Aging population to strain county

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Saturday, May 27, 2006 7:40 PM PDT ∞

San Diego County residents have a reputation for being young and fit. But the county's population is about to get a lot older, with enormous implications for the region's transportation, housing and health care systems, demographers say.

A new regional forecast suggests that the county's population will grow by 31 percent ---- or about 1 percent per year ---- between now and 2030, and surpass the 4 million mark. During that time, the number of senior citizens is expected to soar by 123 percent, not because of old people moving in but because of the aging of those already here.

According to the forecast issued earlier this month by the San Diego Association of Governments, a regional planning and transportation agency, one in every five county residents will be 65 or older in 2030. That compares to about one in 10 today.

"The face of San Diego is going to continue to change," said Gary Gallegos, the association's executive director. "Our forecast numbers indicate that the region as a whole is going to get a whole lot older. We're going to look a lot more like Florida looks today."

And it's all because of the baby boomers.

Ever since the nation's largest generation emerged on the scene after the close of World War II, the boomers have been causing problems in San Diego County and all across the nation.

Demographers say the postwar explosion of births packed overwhelmed grade schools, then left the nation's colleges scrambling to accommodate all of the incoming freshmen. The bubble of population born between 1946 and 1964 would later put a huge strain on the job market and eventually ignite one of the hottest housing markets in the country's history.

"The baby boomers are the ones who created this boom in real estate," said Mario Garrett, chairman of San Diego State University's Gerontology Department and director of its Center on Aging, in referring to the record run-up in prices this decade. "They created this demand for housing."

Fewer to care for Mom and Dad


Just around the corner, the boomers are going to create a demand for something else: health care on an unprecedented scale.

"The costs are just going to mushroom," Garrett said, saying the nation's Medicare cost was $108 billion at the turn of the century.

"In 2030, which is when the peak of the baby boomers is going to come into full bloom, it will go up to $260 billion," Garrett said.

The boomers are just beginning to turn 60. But in 2030, the youngest will be 66 and the oldest 84.

While some boomer-related health costs will be borne by federal and state governments, counties such as San Diego will have to absorb some of that, he said.

Compounding matters, there won't be as many family members to care for their aging parents, said Hans Johnson, a demographer with the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California.

That's because the postwar generation had fewer babies than the generation before it, or just under two for each family, Johnson said. As a result, he said, "the burden of supporting and helping parents will fall on fewer children."

And naturally, as the independent-minded baby boomers become more dependent on their children and the government, they will have to begin to rely on something their generation has largely dismissed as unnecessary ---- and a waste of taxpayer dollars ---- in modern, car-loving 21st-century society: public transportation.

"Older people tend to be less mobile," Johnson said. "And they are more likely to have restrictions on their driver's licenses, or no licenses at all."

No social engineering here


Indeed, said Dan Levy, a transportation planner for the San Diego association, "As the population ages, there is going to be more demand for all types of public transit services."

Things like trains, buses and, yes, even Dial-A-Ride vans are going to become the transportation mode of choice for county residents, association officials say, and the region needs to be ready to meet that demand.

"This isn't a social engineering thing, it's a matter of building a system that is more flexible than what we have today, one that provides choices for all San Diegans," Gallegos said.

But San Diego County will have a lot of catching up to do to deliver such a network.

"Right now, our transportation system is not geared to helping older adults," Garrett said.

And building such a system is going to be a daunting task because the region, with its far-flung, single-family-home-dominated suburbs, is not ready-made for public transportation, Levy said. And in San Diego County's case, the mountainous topography has served to spread houses even more.

"You can't put a bus within a quarter mile of every house because there are hills, valleys and ravines," Levy said, noting the rule-of-thumb distance planners typically use for accommodating riders on a large scale.

Ready to step in


While many boomers will remain in their expansive suburban houses with spacious yards that are largely inaccessible by transit, some are expected to migrate toward another product their generation has largely shunned: the town house.

"When they get to be 65, they might not want to take care of that big house," said Ed Schafer, the association's senior demographer.

To the extent aging baby boomers move into small houses and condominiums, it will be easier to design a system that can serve them through trains and buses, planners say.

As fast as the county's population is graying, it is not aging nearly as fast as slower-growing states and countries, such as those in Europe, demographers say.

The reason? International immigration.

"Whether they come to this country legally or illegally, they come to work," Garrett said. "They are paying for Social Security. They are buttressing our social services."

As a result, when the boomers move out of their big five-bedroom houses and their highly skilled jobs, there will be people ready to move into those homes and positions ---- provided that the county's education system does its job, Garrett said.

"Migrants in this country are buying us time," he said. "We are not aging as quickly as we should be."

The association predicts that 40 percent of the approximately 1 million new county residents in the next quarter century will be immigrants. The remaining 60 percent will be the babies of those living here already.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.