For the residents, it's one of the most successful experiments ever undertaken in creating a community from scratch.

Beneath warm blue skies, palm trees shade immaculate homes surrounded by verdant, lush grass.

Chirpy locals gather to drink beer and chew the fat on each other's porches. Or they jump in their golf carts – everyone has a golf cart – and trundle to the town square overlooking the lake.

One golf cart is emblazoned with the motto "another day in paradise" which sums up the feelings of the majority of the 150,000 who live here.

But critics say there's something not quite right about The Villages, a sprawling suburb an hour's drive north of Orlando in Florida.