America keeps a remarkably detailed ledger of what it believes older people cost. We count Medicare expenditures, hospitalizations, falls, dementia, disability, nursing-home use, food insecurity, and the number of people who need help bathing or dressing. These measures matter. They identify suffering, expose disparities, and help direct essential services. The problem begins when the ledger of need becomes our entire portrait of later life.

More than 95 percent of older adults live in the broader community. They live in neighborhoods, towns, cities, suburbs, and rural communities alongside people of every age. Yet much of our thinking about aging continues to focus on housing and services designed specifically for older adults. Those organizations play an important role, but they represent only part of the picture. The future of healthy longevity will be determined largely by the communities where most older adu

We educate children in one place, employ adults in another, and often care for older adults elsewhere. We build schools for the young, workplaces for adults, playgrounds for children, and communities designed for older adults. Then we wonder why generations rarely know one another.