Table Of ContentAge Friendly
“Age Friendly provides a clear roadmap detailing how we can and should make
ageism a thing of the past. Samuel flips ageism on its head by showing that our
aging population is an asset rather than a liability.”
Ken Dychtwald, PhD,
best-selling author of 18 books, including
What Retirees Want and Radical Curiosity
“As longevity gets longer, age isn’t what it used to be. Larry Samuel is one of the
most persuasive advocates for a positive re-set of how our culture treats age.”
Peter Hubbell,
Founder & CEO, BoomAgers
“Comprehensive, intriguing, and offering many solutions. A proclamation giv-
ing us permission to rid ourselves of ageism now.”
Sharon Rose, M.S.,
social gerontologist
Age Friendly
Ending Ageism in America
Lawrence R. Samuel
First published 2022
by Routledge
600 Broken Sound Parkway #300, Boca Raton FL, 33487
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Lawrence R. Samuel
The right of Lawrence R. Samuel to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-032-05145-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-05144-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-19623-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003196235
Typeset in Garamond
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
About the Author .........................................................................................vii
Introduction ...................................................................................................1
1 Ageism in America ���������������������������������������������������������������������������11
How Old Are You? ................................................................................12
The Cult of Youth .................................................................................15
Aging Is a Privilege ................................................................................18
The Demographic Cliff .........................................................................21
A Vast and Strange Generation ..............................................................23
OK Boomer ..........................................................................................26
Younger Minds ......................................................................................29
2 Age-Friendly Communities �������������������������������������������������������������35
A Silver Tsunami ...................................................................................36
The Age of Aging ..................................................................................39
Livability for All ....................................................................................43
Active Senior Living ..............................................................................45
10,000 Americans .................................................................................47
It’s Not about Leaves .............................................................................49
The Place They Call Home ....................................................................51
3 Age-Friendly Work ��������������������������������������������������������������������������57
I’m Not Done .......................................................................................58
Yesterday’s News ....................................................................................60
Unretirement ........................................................................................62
Encore Careers ......................................................................................64
The Value of Experience ........................................................................66
Living, Learning, and Earning Longer ...................................................67
Knowledge Transfer ...............................................................................70
A New Social Contract ..........................................................................72
Unlock the Potential .............................................................................74
v
vi ◾ Contents
4 Age-Friendly Marketing ������������������������������������������������������������������79
Old Age Is Made Up .............................................................................80
No One over 40 ....................................................................................83
Aging Is an Opportunity .......................................................................86
A Bogus Image ......................................................................................89
The Newest Battlefield ..........................................................................91
Boomers 3.0 ..........................................................................................95
5 Age-Friendly Responsibility ����������������������������������������������������������103
The Beating Heart ...............................................................................104
A Responsibility Revolution ................................................................107
A Connected Economy .......................................................................110
Growing With Age ..............................................................................113
Long Overdue .....................................................................................116
A Rising Wave .....................................................................................119
An Age-Neutral Workplace .................................................................121
6 Conclusion �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������127
Bibliography �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������135
Index ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������139
About the Author
Lawrence R� Samuel is the founder of the Miami- and New York City-based
consultancy AmeriCulture and is the author of many books, including Aging in
America and Boomers 3.0. He writes “Psychology Yesterday,” “Boomers 3.0,” and
“Future Trends” blogs for psychologytoday.com and is a regular contributor to
“The Age of Aging” blog on MediaVillage.com. Larry holds a Ph.D. in American
Studies from the University of Minnesota and was named a 2017 NextAvenue
Influencer in Aging. He is a member of the Miami-Dade Age Friendly initiative.
vii
Introduction
I’m a white male of fairly average body size and shape, something that through-
out my life has made me immune to the lifelong discrimination often faced
by women, people of color, and plus-sizers. Upon entering my 60s, however,
I began to confront ageist thinking and practices, a result, no doubt, of my
appearance and the graduation dates on my resume, which went back to the
1970s. Being invited to join AARP at age 50 was a bit of a shock, but now I was
being asked if I needed help getting groceries to my car and instantly dismissed
as a job candidate by an artificial intelligence (AI) robot because of my age.
Given my previous privileged status, this was a rather surprising and disturb-
ing development. “Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to
a man,” mused Leon Trotsky, a sentiment that the Marxist revolutionary and
I (oddly) share. Like many people who are marginalized in some way because
of how they appear, I decided to try to change people’s (mis)perceptions about
aging in the pursuit of equality. In short, I’m doing what I can to persuade others
to not use an individual’s age as a reliable measure to judge her or his worth as a
human being. This book is one result of that effort.
While I don’t like it a bit, I can understand how in our youth-dominant
society the physical signs of older age—gray hair and wrinkles, notably—or
birth dates are (mistakenly) equated with decline and irrelevance. A host of
myths and stereotypes—e.g., that older people can’t learn new things and are
just shadows of the active people they used to be—are wrapped up in our
deeply rooted ageism that is said to be the only tolerated form of discrimina-
tion. Because it is culturally based and built on generations of now outdated
thinking, ageism in America admittedly represents a mighty challenge to
defeat. Still, it’s worth the effort to try, I and thousands of other “pro-aging”
activists believe, as millions of people in this country and around the world suf-
fer in some way directly because of it.
The irony of ageism is that the third act of life is actually mostly about
the pursuit of wisdom, self-actualization, and leaving some kind of legacy. The
DOI: 10.4324/9781003196235-1 1
