Age-friendly cities help seniors shine through their golden years
Cities are great places for young people, but they’re also wonderful places to spend your entire life. In fact, more and more people are staying in cities for good, and enjoying their retirement in a vibrant atmosphere. As a result, cities are taking senior-friendliness seriously. They need to provide residents with bright prospects that stretch well into the golden years.
Worldwide, the number of people aged over 60 will double from 600 million to 1.2 billion by 2025. And with over half of the world’s population already living in cities, it is imperative that urban centers take excellent care of their elders if they wish to remain attractive places to live. While healthcare and housing are important, it is essential to ensure that our elders remain active participants in their communities.
A global concern
With its Active Ageing policy, the World Health Organization (WHO) is “optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age.” According to the WHO, many urban seniors are living in spaces that were not built with their unique needs in mind. This, in turn, limits their mobility and their capacity to participate in their communities.
The initiative covers the key factors of independence, participation, dignity, care and self-fulfillment. The WHO is focusing on cities, because they have the resources to ensure age-friendly environments, and they can serve as positive examples for other communities in their regions.
How age-friendly communities ensure active ageing
Source: WHO, Global Age-Friendly Cities Project brochure
Participation
- Foster positive images of older persons
- Accessible and useful information
- Accessible public and private transportation
- Inclusive opportunities for civic, cultural, educational and voluntary engagement
- Barrier-free and enabling interior and exterior spaces
Health
Security and Independence
Learn the basics of age-friendly communities in this video by Tufts Health Plan Foundation.
Barrier-free connectivity for social inclusion
The most fundamental prerequisite for social inclusion is barrier-free connectivity. At some point in many people’s lives, stairs become an insurmountable obstacle. At that point, even escalators can prove difficult.
It is therefore important to integrate solutions that help people get around without getting blocked by steps and street curbs. Although ramps are a very obvious and straightforward solution, they are often forgotten in public spaces around the world. Elevators, by contrast, are normally standard in every new public and private building, but here the problem is often that there are not enough elevators.
A barrier-free approach helps not just seniors, but also people with limited mobility, parents with baby carriages and parcel delivery services. And don’t forget other options, such as chair lifts and platform lifts, which help when ramps or elevators prove unfeasible.
Public transport
Public transportation systems should offer a variety of options, such as trains, subways, trams and buses. All of these can be made more senior-friendly by providing seats reserved for the elderly and persons with limited mobility.
For underground stations, it is vital that these be equipped with a sufficient number of elevators, not just for the elderly but also enough to cover the people who should actually be taking the escalators (because many seniors will not exercise their right to move to the front of the line at an elevator). The MULTI elevator would be an optimal solution for providing the people-moving power that underground stations need.
Benches boost mobility?
It’s a little known fact that public benches improve mobility among the elderly. Seniors are often perfectly capable of walking longer distances, but they need the occasional opportunity to rest. If they know that a particular park has plenty of benches, they will be much more likely to spend more time out of doors.
Senior-friendly = livable for all
Senior-friendly initiatives generate benefits for people of all ages. The clean air and healthy environment aspects of WHO’s Age-Friendly Cities initiative will benefit everyone, particularly children and people with respiratory diseases. The aspects of safety and security help ensure family-friendly environments. And, finally, creating barrier-free cities will help improve the mobility of many citizens.
In conclusion, cities that strive to meet WHO’s age-friendly guidelines will undoubtedly become friendly to all.
Source: Age-Friendly Smart Cities
