Description
Book SynopsisAgeing in Place in Urban Environments considers together two major trends influencing economic and social life: population ageing on the one side and urbanisation on the other.
Both have been identified as dominant demographic trends of the twenty-first century. Cities are where the majority of people of all ages now live and where they will spend their old age. Nevertheless, cities are typically imagined and structured with a younger, working-age population in mind while older people are rarely incorporated into the mainstream of thinking and planning around urban environments. Cities can contribute to vulnerability arising from high levels of population turnover, environmental problems, gentrification, and reduced availability of affordable housing. However, they can also provide innovative forms of support and services essential to promoting the quality of life of older people. Policies in Europe have emphasised the role of the local environment in promoting ageing
Trade Review
"This major study addresses the global experience of urbanisation combined with population ageing. The book, from two leading scholars in the field, provides a challenging account of ageing in place, neighbourhood change, and the future of age-friendly cities. It highlights spatial justice for older people as of fundamental importance in confronting inequalities in contrasting urban environments."
Sheila Peace, Emeritus Professor of Social Gerontology, The Open University, UK
"This book presents a tour de force integration of scholarship across disciplines to propel the age-friendly cities movement into the 21st century. While not minimizing the gravity of compounding societal challenges, the authors describe clear directions for policy and practice that are within reach of advocates and decision-makers across sectors."
Emily A. Greenfield, Professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work, The State University of New Jersey, USA
"This important book presents a much-needed critical assessment of the challenges related to growing older in urban communities. It offers a cohesive, analytical frame that not only advances scholarship on urban aging, but on how we understand, support and give voice to the dynamic relationship between older people and their places."
Kieran Walsh, Professor of Ageing and Public Policy, University of Galway, Ireland
Table of ContentsPart 1: Critical perspectives on ageing in place in urban environments: Background, theory and development 1. Introduction: Ageing in place in urban environments 2. Population ageing and urbanisation: Developing age-friendly cities 3. Urbanisation, inequality and community: Experiences of ageing in place 4. Ageing in neighbourhoods undergoing urban change: Experiences of gentrification in later life 5. Experience of ageing in place among ageing migrants living in urban neighbourhoods 6. Growing older in ‘extreme cities’: The impact of climate change Part 2: Re-building urban communities for ageing populations 7. The role of social infrastructure as centres of community life in supporting ageing in place in cities 8. Enacting ‘agency’ through place-making and activism: Older people as local agents of urban change 9. Towards a collaborative urbanism: Building collective organisations for later life 10. Ageing populations and urban communities: An agenda for change
