Brave New Boomers

Transit options -- including discount taxi vouchers, ride-sharing programs and transit training -- must be expanded in coming years, experts say. Otherwise, those who have to give up their car keys face becoming "prisoners in their own homes," Kauffman says.

Without her car, Turner, who is "over 70," gets by with her network of volunteers and the occasional discount taxi voucher, which is a stretch on her fixed income. She's stockpiling supplies for the first time since she survived the Battle of Britain, growing up as a young girl in Bristol, England.

"I was running low on toilet paper the other day, and I was getting desperate!" she said, curled up on the sofa of her modest apartment, where the walls are painted a royal purple and a pillow on the chair says "The Queen is Resting."

She has a cadre of neighbors in her apartment building who call her "the Queen Mum" and check on her if her newspaper sits uncollected on the doorstep. She has no problem wandering the halls at 11 p.m., knocking on doors to ask for someone to pry open the clasp of her necklace.

"I don't mind asking that, but I'd never knock on the door and say, 'Would you run to the store and get me a quart of milk?' Never ever. It's just too much trouble," she said. "It's kind of depressing to know you're stuck and there's no out."

Smart Growth or 'Gray Ghetto'?

When Sandy Stern lost her husband after a long illness, the 57-year-old retiree dreamed of moving to a cabin in the woods. Instead, she bought the next best thing: a home in the Villas at Cattail Creek, an age-restricted community on a golf course in the western part of Howard, amid rolling green fields and horse farms.

Her gated community is a cozy group of 93 homes with brick facades and Palladian windows, where neighbors check on neighbors. Stern has started a Wednesday afternoon craft group at its community center.

But the nearest decent grocery store is 15 minutes away by car. And it's far from county bus service.

"It would be hard to live here if you didn't drive," she said.

In recent years, age-restricted communities for the active, 55-plus age group -- with golf courses, clubhouses, swimming pools and other amenities -- have proliferated in farther-flung locales such as Howard and Prince William counties, put up by developers drawn by cheaper land.

Smart-growth advocates have criticized these developments as "gray ghettos" -- which may be charming settings for active older adults who are still driving but are far from doctor's offices and other needs.

Architect Ronald A. Altoon scoffs at what he called "Camp Retirement."