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Life on the Margins of a Florida Retirement Community: The Experience of Snowbirds, Newcomers, and Widowed Persons

This article adds to research on retirement communities, which has primarily looked at them at one stage in their development and assumed that a homogeneous population as a background variable contributes to high levels of social integration and a strong sense of community. It presents the situation of three groups who live in a 10-year-old Florida retirement community—snowbirds, newcomers, and widows and widowers. Members of these three groups live on the social margins of the community. The article examines both the structures within the community and the social processes that create an invisible boundary that puts marginal residents on the outside. It concludes that increasing diversity is inevitable and that homogeneity or lack thereof is in the eye of the beholder. Findings are based on participant observation and in-depth interviews.