Are you a Ruppie? More and more people are trending toward living downtown. Author Kyle Ezell demonstrates how empty nesters can live out their golden years full of fun and independence in the midst of the city. Ruppies--Retired Urban People--are cropping up all over the country. The populations of city downtowns are exploding nationwide. Also known as active retirees, Ruppies are quickly becoming a big part of that population. Downtown living can help them stay active both physically and mentally while keeping them entertained in the process. After all, there's always a live theater or jazz band playing right around the corner. Author and noted city planner Kyle Ezell has assembled information on living downtown, shopping, eating at exciting new restaurants, getting around, staying active, downsizing to one car, volunteering, keeping faith alive, and much, much more into Retire Downtown. Retire Downtown lists the top 20 cities for Ruppies across the nation, with a wealth of facts on each area and a breakdown of each environment. Learning how to locate the right downtown neighborhood in which to live, and discovering art galleries, cool hangouts, coffee shops, and farmers' markets, as well as the unique and trendy ethnic shops, are all exciting parts of Ezell's book--a must-have for every up-and-coming active retiree!

This is not your parents' retirement. With this book as your guide, you can embark upon an active and often exhilarating retirement in the most fascinating city on the globe. If you've enjoyed visiting, imagine what it's like to live there. Retire in New York tells how you can take an active part in the artistic, theatrical, intellectual, and political life of the city. Tourists go to shows, operas, and museums. But New Yorkers can get behind the scenes: talk with playwrights, watch dance troupes rehearse, and visit the studios where artists are perfecting their crafts.

Where to Retire offers the best advice not only on where to relocate in the retirement years, but why people should pick up and move just as life is settling down and provides well-researched and completely revised and updated information on how to find the ideal home base for the retirement years. To help the decision-making process, the book offers a list of items to consider when selecting the ideal community: safety; climate; housing availability; cultural and recreation opportunities in the area; social compatibility; affordability; medical care; distance from relatives and friends; transportation; and jobs and/or volunteer opportunities. It gives readers clear snapshots of life in hundreds of the most affordable, comfortable, and stimulating places to retire in the United States, including locations in Florida, California, the Pacific Northwest, the Gulf Coast, the Ozarks, the Appalachians, the Southwest, and the Rockies. It’s a must-have guide that helps readers decide where to retire happily.

Resilient Downtowns provides a guide to communities in reviving and redeveloping their core districts into resilient, thriving neighborhoods. While the National Main Street program’s four-point approach of organization, promotion, economic restructuring, and design has been standard practice for cities seeking to rejuvenate their downtowns for decades there is disquiet among downtown managers and civic leaders about the versatility of the program. Resilient Downtowns provides communities with the "en-RICHED" approach, a four-step process for downtown development, which focuses on residential development, immigration strategies, civic functionality, heritage tourism, and good design practice. Examples from fourteen small cities across the US show how this process can revitalize downtowns in any city.

This book blends highly readable personal accounts with essential statistics on climate, cost of living, taxes, housing costs, crime rates, and health care.

Setting the scene -- A theory of scenes -- Quantitative flânerie -- Back to the land, on to the scene : how scenes drive economic development -- Home, home on the scene : how scenes shape residential patterns -- Scene power : how scenes influence voting, energize new social movements, and generate political resources / with Christopher M. Graziul) -- Making a scene : how to integrate the scenescape into public policy thinking -- The science of scenes / with Christopher M. Graziul)