Cross-National Perspectives on Ageing and Place: Implications for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The age-friendly cities and communities (AFCC) agenda has led to a range of policy initiatives aimed at supporting ageing-in-place for older people. Whilst there is case study evidence of how people age across urban contexts, there has been little research exploring cross-national understandings of age-friendly places amongst older people. The objective of this paper is to identify the place experiences of older people living across cities and communities in India, Brazil and the UK and to discuss implications for the AFCC agenda. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 300 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with older people across nine cities and 27 communities in India, Brazil and the UK. The data was analysed using thematic analysis undertaken by each national team and then discussed and revised at collaborative workshops with researchers from each of the three country teams. RESULTS The data captures the ways in which place is constructed from the perspective of older people drawing upon social, community and cultural dimensions of ageing across diverse urban environments. We explore how older people negotiate place in the context of their everyday life and identify the relational and interconnected ways in which place attachment, belonging and identity is constructed. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS Age-friendly interventions need to attend to the changing physical, social and cultural dimensions of ageing and place. Integrated place-making practices are required to support older people to age in the right place across rapidly transforming urban contexts globally.

[1]  J. Sixsmith,et al.  Aging in the Right Place , 2021, Handbook of Social Inclusion.

[2]  T. Buffel,et al.  Aging in place and the places of aging: A longitudinal study. , 2020, Journal of aging studies.

[3]  Vikki McCall,et al.  ‘It gives you a reason to be in this world’: the interdependency of communities, environments and social justice for quality of life in older people , 2020, Ageing and Society.

[4]  G. Ellis,et al.  Neighbourhood Supports for Active Ageing in Urban India , 2020 .

[5]  M. Murray,et al.  Ageing in Urban Neighbourhoods: Exploring Place Insideness Amongst Older Adults in India, Brazil and the United Kingdom , 2020, Psychology and Developing Societies.

[6]  K. Rummery,et al.  Neighbourhoods as relational places for people living with dementia. , 2020, Social science & medicine.

[7]  J. Weil.  Relationship to Place for Older Adults in a New York City Neighborhood Undergoing Gentrification: A Discourse Analysis , 2019 .

[8]  Jennifer Preece.  Belonging in working-class neighbourhoods: dis-identification, territorialisation and biographies of people and place , 2019, Urban Studies.

[9]  Virginia Braun,et al.  Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis , 2019, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health.

[10]  C. Phillipson,et al.  A Manifesto for the Age-Friendly Movement: Developing a New Urban Agenda , 2018, Journal of aging & social policy.

[11]  A. Sixsmith,et al.  Contextual Factors for Aging Well: Creating Socially Engaging Spaces Through the Use of Deliberative Dialogues , 2018, The Gerontologist.

[12]  K. Moore.  Environment and ageing , 2017 .

[13]  R. Schalock,et al.  The quality of life of older people aging in place: a literature review , 2017, Quality of Life Research.

[14]  A. Sixsmith,et al.  Ageing well in the right place: partnership working with older people , 2017 .

[15]  C. Szwarcwald,et al.  Inequalities in healthy life expectancy by Brazilian geographic regions: findings from the National Health Survey, 2013 , 2016, International Journal for Equity in Health.

[16]  S. Mohanty,et al.  Population Aging in India: Facts, Issues, and Options , 2016, New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives.

[17]  Jill Wilson,et al.  Understanding the influence of community characteristics on wellness for rural older adults: A meta-synthesis , 2016 .

[18]  P. Vasara.  Not ageing in place: Negotiating meanings of residency in age-related housing. , 2015, Journal of aging studies.

[19]  C. Phillipson.  Global and local ties and the reconstruction of later life , 2015 .

[20]  C. Degnen.  Socialising place attachment: place, social memory and embodied affordances , 2015, Ageing and Society.

[21]  J. Beard,et al.  Age and the Environment: The Global Movement Towards Age-Friendly Cities and Communities , 2015 .

[22]  An-Sofie Smetcoren,et al.  Developing Age-Friendly Cities: Case Studies From Brussels and Manchester and Implications for Policy and Practice , 2014, Journal of aging & social policy.

[23]  J. Wiles,et al.  Re-spacing and re-placing gerontology: relationality and affect , 2012, Ageing and Society.

[24]  J. