Building Intergenerational Communities Part 1: Building Intergenerational Communities in Housing for Older Adults

Over the past century, we've become remarkably good at separating generations.

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.

The irony is that, for the first time in history, many communities include four, and sometimes five, living generations. The longevity revolution has created an extraordinary opportunity. Yet we still organize much of community life as though each generation belongs somewhere else.

Living near one another is not the same as living with one another.

That is the difference between co-location and an intergenerational community.

As cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead observed, every society depends upon the transmission of knowledge, values, and experience from one generation to the next. Today, as Americans live longer than ever before, that exchange is becoming one of our greatest opportunities to build healthier, more connected communities.

This idea lies at the heart of Asset-Based Community Development, or ABCD. Rather than asking what people need, ABCD asks what strengths they already possess and how those strengths can be connected. Every generation has knowledge, skills, creativity, relationships, and experience that can strengthen the entire community.

Organizations across the country are demonstrating what this looks like in practice.

The Cedars in Portland, Maine, has made intergenerational engagement part of its organizational culture. Through partnerships with schools, colleges, artists, and healthcare professionals, older adults become teachers, mentors, storytellers, and creative partners. Programs such as Story as Medicine and Opening Minds through Art demonstrate that meaningful relationships across generations enrich everyone involved.

Presbyterian Villages of Michigan's Thome Rivertown Neighborhood offers another compelling example. Designed as an integrated neighborhood rather than an isolated campus, Rivertown combines housing, healthcare, gathering spaces, and community life. Its community center and café welcome residents, families, neighbors, and visitors. Green House® homes and an on-site PACE program help older adults remain connected to family, friends, and the broader community even as their healthcare needs change.

The goal is not simply to help people remain in the community. It is to help them remain part of the community.

These organizations remind us that intergenerational communities do not happen by accident. They are intentionally designed. Buildings matter. Programs matter. Partnerships matter. Most of all, a philosophy matters, one that sees people of every age not as clients to be served, but as assets to be connected.

People are not simply looking for a place to live. They are looking for a place where they continue to matter.

At Consultants for Community Resources, we believe every generation is a community asset. We work with organizations to create opportunities for people of every age to learn together, contribute together, and build stronger communities together through Asset-Based Community Development and Action Analysis.

Every generation is an asset. Strong communities are built by connecting those assets.

The longevity revolution challenges us to rethink more than aging. It challenges us to rethink community itself.

In Part 2, we'll turn to the place where more than 95 percent of older adults actually live, the broader community, and explore how neighborhoods, schools, libraries, parks, faith communities, and local governments can become places where generations learn, contribute, and thrive together.