Boomers retiring, and I won’t rehash that except to say that -having first-hand experience with our current middle class elderly care system – I don’t think the Boomers are going to be happy with it.
So what might future elderly care look like? Current trends revolve around the resort model Hyatt and other major players have taken. Some elderly but still able folks are returning to city cores in order to be within walking distance to culture, food and public transportation. I’m wondering if anyone has considered studying how to match up current real estate “opportunities” with managed care facilities. I would imagine that many Boomers in the US might prefer something more along the lines of a bed and breakfast rather than the large suburban hotel model that dominates now. No matter how luxurious a retirement “center” is, I suspect your stereotypical Boomer might begin to find it, well, boring.
But I wonder how many seniors in the US would refuse to even consider the advantages of retiring to an urban center because of how our culture frames the expectations of retirement – and of what living in an urban core is like. Perhaps qualitative studies designed to probe how people feel about non-conventional retirement and care facilities might uncover untapped new business ideas that use the existing infrastructures of city cores as their foundation.
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