The demand for residential communities for seniors rises as the U.S. population continues to age. This growth means that new administrators and staff members often are learning by trial and error the complicated task of delivering high-quality and consistent services to elderly persons. While many new facilities have been successful, others have been plagued by a variety of administrative and financial difficulties. Senior Living Communities remains the definitive guide to managing these facilities. In this thoroughly updated and revised edition, Benjamin W. Pearce offers a wealth of sound advice and practical solutions. He discusses resident relations, operating methods, staffing ratios, department management, cost containment, sales and marketing strategies, techniques of financial analysis, budgeting, and human resources. New chapters address issues particular to dementia care and architecture, and the appendix contains a department-by-department audit of senior living operations. From the front lines to the boardroom, this book should be a part of every decision-making process for improving and maintaining assisted living, congregate, and continuing care retirement communities.

How to make your senior years healthy, safe, social, and stimulating. "Architect and author Chuck Durrett's recently released book Senior Cohousing Handbook comes at a time of high interest in greening, sustainable housing and affordable living concerns. Durrett's new book is a comprehensive guide for baby boomers wishing to continue vibrant, active lifestyles." - EPR Real Estate News "Make your senior years safe and socially fun with the idea of senior cohousing and a book on the topic that shows how seniors can custom-build their neighborhood to fit their needs. This is housing built by seniors, not for them, and emphasizes independence and social networking. Any library strong in gerontology or social science and many a general lending library needs this. - James A. Cox, The Midwest Book Review "As a Baby Boomer, I've joked for a few years that we'll all end up living communally again because Social Security will be broke...This is one of the better ways to envision it."-- Sacramento Bee No matter how rich life is in youth and middle age, the elder years can bring on increasing isolation and loneliness as social connections lessen, especially if friends and family members move away. Senior cohousing fills a niche for this demographic—the healthy, educated, and proactive adults who want to live in a social and environmentally vibrant community. These seniors are already wanting to ward off the aging process, so they are unlikely to want to live in assisted housing. Senior cohousing revolves around custom-built neighborhoods organized by the seniors themselves in order to fit in with their real needs, wants, and aspirations for health, longevity, and quality of life. Senior Cohousing is a comprehensive guide to joining or creating a cohousing project, written by the US leader in the field. The author deals with all the psychological and logistical aspects of senior cohousing and addresses common concerns, fears, and misunderstandings. He emphasizes the many positive benefits of cohousing, including: Better physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health Friendships and accessible social contact Safety and security Affordability Shared resources Successful aging requires control of one’s life, and today's generation of seniors—the baby boomers—will find that this book holds a compelling vision for their future. Charles Durrett is a principal at McCamant & Durrett in Nevada City, California, a firm that specializes in affordable cohousing. He co-authored the groundbreaking Cohousing with his wife and business partner, Kathryn McCamant.

US cities are faced with the joint challenge of our climate crisis and the lack of housing that is affordable and healthy. Our housing stock contributes significantly to the changing climate, with residential buildings accounting for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. US housing is not only unhealthy for the planet, it is putting the physical and financial health of residents at risk. Our housing system means that a renter working 40 hours a week and earning minimum wage cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any US county. In Gray to Green Communities, green affordable housing expert Dana Bourland argues that we need to move away from a gray housing model to a green model, which considers the health and well-being of residents, their communities, and the planet. She demonstrates that we do not have to choose between protecting our planet and providing housing affordable to all. Bourland draws from her experience leading the Green Communities Program at Enterprise Community Partners, a national community development intermediary. Her work resulted in the first standard for green affordable housing which was designed to deliver measurable health, economic, and environmental benefits. The book opens with the potential of green affordable housing, followed by the problems that it is helping to solve, challenges in the approach that need to be overcome, and recommendations for the future of green affordable housing. Gray to Green Communities brings together the stories of those who benefit from living in green affordable housing and examples of Green Communities’ developments from across the country. Bourland posits that over the next decade we can deliver on the human right to housing while reaching a level of carbon emissions reductions agreed upon by scientists and demanded by youth. Gray to Green Communities will empower and inspire anyone interested in the future of housing and our planet.

Defines what a suburb is and describes its main characteristics.

In cities around the world, planning and health experts are beginning to understand the role of social and environmental conditions that lead to trauma. By respecting the lived experience of those who were most impacted by harms, some cities have developed innovative solutions for urban trauma. In Cities for Life, public health expert Jason Corburn shares lessons from three of these cities: Richmond, California; Medellín, Colombia; and Nairobi, Kenya. Corburn draws from his work with citizens, activists, and decision-makers in these cities over a ten-year period, as individuals and communities worked to heal from trauma--including from gun violence, housing and food insecurity, poverty, and other harms. Cities for Life is about a new way forward with urban communities that rebuilds our social institutions, practices, and policies to be more focused on healing and health.

Social issues are, and need to be, a central part of environmental and economic sustainability efforts. Using stories of extraordinary communities across North America, Living Green showcases the social side of living green. The book features communities that explicitly integrate social and human factors into their design and planning, and examines the impact living in these communities has on personal health, well-being and the capacity for pursuing sustainability. It includes interviews with developers, architects and residents, highlighting personal ideals and efforts to pursue a sustainable lifestyle. The book's three parts explore: How community is central to sustainable living in everything from co-housing to communes Communities that specifically integrate green building design components with social justice politics such as racism, poverty and urban alienation. Housing options geared toward mainstream living that offer individual choices to those who wish to live green. Written for those desiring to hear a good news story, Living Green will appeal to individuals and communities living a sustainable lifestyle, green building activists, and academics in sociology, planning and design, architecture and environmental fields. Check out the authors' website and blog .

An intentional community is a group of people who have chosen to live or work together in pursuit of a common ideal or vision. An ecovillage is a village-scale intentional community that intends to create, ecological, social, economic, and spiritual sustainability over several generations. The 90s saw a revitalized surge of interest in intentional communities and ecovillages in North America: the number of intentional communities listed in the Communities Directory increased 60 percent between 1990 and 1995. But only 10 percent of the actual number of forming-community groups actually succeeded. Ninety percent failed, often in conflict and heartbreak. After visiting and interviewing founders of dozens of successful and failed communities, along with her own forming-community experiences, the author concluded that "the successful 10 percent" had all done the same five or six things right, and "the unsuccessful 90 percent" had made the same handful of mistakes. Recognizing that a wealth of wisdom were contained in these experiences, she set out to distill and capture them in one place. Creating a Life Together is the only resource available that provides step-by-step, practical "how-to" information on how to launch and sustain a successful ecovillage or intentional community. Through anecdotes, stories, and cautionary tales about real communities, and by profiling seven successful communities in depth, the book examines "the successful 10 percent" and why 90 percent fail; the role of community founders; getting a group off to a good start; vision and vision documents; decision-making and governance; agreements; legal options; finding, financing, and developing land; structuring a community economy; selecting new members; and communication, process, and dealing well with conflict. Sample vision documents, community agreements, and visioning exercises are included, along with abundant resources for learning more.