City of Green Benches
Ageism is a concept that is harshly used towards the elderly. The meaning of ageism, means to discriminate towards ones age. In the book, “City of Green benches” by Maria Vesperi, she relates to the idea of ageism towards the elderly in a specific city. She chose to do research in a specific city by connecting the city to the elderly population. Vesperi focuses on many parts in her book such as aging, identity, social supports, and more. Within this essay, the focus will be towards one part, which is why she chose to do her research in this specific city. In this portion of the book, Vesperi looks into what she noticed when she arrived in this city, the history of the city, what the meaning of her book indicates, and the …show more content…
Petersburg has to have a reason in what capture the eyes and attracts those who live here, and the elderly who go here for their retirees. “Many people in old age choose their living arrangements based on where their friends or family are and how easily they will be able to facilitate their social interactions” (Paul W. Foos & M. Cherrie Clark, 2008, p. 318). This shows that the elderly wants to surround him or herself with being able to have a social life. When Vesperi had first arrived in this city she noticed nothing amusing about this city and it looked like, “Any other semi-urbanized, commercial area” (Vesperi, 1985, p. 33). This gave her another reason to look more into why this city really is the most known retiree place. There were some old people around but as mentioned not as what was there before which was a populated city with retirees. It was best to now look at why this place really attracted the people from the past and now what’s left in the …show more content…
Petersburg is known as the city of green benches, as what Vesperi named the title of her book. In the early 1900s there were thousands of green benches placed in this city for the comfort of the people living here. Benches are a place where people sit and are able to socialize. Benches also can have any color but in this city they were green, which distinguished it from any other bench. The people living in this city from since the early 1900s have now grown up talking about the present times, in which a drastic change happened. It was mentioned that the population of young retirees weren’t being replaced and this resulted in an age discrimination situation. St. Petersburg demographics data came to show that many younger people didn’t want to visit downtown because they believed their was nothing to do and that there was too many old people around. It was such, in 1961; there was the removal or repainting of these green benches from the city. These benches were put there since the early 1900s and from the time those people living there to now the 1960s made it part of their life, and now it has been taking away from them. The reasons of removing these benches were because they wanted to attract other age groups besides the elderly. This is where Vesperi didn’t quite understand on why would the city build the benches for the people there at the time and then remove it later on to just attract the same age of people that were once here when they first had
Ageism is a concept that is harshly used towards the elderly. The meaning of ageism, means to discriminate towards ones age. In the book, “City of Green benches” by Maria Vesperi, she relates to the idea of ageism towards the elderly in a specific city. She chose to do research in a specific city by connecting the city to the elderly population. Vesperi focuses on many parts in her book such as aging, identity, social supports, and more. Within this essay, the focus will be towards one part, which is why she chose to do her research in this specific city. In this portion of the book, Vesperi looks into what she noticed when she arrived in this city, the history of the city, what the meaning of her book indicates, and the …show more content…
Petersburg has to have a reason in what capture the eyes and attracts those who live here, and the elderly who go here for their retirees. “Many people in old age choose their living arrangements based on where their friends or family are and how easily they will be able to facilitate their social interactions” (Paul W. Foos & M. Cherrie Clark, 2008, p. 318). This shows that the elderly wants to surround him or herself with being able to have a social life. When Vesperi had first arrived in this city she noticed nothing amusing about this city and it looked like, “Any other semi-urbanized, commercial area” (Vesperi, 1985, p. 33). This gave her another reason to look more into why this city really is the most known retiree place. There were some old people around but as mentioned not as what was there before which was a populated city with retirees. It was best to now look at why this place really attracted the people from the past and now what’s left in the …show more content…
Petersburg is known as the city of green benches, as what Vesperi named the title of her book. In the early 1900s there were thousands of green benches placed in this city for the comfort of the people living here. Benches are a place where people sit and are able to socialize. Benches also can have any color but in this city they were green, which distinguished it from any other bench. The people living in this city from since the early 1900s have now grown up talking about the present times, in which a drastic change happened. It was mentioned that the population of young retirees weren’t being replaced and this resulted in an age discrimination situation. St. Petersburg demographics data came to show that many younger people didn’t want to visit downtown because they believed their was nothing to do and that there was too many old people around. It was such, in 1961; there was the removal or repainting of these green benches from the city. These benches were put there since the early 1900s and from the time those people living there to now the 1960s made it part of their life, and now it has been taking away from them. The reasons of removing these benches were because they wanted to attract other age groups besides the elderly. This is where Vesperi didn’t quite understand on why would the city build the benches for the people there at the time and then remove it later on to just attract the same age of people that were once here when they first had