My mom is the guest blogger today, she’s written a bit about the difference between my neighborhood–Bradburn Village in Westminster, Colorado where she spends her summers–and her retirement community, Pebble Creek, in Goodyear Arizona where she spends her winters.  Why they don’t have new urbanist retirement communities I don’t know.

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I’ve just returned from Colorado where I spent the summer in relative coolness – weather wise and major coolness neighborhood wise with my daughter, son in law and granddaughter.  They live in a new urbanist community and I spend winters in a retirement community in Arizona.  The difference is staggering.

While I have access to two spectacular clubhouses, pools, lap pools, workout rooms, tennis courts, bocce courts, golf courses, a state of the art theater, art studio,  in-house library, video rental and on and on, they have access to each other.

Any  day, I could  step out of the carriage house, my home away from home, and be greeted by a neighbor or two.  I never made it all the way to the pocket park, at the end of the block, without someone greeting me or joining me with their kids and/or dogs.  I loved it. Many times we walked to dinner at the local eatery or strolled to the local ice cream store.  Invariably we ran into neighbors enjoying their porches or just out walking the neighborhood kids and dogs in tow.

If only the developer of my community had thought about this in the planning stages, my community would have been perfect.  As it is, I love it, but I have to drive to the clubhouse to swim or play tennis or to participate in any activities.  I cannot walk to dinner or expect to see my neighbors sitting on their porch.  We don’t have any. We have very nice, beige houses that all look the same on very clean streets that all look the same – not a good idea when most of us don’t remember why we walked into a room, let alone a neighborhood.

I make sure my visitors have cell phones so they can call me when they get lost trying to find my house in the community or when they are out walking the neighborhood and can’t find the way home because every house looks the same.  I also tell them to knock on the closest door and ask the resident how to get back home. 

Without exception, all our residents are friendly and very helpful when a stranger shows up looking perplexed – we are all used to it.  Besides – that’s the only way to meet people in the neighborhood without getting in the car or golf cart.