Global Citizen International

Anonymous writes "'New urbanism' embraces Latinos

By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY

This is a slice of Orange County you won't see on TV's The OC. Bridal shops and corner grocery stores. Families strolling downtown. Workers walking to lunch. Store signs in Spanish next to the ubiquitous Starbucks shops. Street vendors. Professionals living in artists' lofts a block from Main Street.

Amid a suburban county's gated communities, three-car garages and megamalls, Santa Ana is a fledgling hub of "new urbanism," an increasingly popular antidote to sprawl that promotes dense, walkable neighborhoods where people live, work and play.

But it's new urbanism with a twist: Latino new urbanism.

Advocates of this budding movement suggest that places where Hispanics are fast becoming the majority could help rein in sprawl by capitalizing on Latino cultural preferences for compact neighborhoods, large public places and a sense of community.

"I grew up in Mexico. We had a traditional urban square and plaza where everything is happening," says Mario Chavez-Marquez, 31, who lives in one of downtown Santa Ana's new loft apartments. "To me, it made sense to move back to the center, closer to my job. Now I can walk to a supermarket."

Builders and planners have largely ignored the cultural identity of this new wave of home buyers, says planner Michael Mendez, who coined the term "Latino new urbanism."

As a result, many Hispanics moving up the economic ladder choose typical suburbs far from work, mass transit and shopping because it's usually the only path to home ownership, Mendez says. "They have to assimilate into what's available."

Hispanics are the largest minority in the USA and are projected to become the majority in California by 2040. How and where they live will shape neighborhoods, cities and suburbs for generations.

California expects to gain 21 million people from 2000 to 2050 - 18 million of them Hispanic. Housing the booming population without putting more stress on land and water resources and a congested highway system is a big challenge. The nation as a whole faces similar demands: The Census Bureau (news - web sites) projects the U.S. population growing 49% to 420 million by 2050.

Latino new urbanism is taking hold in California and Texas, the nation's two most populous states and the ones with the largest numbers of Hispanics. And it's starting to garner national attention among growth-control advocates and developers eager to tap the Hispanic housing market. The National Association of Home Builders, for example, plans to publish a book on designing for the Latino market.

Almost a third of California homebuyers had Hispanic surnames in June 2004, according to DataQuick Information Systems. That's up from less than a fifth in 2002. The top surnames of buyers: Garcia, Hernandez, Lopez and Rodriguez.

Latinos are comfortable living near stores and businesses and riding buses and trains, says Katherine Perez, executive director of the Transportation and Land Use Collaborative of Southern California.

"There is a natural group of folks ready to embrace these ideas," she says. "(But) what happens to the Latino that has 'assimilated' and moves in to the single-family, detached home in the suburbs with the SUV in the driveway? What does that mean in air quality, land consumption and pure economics?"

Latinos already are reshaping old urban neighborhoods. In East Los Angeles, Mexican-Americans live in small wooden houses that were built more than 50 years ago by Anglos. They've added paint and stucco, put in large front porches, fountains and wrought iron, and turned neighborhood parks into the main social place outside the home.

In most communities, zoning and building codes prevent such ethnic touches. Now developers and civic leaders are trying to create these neighborhoods from scratch:

• San Diego approved five "Pilot Villages" last year. One of them, Mi Pueblo in San Ysidro near the Mexican border, is pure Latino new urbanism.Facades of new homes arevibrant red, blue, yellow and green. Mi Pueblo eventually will have 1,143 residential units, about a quarter of them moderately priced. Three-bedroom, two-bath homes built so far are selling for $270,000, about half the local median price.

• San Fernando, a small Los Angeles suburb that is 90% Hispanic, is working to attract housing, retail and services so residents don't have to go to Pasadena or Glendale for shopping and entertainment.

There are plans for a mall and apartments, homes and condos downtown.About 15% of new housing will sell below the city's single-family home median price of $367,000 ($295,000 for condos).

Latino new urbanism has gotten the attention of Henry Cisneros, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development and now the chairman of American CityVista in San Antonio. The company develops homes in city neighborhoods that haven't seen new housing in decades. Moderately priced developments in Austin and San Antonio are built near established Latino communities.

Cisneros advocates designs that fit the needs of Hispanic families - from big kitchens with gas stoves for grilling tortillas to courtyards for social gatherings, multiple bedrooms for large and extended families, and driveways that accommodate numerous cars.

So far, new urbanism has chiefly targeted white and higher-income populations in suburbs, he says.

"I think Latinos can be the ideal audience for a new urbanist conversation," Cisneros says.

Developments tailored to such lifestyles account for only 5%-10% of new construction, says Pasadena architect Stefanos Polyzoides, co-founder of the Congress for New Urbanism, a non-profit group.

