3S IT'S A PARADISE TOWN": THE MARKETING AND OF SUN CITY, ARIZONA by Melanie I. Sturgeon has been approved July 1992 DEVELOPMENT Supervisory Committee ACCEPTED:ABSTRACT Sun City, Arizona was one of the first age-segregated retirement communities in the United States. The thesis first places such communities within historiographical, sociological, and geographical context. It then utilizes archival material and oral interviews to advance the idea that the Del Webb Development Company (DEVCO) of Phoenix Arizona, used contemporary sociological debates on the role of the retiree in society to develop a community based on the activity theory. It then uses quantitative data to assess the type of person who was drawn to an age-segregated community. DEVCO researched several retirement developments in Florida in the late 1950s to determine what older persons liked and disliked about their communities. They designed a planned community, provided recreational facilities and leisure activities, then advertised and sold the concept of active retirement.” Several DEVCO employees involved early residents in the active lifestyle of Sun City by organizing clubs and encouraging the use of recreational facilities. Sun City Directories for 1961 and 1969/70, DEVCO research materials, and 1960 and 1970 United States Census were examined and data drawn providing information about the population that moved to this age-segregated community in the first ten years. Comparisons were made with similar age groups nationally. Evidence shows that affluent retirees came from the West and North Central areas of the countyACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Jane Freeman and Agnes Fansler of the Sun City Historical Society for their help in trying to piece together remaining DEVCO records. I would also like to express my appreciation to those Sun City pioneers I have spent so many delightful hours interviewing; your many perspectives of Sun City have broadened mine. Thanks go also to Lucille Rethefford of the Youngtown Historical Society. I am indebted to my committee members: Dr. Noel Stowe for his cogent suggestions, to Dr. Brian Gratton for his rigorous scholarship and perceptive criticisms, and to Dr Bradford Luckingham for his perspective on western urban development. iv