2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pageThe Villagers : Scenes from America's Retirement Utopia
Stephen Crompton
Friday, October 18 - 9:30AM to 10:00AM
Conference Hall
The utopian vision of real estate developer, Howard Schwartz, The Villages is a master-planned retirement community located in central Florida. It is America's fastest growing "city", with a population in excess of 140,000, that attracts retirees from all over the country and beyond. Over the course of three years, I visited The Villages many times, experiencing this often-surreal world and trying to understand what attracts a never-ending stream of new residents, many of whom are leaving behind families in colder climates to spend their latter days surrounded by their same demographic in what is sometimes referred to as "the Disney World for retirees".
Though the production process for a documentary film was mostly finished by 2020, like so many things, the project's completion was upended by the pandemic. Put to one side for several years, these collected recordings will be revisited.
speaker
Stephen Crompton
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