Living in an “active adult” community has many perks. For example, you can wear a granny bathing suit and no one will giggle and point, you can play Mah Johng everyday if you like, you can ride an adult three -wheeled trike and your neighbor will ask you where you got your slick wheels. And, best of all,  you can drive around in a golf cart.

Ah, the golf cart. Personally, I love mine. It’s so convenient and versatile, to say nothing of how ecofriendly it is.

Golf carts provide convenient transportation all around our community. Because they don’t use gas as fuel, they run clean without any fumes.

In some active adult communities, golf carts are almost a fetish. They can be tricked out to look like Hummers, Cadillacs, trucks, and just about anything you can imagine. We don’t see that much here—but there are a few distinctive golf carts tooling around.

I’ve even seen golf carts used as mini trucks by handy men, with ladders where other guys carry golf clubs. One man even tows a small trailer behind his golf cart.

Driving golf carts makes a lot of sense for short-hop errands—you can get to where you’re going economically and easily, and as an added bonus, they cut down on air pollution. I think it would be nice if we could drive our golf carts to the supermarket and to local restaurants. Unfortunately, that isn’t possible here.

I was thinking that if we used golf carts to get around even in cities, we could cut down on smog and emissions, and maybe even eliminate a lot of accidents.

Perhaps cities of the future should be built with neighborhoods that provide essential services like grocery stores, farmers’ markets, banks, retail outlets, schools, parks, and restaurants that are easily accessed by golf cart. Cars could be used only for longer trips or in inclement weather.

Would you live in a neighborhood like that?