Differences in what Hispanics, blacks, whites or Asians want are subtle, says Gopal Ahluwalia, who tracks buyers' preferences for the home builders group. "I have my doubts about this Latino new urbanism thing," he says. "It's more socioeconomics and demographics that drive this marketplace than ethnicity and race."

Santa Ana, whose population of 342,510 is about 80% Hispanic, embraced Latino new urbanism before there was even a name for it.

In the early 1990s, Santa Ana's downtown was dying. People came because they either worked in the county government center or had to serve on a jury.

Then Hispanic immigrants arrived in large numbers. But many left as soon as they could afford to, City Councilman Mike Garcia says. Now the city is trying to keep them. It refurbished historic facades, built brick sidewalks with benches and replaced a methadone clinic and bus depot with artists' lofts.

Mario Chavez-Marquez and his wife, Karyn Mendoza, 29, were lured by the changes. He works as a planner for the city of Irvine, a 10-minute drive from Santa Ana. Mendoza, who grew up in a mostly white suburb of Chicago, walks two blocks to her job as a social worker for a non-profit organization. They also exhibit works by Latino artists in their diseño ART Gallery, on the street level of the loft they own.

"Who's to say Latino new urbanism should be just for Latinos?" says Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California. "Maybe it's a general model for the whole region. "

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Anonymous writes "Retirement isn't just a date -- it's a new life
USA TODAY - November 23, 2004

Carol Wobser is trying to guard against being stuck at the end of her cul-de-sac in Cincinnati.

Mark and Janet Skeie of Lake Elmo, Minn., a suburb of the Twin Cities, are making peace with what Mark calls their ''loss of identity.''

And Ian Carr of Windsor, Ontario, says he just wants to ''give this thing a little bit of time to see how it plays out.''

Wobser, the Skeies and Carr are recent retirees. Before calling it quits, they took a hard look at their finances and concluded they had enough money to see themselves through the years ahead. But now they're facing a whole different, more ambiguous task -- taking stock of their mental and emotional readiness for retirement -- and they're wondering: Am I really prepared for this?

''We didn't realize what we were getting into from a psychological standpoint until we got into it,'' Mark Skeie says. ''There's really not much out there to guide people through the process.''

Nancy Schlossberg, a psychologist who interviewed nearly 100 current and prospective retirees for her book Retire Smart, Retire Happy: Finding Your True Path in Life, says, ''The biggest mistake people make is not realizing there's a psychological component to retirement.''

Her words, along with those of other experts and the experiences of people who have already made the change, are particularly pertinent to the first wave of the nearly 77 million baby boomers now on the cusp of their 60s and facing the sometimes frightening idea of leaving the workplace.

''One reason the transition can be difficult for some people is that retirement really is not one, but many, transitions,'' Schlossberg says. ''Our work, after all, gives us an identity. It maps out our routines, our relationships. Work very often is, in effect, our community. So leaving a job is a lot more than just ceasing work.

''Sometimes just knowing that it's not all going to come together immediately -- there's a comfort in that.''

Take, for example, Mark and Janet Skeie. Both were 56 when they took early retirement in September 2003 -- he from a management job at 3M and she from a small branch office of General Reinsurance. Overall, their transition has been successful, but it has taken a while.

''We went from a very structured world -- a world really that had been structured since we were in kindergarten -- to one in which the structure almost totally disappeared. You have to have a lot of discipline to manage the time and space without just idling away the days,'' Mark says.

''You know, you can only do so many loads of laundry,'' Janet quips.

To fill the void, both took up walking up to 3 miles a day. Mark also got involved with a senior advocacy program at the University of Minnesota, where he's putting together a pre-retirement planning program for people who, he says, ''need to understand all aspects of the change.'' Janet is volunteering at schools and the library and has become an avid cook.

''We've had friends over who have asked, 'Do you eat this way all the time?' '' Mark jokes. ''And I say, 'Yes, that's why we walk so much.' ''

Working through goals

While the Skeies have been hoofing it, Carr, 58, who retired in June after 40 years with the Ford Motor Co., has taken up bicycling. ''Just finished my goal of riding 100 miles,'' he says. ''In retirement, that's necessary: to set goals, even little goals, whatever they are.''

Wobser, 60, also retired in June, after 31 years of teaching in Ohio. ''One of the first things I told myself was, 'Don't let yourself get stuck at the end of that cul-de-sac.' '' She's resolute in maintaining relationships with the teachers she worked with in suburban Cincinnati, but admits she needs to make new friends outside her former workplace.

Mark and Janet Skeie have done exactly that. ''We've met a really neat group of people through different organizations in which we've become active,'' Mark says. ''I still golf occasionally with a couple of my former colleagues from work. But it's not the same without the constant, day-to-day interaction. And as the year has gone on, we've noticed there's a waning and lessening of those contacts.''

