Contest views older folks as no handicap
Share with others:
If you thought gray hair only pulled in serious money if it sat atop Anderson Cooper's head, think again.
Some prosperous Pittsburgh do-gooders are ready to hand $50,000 to someone who'll move to the city. The catch is that the person can't be from around here, at least not lately, and he or she has to be at least 45.
When I read of this Experienced Dreamers Contest, you could have knocked me over with a Brady Bunch album. Make that a 45. Pittsburgh has spent most of the past three decades flogging itself for its dearth of youth, and suddenly we're looking to throw money at someone who might have worn hot pants. Or a leisure suit.
I don't like it. I love it.
This scheme, wherein these coveted silverbacks are invited to share their relocation dreams at www.experienceddreamers.org, isn't as wacky as it might first appear. An absence of youth isn't really the city's problem anymore. (Just ask anyone who lives near East Carson Street.) The city's oversized share of the elderly peaked in the 1990s, and lately we've been looking a lot more like America.
The 2010 U.S. Census showed that while the city lost nearly 29,000 people in this century's first decade, it gained more than 8,000 people between the ages of 18 and 24. As a report from the University of Pittsburgh's University Center for Social and Urban Research recently pointed out, the grayest share of the city's population has plummeted to almost the national norm.
Some 13.8 percent of city residents are 65 or older, compared to 13 percent in the United States. More than half the city's residents are now between the ages of 25 and 64, and more than a third are younger than that.
OK, you say, but does that mean we have to recruit baby boomers? Haven't the past 65 years, from their Davy Crockett caps through their Viagra commercials, been enough for these people?
Not on your autographed picture of Fess Parker. Because the smart money says these people have, well, smart money.
The foundations behind this cite a 2009 report by the Jewish Healthcare Foundation that says the region could see an economic impact of more than $2.5 billion by attracting 1,250 new residents 45 and older in the next 20 years.
First Published October 27, 2011 12:00 am
