The oldest members of the huge baby boom cohort (born 1946-1964) will be facing retirement in the next 10 years. Because of its large size, particularly in relation to the cohorts that preceded it, the baby boom cohort has distended every social institution that it has come in contact with including the housing market. Will the baby boomers also have a disproportionate impact on the retirement housing landscape? There has been a great deal of discussion and speculation about this group of pre-retirees, yet little empirical research has been conducted on the plans of aging baby boomers. The research described in the two articles that comprise Chapters III and IV addressed this need by examining the housing and locational preferences and plans of early baby boomer pre-retirees (born 1946-1954) for the first 10 years of retirement. The concept of cohort uniqueness was integral to the model tested in the two articles. The data were collected as part of a telephone survey of metropolitan and non-metropolitan Oregon and Utah residents conducted by the Western Regional Agricultural Experiment Station Committee (W-176). Statistical analyses included Chi-square tests of significance and logistic regression. Weighted data were used so that the results would be representative of the populations of the two states. In Chapter IV, "Retirement Housing and Locational Preferences of the Depression and Early Baby Boom Age Cohorts," the early baby boomers were compared with another cohort of pre-retirees, the Depression cohort (born 1930-1939). Although some significant differences were found there were also many similarities between the two cohorts (N=836). Intra-cohort differences based on gender and marital category of early baby boomers (N=476) were examined in Chapter IV, "Retirement Housing and Locational Preferences: Differences Within the Early Baby Boom Age Cohort." Planners, policy makers, developers, and builders will need to understand these inter-cohort and intra-cohort differences and similarities in order to produce acceptable retirement housing alternatives for aging baby boomers. / Graduation date: 2001