Product Description

Fountain of youth discovered...downtown You see them on the sidewalks of downtowns across the nation. They wear worn-looking T-shirts, sip coffee and listen to the latest Deathcab song on their iPods. They shop local markets, attend music festivals, and frequent the hippest restaurants. They’re cool, all right. They’ve retired downtown. Introducing the first official Ruppie Handbook: Retire Downtown: The Lifestyle Destination for Active Retirees and Empty Nesters. Ruppies — Retired Urban People — want to stay active and vibrant in their maturing years. These revved-up retirees and energetic empty nesters are shedding their suburban shackles and downsizing to smaller digs, and Retire Downtown is the perfect introduction to the exciting lifestyle that awaits downtown. In Retire Downtown, author and renowned city planner Kyle Ezell identifies 20 of America’s best downtowns, targeting dozens of great retirement neighborhoods, and presents detailed information on: • Living: Find stylish, convenient housing that enables independent living in retirement years

• Volunteering: Change your surroundings, yourself, and even the world

• Playing: Find fabulous hangouts and exciting everyday things to do

• Shopping: Live like a European, even in Midwestern USA • Getting around: Detailed instructions on transportation in your urban environment Forget pills or plastic surgery. Being connected to a community — a vivacious, eclectic community, filled with different people, exciting places, and myriad opportunities for activity, entertainment, and growth — is the key to staying young.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #99925 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 408 pages

About the Author
Kyle Ezell is the founder of Get Urban America, a planning firm dedicated to teaching the urban lifestyle to Americans, a predominantly suburban culture. Kyle is a trained geographer and certified city planner who teaches downtown housing courses at Ohio State University. Author of Get Urban! The Complete Guide to City Living (Capital Books, 2004), Kyle lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Customer Reviews

Glad to be a Ruppie!
Kyle Ezell's book is is dedicated "to the millions of Americans who already know and love downtown living and the millions more who are just discovering it." He invented the term "Ruppies," or Retired Urban People, for people like me who love living in the city, or are at least considering it. According to the book's introduction, Rupies "know the secret for staying young has a lot to do with where people choose to live. Downtown is their fountain of youth."

At a luncheon presented by the Clare, the lifetime care community where I expect to move in two or three years, I heard urban planner Ezell speak about his book. I learned that he grew up in a small town with visions of big city skylines in his head, much as I did. Now, he is promoting vibrant city downtown areas as ideal retirement choices.

In part one, "Living it up Downtown," the author discusses the many urban entertainment, educational, and volunteer opportunities, and he gives practical advice about how to get around and shop without depending on a car. In part two, "Twenty of America's Best Retirement Downtowns," Ezell discusses the specific advantages of twenty cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Asheville, Austin (TX), Madison, Providence, Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Miami, Columbus, Denver, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Chattanooga, Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, and Omaha.

This book should appeal to anyone old enough to be considering retirement and flexible enough to consider downtown living a possibility. I was already sold on downtown living, but if I hadn't been, this book might have convinced me!