THE VILLAGES, Fla. (AP) — The Villages in central Florida is one of the largest retirement communities in the world, known for its endless golf courses, the highest median age in the United States and gridlocked golf carts that usually support a Republican candidate during the campaign.
What it is not known for is children.
Yet the area where The Villages are located has become the fastest-growing early childhood metropolitan area in the US this decade.
The number of children ages 14 and under has grown 18.4 percent this decade in the Wildwood-The Villages metro area. The main reason is that the labor force has increased 19.1 percent, making it the fastest-growing metro area in the U.S. for that age group this decade, according to population estimates released this summer by the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Someone has to serve that growing group of retirees, and many of those workers will be young adults with children who live in the area,” said Stefan Rayer, director of the population program at the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Those workers include lawn care workers, plumbers, electricians, financial advisors, nurses, construction workers, real estate agents, roofers and physical therapists for a senior living community that has grown from a remote, rural enclave into one of the fastest-growing places in the U.S. since the 1990s.
The Wildwood-The Villages metropolitan area had more than 151,500 residents last year, most of whom are retirees. In 2020, that number was 130,000.
Due to the demographics of the area, raising children is a challenge.
Morgan Philion, 31, must drive to a neighboring central Florida county to see an obstetrician or take her 2-year-old son to a pediatrician because no appointments are available locally. If they want to visit a children's museum, they drive 80 miles (128 kilometers) southwest on Interstate 75 to Tampa.
Reading at the local public library has become a lifeline for Philion and other young families in the Wildwood-The Villages metropolitan area.
“It's really hard to find things to do, and this is the only activity they offer kids,” Philion said.
During the week, librarians including Anita Stevenson lead a dozen to two dozen preschoolers in songs about reading, shoot bubbles with a handheld device, and tell stories with titles like “Betty Goes Bananas” and “Cock-a-Doodle Quack! Quack!”
“There are a lot of new families moving in,” says Stevenson, pointing to recently built apartment buildings down the street.
Eldresah St. Fleurant, 28, her husband and two young daughters were among the families who moved into the apartments near the library after struggling to find housing as many communities in the area catered only to people 55 and older.
“It's good and it's bad,” St. Fleurant said of raising children in the area.
On the one hand, the breakneck growth offers countless jobs and new store openings, but the county also lacks family-friendly amenities such as an emergency room for children. The library’s “Storytime” is an exception.
“If you don't go to something like this, you won't find young families here,” she said.
Sarah Feeney's 3-year-old son wears hearing aids. She said it was “a nightmare” to find an audiologist who sees children in the Wildwood-The Villages area, since all the medical services “are geared toward the older generation.” She now drives 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) down the Florida Turnpike to Orlando for those appointments. They also had trouble finding a church with youth programs.
Despite everything, the 40-year-old is enjoying life in Wildwood since moving from St. Petersburg, Florida, less than a year ago.
“It's less pressure. It's less stressful and it's more manageable,” said Feeney, who also has a 5-month-old son.
No one under the age of 19 may live in The Villages, and at least one household member must be 55 or older. Because of the age restriction, the growth of young families has been in some small communities just outside The Villages, such as Wildwood and Oxford.
Recognizing the growing interest from young people, The Villages recently opened Middleton, a thoughtfully designed residential community adjacent to the senior housing development, aimed at employees and their families.
For older residents of The Villages, like 60-year-old Chris Stanley, the influx of families is a breath of fresh air, but she worries about the growing lack of affordable housing and overcrowded schools. The school district has 13 schools for its 9,400 students. The highly regarded Villages Charter School is limited largely to the children of employees.
“We're here until we die. We're frogs,” Stanley joked. “We've built a huge infrastructure here and we need people to run it. If we don't have young people here with children who can afford to live here and pay for childcare and housing, we're really in trouble here.”
Wildwood-The Villages’ median age was 68 last year, the oldest in the country, but has dropped from 68.4 at the start of the decade due to the youth infusion. Meanwhile, the U.S. median age has risen this decade from 38.5 to 39.1.
Children still make up a small percentage of the county’s population: last year, they were 7.2% of Sumter County’s population. In the U.S., they were more than 21%. But the percentage is growing, compared to 6% a decade ago.
The growth contrasts sharply with what is happening nationally, as the number of U.S. children ages 14 and under has declined by 3.3% this decade. The largest U.S. metropolitan areas — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — have lost a combined 614,000 children since 2020.
Sumter County Commissioner Andrew Bilardello has been around long enough to remember a time when there was only one traffic light. Back in the 1980s, students graduating from high school either joined the military, went to college or moved within the state to Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa for jobs.
Bilardello says few young people stayed, so he's pleased with the growth this decade in the number of children and working-age people in a community with America's oldest residents.
“We want to keep the young people here,” Bilardello said. “That’s our future.”
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