Replacing work colleagues with another network is just one of several pieces of advice from experts on how to make the transition successfully. Getting involved with something meaningful is another.

Schlossberg says she had an identity crisis of sorts when she retired from teaching at the University of Maryland in 1996.

''Frankly, it took me a while,'' she says. ''I needed to get over the fact that I was no longer a college professor. And it nearly gagged me to say I was 'retired.' One of the reasons I wrote my book is that it gave me a chance to take a hard look at the issues I was dealing with personally.

''Since then, I've got involved in several organizations -- a repertory theater group in Sarasota (where she and her husband now spend most of the year), then developing programs for the public library -- eventually joining the boards of directors for both. I would never have predicted that I'd be on the boards of a repertory theater and a library.''

Which brings up the question: Is it really a good idea to rely on serendipity when going into retirement? Wouldn't it be better to have a solid plan?

''Well, yes,'' Schlossberg says. ''But, really, most people don't have plans. The exciting thing about retirement is fantasizing, then letting things evolve.''

Gene Cohen, director of the Center on Aging, Health and Humanities at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and author of The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, agrees -- at least to a point. He has been studying 100 people age 60 and up, retired or partly retired, and says fewer than 10% had any preparation on how to spend their time.

''Fortunately, in the beginning, most of these people are happy to have a change. It's like a sabbatical. But then it begins to wear off.''

He emphasizes the importance of remaining open to possibilities.

''You have to differentiate between having a plan and doing an exploration,'' he says. ''You may not be ready to make a plan, but knowing what's out there helps ground you better. You spend less time stumbling around until you stumble onto something that gives you some measure of fulfillment.''

Cohen and Schlossberg compare retirees to people of another generation they know well: college students.

''Think of it (retirement) like career development, like college,'' Schlossberg says. ''Some kids come to college and know what they want to do. But many don't. They go through a searching period. Same with retirees.''

Adds Cohen: ''Students often don't know what their major is going to be, but they want to expose themselves to new things. And I think you want to approach retirement in the same way: It's a new period that is very liberating.''

'Work is a bad habit'

Tatiana Yates, 73, of Albany, Calif., felt anything but liberated after retiring from 26 years with the Social Security Administration. Most of those years were in Buffalo, but she relocated to a field office in San Leandro, Calif., to be near her two children and seven grandchildren in 1997, three years before she called it quits.

''I was home for six weeks and went nuts,'' she says. ''I hadn't lived here (in northern California) long enough to know many people, so I didn't have anybody to play with. There are only so many novels you want to read, so many TV shows you want to watch, so many walks you want to take.

''I told myself, 'I've just got to do something else.' ''

That ''something else'' turned out to be ferrying around her grandchildren and picking up a few bucks as a record keeper for the chess program at a local school. ''You know, keeping track of who's signed up, who's paid, who's not paid -- that kind of stuff. Nothing too cerebral.''

''Work,'' she insists, ''is a bad habit.''

Not so for Marlyn Lawrence, 56, who retired a year ago after 35 years with the New York City school system. ''My attitude is, every day is a good day,'' she says. ''Even if I sit home and do nothing, it's a great day.''

Not that she sits home that much. She sees friends and family often, reads fiction and, for the first time in years, took a vacation -- a luxury cruise to the Baltic. ''Vacations are wonderful -- what a revelation!'' she exclaims.

And about that loss of identity?

''When you work in a field -- in my case, education -- everything was a big deal for those of us in that little circle. But outside the circle, it's all caca. Nobody knows who those people are, and, frankly, nobody cares.

''I was always sort of able to make the distinction between what I was doing and how important it was in context, and then in the larger picture,'' she says. ''If you can't do that, retirement could be very difficult.''

Howard Stone, 69, of East Greenwich, R.I., says the whole idea of retirement should be retired. He says he ''transitioned'' seven years ago from managing trade publications for the food service industry to become a life coach.

''As you move from one industry to another, no matter how much the people there admired or relied upon you, they move on without you,'' he says. ''I didn't realize it then, but I was dispensable. And that's fine because I feel a meaning, a purpose, in what I'm doing now.''

101 alternative jobs

Stone and his wife, Marika, 62, are the authors of Too Young to Retire: 101 Ways to Start the Rest of Your Life, which helps provide a road map for the 50-plus crowd who might be asking, ''What next?'' The 101 ideas vary from animal handler to yoga teacher. Almost anything but ''retiree.''

''Retirement,'' Howard says, ''doesn't belong in our culture. It's a negative. The American dream, I think, is work that you love, a community that you love, and having time around that to be entertained, to have some leisure, to have some equilibrium among all those things -- not to just go off and disappear.''

And what about those who might come to the same conclusion after they have already retired?

''There are people in my study who are in their 80s and re-examining their options,'' Cohen says. ''It's never too late.''

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