An odd thing has happened.

Someone of retirement age who has lived on Beacon Hill for a long time is moving to Florida for the winter. At least that is the rumor going around.

Curious it is that almost no one in this neighborhood ever moves to Florida. Curious that almost no one of retirement age ever leaves at all. Curious because, from what you hear about New Jersey, Michigan, New Hampshire and Indiana and even England, everyone there moves south or wants to.

So I called Susan McWhinney-Morse, a woman of a certain age, who, if she lived elsewhere, might be inclined to vacate her premises for a milder climate. She also happens to be one of the founders of Beacon Hill Village, the organization that helps downtown Boston residents stay in their own homes as they age. Moreover she is a keen observer. So I thought she might know something about the refusal of downtown Bostonians to leave this cold, dark, snow-filled city. She’s had some time to observe the behaviors and habits of the retired population, since Beacon Hill Village is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.

Susan said there were many factors that came together in a critical mass to keep older people in Boston.

She thinks people who’ve lived here a long time have a special appreciation of the seasons that they know they’d miss if they moved south. “I love the crisp air that’s coming,” she said. “I love the January thaw. I would be bereft if I couldn’t wait for the signs of spring to come. I’d miss my magnolia tree in the middle of April when it is full of swollen buds.”

She said that places without the deep contrast of the seasons were simply boring.

She’s been to Palm Beach, which she finds unpleasant. Cities like this are boring also, she said, because they lacked the variety of the big bustling northern cities with their unlimited cultural resources and energizing crowds. “And the reliance on the auto makes me feel bloated and fat,” she said. She could imagine how depressed she’d feel if she had to drive to the grocery store.

She believed another factor in keeping retirees in downtown Boston was residents’ connections to their friends and neighbors and their participation in efforts to improve the quality of life in the face of threats ranging from dog poop to parking hassles, to adjacent development to trash. Perhaps counter to prevailing beliefs, such threats bind people together, strengthening their sense of attachment to their neighborhoods. Gathering places and a rich variety of neighborhood organizations reinforce the sense of attachment.  “Lot of communities don’t have souls or centers,” she observed. So residents feel no reason to remain in those communities.

Beacon Hill Village has promoted that sense of attachment and has become one of its centers. But perhaps the prior community attachments have in turn contributed to the success of Beacon Hill Village and the villages it spawned. Fifty villages now exist in communities of all kinds, but the first one might not have thrived had it been in a community where everyone wanted to leave.

Susan mentioned that an appreciation of downtown Boston’s architecture and history certainly contributed to a sense of community. We talked about the contrast to that—miles of developer-built housing that are all three-to-five bedrooms with a two-car garage facing the street. I told Susan about a conversation I once had with a couple from Connecticut. They were selling the house in which they had raised their children because a host of new, younger families had moved in around them, and they felt they no longer fit in. Communities like theirs, which attract the same kind of people, don’t work if you become a different kind of person.

But downtown Boston is a mix of single-family homes with five bedrooms, studio apartments and everything in between. The varied housing means that different ages and people in different circumstances live side by side. “I don’t want to be where everyone else is the same,” she said. “It makes me shudder to think of a community where the elderly dominated the design and pacing of life.”

Susan has lived on Beacon Hill for about 50 years and has been active in civic affairs the entire time. She says that people like her wouldn’t consider moving after all the time and effort they’ve spent in making their neighborhoods more lively, interesting and beautiful. “Why would we leave that?” she asked. “It’s like leaving your investment behind. It’s time now to reap the rewards.”