The Villages, FL is an age-restricted retirement community controlled by several quasi-governmental Community Development Districts (CDD).  These CDDs are controlled by the H. Gary Morse family, which created The Villages in the 1992.

Note: It’s considered bad form not to capitalize the ‘T’ in The Villages. Villagers take that very seriously.

The Villages is located here:

Here’s a link to it’s demographics.

Thirty years ago this whole area was swamps, forests, and cow pastures; today it is the largest age-restricted retirement community in the world.  No one under age 55 is allowed to own a home or live within The Villages, unless an exemption is granted.  Children really aren’t welcome, as kids under 18 are only allowed to stay a maximum of 30 days/year, and this is strictly enforced within the community.  Many of the strange & elitist facets of this adult playland are highlighted in Andrew Blechman’s Leisureville (2008).

An anecdote from Leisureville:  Two brothers (Carl & Ben) in their twenties from Iowa, are visiting their mother who recently moved to The Villages.  Carl, who is pounding tequila shots at the bar, notices the author’s notebook and asks if he’s writing a book, to which he answers with a nod.  Carl replies (with his brother in agreement) “It’s a good thing, because this place is fucked up!”

The Villages isn’t a town or municipality, and everything in it, from it’s 50,000+ homes to all the businesses are controlled by the Morse family.  Gary Morse, who died in 2014, made “unbelievable efforts” to ensure “these assets did not go to the community.” [1]

Morse financed much of the construction using something called a community development district (CDD), where the district levies fees on the homeowners to pay for roads and other improvements, and under state law can borrow money using tax-free bonds.

The CDD’s in the Villages paid Morse millions of dollars to buy his golf courses, guardhouses, and other amenities from him at inflated prices (reaping a nifty 500-1000% profit in many instances). The IRS has ruled since 2009 that the Villages’ CDD bonds did not deserve to be tax-exempt, because everyone who sits on the district board—like everything else in The Villages—is controlled by Morse. The Village Center CDD was organized and operated in a manner intended to perpetuate private control, and to indefinitely avoid responsibility to a public electorate. [2]

So far, the Morse family has successfully bribed Florida politicians from both parties to hold off the IRS– and the tax bill they face on $364 million worth of municipal bonds.  Attorney’s for the Morse family are currently looking for a way to get the dispute out of the domain of the IRS and into tax court, where it can get a friendly judge to rule in their favor. [3]

Land-secured debt is the riskiest part of the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market, accounting for almost half of non-payment default filings, according to industry experts. Village Center revenue bonds maturing November 2032 are now rated just above non-investment grade by Moody’s Investors Service, with an average yield of about 5 percent, or about 2 percentage points above an index of benchmark municipal bonds with similar maturities.

Needless to say, Wall Street & bond traders are paying close attention to this case. [4]

The financial house of cards that built The Villages isn’t the only thing about to collapse, as the ground underneath this massive development is literally caving in.   Sinkholes are now popping up with alarming regularity, as the water table and underground aquifers become depleted due to wasteful overconsumption. [5]  The Villages (within its 33 square miles) now has over 30 golf courses.

As the cost for repairing & maintaining all these amenities increases, the homeowners (who are locked into paying for all of this), increasingly won’t be able to afford it.  The Villages resembles nothing so much as the boomtowns of the old West; in fact, their latest project is called Brownwood– a western-themed development.

Golf carts are ubiquitous in The Villages:

This is what a typical one costs:

From 2005-09, physicians working in The Villages reported cases of syphilis and chlamydia increasing 71% among those 55 and older. [6]
Factors driving the rise of STD’s in this demographic include their not heeding safe-sex messages that younger generations follow; along with new medications, such as Viagra, making more sex possible for geriatrics.  Villagers as a group, strongly object to any form of social or personal responsibility– ranging from paying taxes to using condoms.

Everything in The Villages is about entertaining the old folks.  The level of kitsch is over-the-top, with fake façades & other pabulum passed off as real entertainment.  Most Villagers don’t seem to notice the difference, or if they do– don’t care.

The media in The Villages is also controlled & operated by the Morse family, including its newspaper:

The Daily Sun’s content is exclusively banal, vague and right-wing.  The scan below is an example of their “reporting.”   Go to their online archive, and it comes up as a blank page. [7] 

WVLG 640 AM (a FOX news affiliate licensed in 2004) is the local radio station, endlessly playing moldy oldies between its conservative talk.

If all this sounds like paradise to you, then join the zombies in The Villages; where there’s no concern for the world outside– as everything is safe, self-contained & soothing.  Think of it as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where everybody takes a soma holiday; or better yet– don’t think at all.

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