The first thing one sees on entering the community is a giant waterfall gushing water endlessly down some rocks. This is not a mirage, but it's not exactly real either. The community is set on some low rolling hills in some of the driest, hottest country this side of the Mojave Desert.

The land under and around it has been empty for years, for a simple reason. It is so rocky and such hardpan that it won't grow anything except grass. Nonetheless, the developers have blasted some holes in the ground and planted trees. You notice them as you enter because trees just don't grow in this part of the country. They look like they are in the wrong place and, in a sense, they are.

Beyond the waterfall at the entrance, you drive along street after street. The streets follow the contours of the hills, rising and falling gently. And that's when you notice the second peculiarity about the place. Every house in the development is almost like every other house. The floor plans are the same or similar, they are all painted the same colors—something not far off the color of dry grass—the trees have all been planted about the same time and so have the shrubs in the yards.

It's not that the houses are unattractive. Taken individually, they are, but as you pass down one street and turn onto another, you have the peculiar feeling that your car isn't moving. You are standing still in front of the same house.

We asked our friends about this, and they laughed and admitted it was a problem sometimes.

"Don't you ever get lost?" we asked. "How do you know it's your house?"

"Oh," our friends said, only half joking, "you just push the control on your automatic garage door opener. If the garage door on a house opens, it's yours."

It occurred to me that a more likely event might be that all the garage doors on the street all opened at the same time.

The other thing that became apparent after a while is that almost everyone in the development looks pretty much like everyone else. They are all white, they are all over 55 years of age, and they all drive cars or golf carts of about the same price range and they have about the same leisure-time activities. They all play bridge and golf.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. If it is not too hot or too foggy (and in the upper Sacramento Valley, either of these conditions is more likely than not), there is a splendid golf course on which to play and a wonderful recreational complex. It includes both an indoor and an outdoor swimming pool of Olympic proportions, all kinds of activity rooms, an indoor track, weight and exercise rooms and an upscale restaurant.

If none of these interest you, you can, of course, drive about five miles south and find yourself at one of the largest Indian casinos in California. It looks about as much a part of the natural landscape as the housing development.

The retirement center isn't gated, but it is patrolled. Eventually, when completed, it will house somewhere around 35,000 people, all of them at least 55, none with minor children, and apparently—although no one says this overtly—all of about the same ethnic and cultural background.

I suppose you could point out all these negative features and still have missed one. And that is that in the years immediately ahead in our country, places like this are going to be in demand simply because the Baby Boom generation is moving into retirement age.

Our children—that is, the children born to people of my generation—are poised to drop out of the workforce and to retire to what they are looking forward to as their golden years. Where they are going to retire is yet to be decided, but a lot of them are going to want to retire to places like the one I am describing.

Certainly neither we nor they have made much provision for retiring where they are living. The Silicon Valley is built for the young, not for the retired. It is just plain too expensive for retirees, be they us, or be they our children.

The vacant prairies of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys are a better bet. The land there is still cheap, mostly because it isn't good for anything else—I'm speaking of the non-arable parts of the two valleys—developers can build homes for older folks and expect to make a profit, and the weather is mostly sunny and amendable, provided you have air conditioning.

It may not matter that the residents of these places will have become prisoners of air conditioning or will have to spend the rest of their lives in boxes that all look the same or will associate only with those of retirement age and of a certain ethnic background. Or that they will indulge in the same kinds of recreation simply because nothing else is available.

You pay your money and make your choice. And this, alas, is the choice more and more Bay Area residents are making these days, retirement ghettos.