GeekGoddess sent me this link, and I read the article.  There are SOME valid points in here, in that discussion of ANY public building should face challenges on the environmental impact, safety, interferance with schools, public transportation, etc.

But the underlying message of "not in my backyard" is just rediculous.  Old people have to go SOMEWHERE and there are going to be more of them all the time.  Why should they not have a place in the community that they helped build?  And then there's the assumption that somehow communal living, communal transportation, and social security will ruin our country and bring our communities down.

You know what else brings a neighborhoods down?  Old people dying in their homes and not being found for a week, cause nobody checks on them.  Old people dropping dead cause they have to shovel their own damn sidewalk rather than having a building association do it while they gather at the community center and have a nice time dancing to old-time music.  Or how about this?  Old people getting robbed and burgled in their own homes 'cause criminals see them as an easy mark?

Or what about young people having to drive for a couple of hours every day to visit mom and dad in the nearest affordable assisted living apartment on top of driving to and from work, working, getting little Jenny to band practice...etc?  That's even less time for the Lions club or the PTO or being a den mother/father.

And then there's the whole view of the elderly as some sort of social burdon.  These people built our schools, built our economy, fought our wars, volunteered in our community...and many of them continue to volunteer in the community and mentor young people to this day (most of the members of our local Optimist club are near, at or beyond retirement age)

As more and more people reach an age where they need additional services, and cannot afford them themselves, what are we going to do?  If this article is any indication, we're going to follow the path of the pigs in 1984 and send them off to the glue factory.

Of course, not everyone sees it that way:

Lee said he doesn't think residents' repeated opposition to senior developments is anti-senior. What people usually oppose, he said, is density -- multi-story developments that have many people living in a relatively small space, as they do in senior condos and apartments.

Yeah, that's a problem.  People living together, commuting together, getting help when they need it but maintaining a certain level of independence.  It's discpicable.  People should either live alone in their own home like God intended, or they should be in a nursinghome and forced to wear diapers.  No in-between.  Either you can take care of yourself, or you can't.

It's like they want seniors who can no longer live alone to have some dignity or something.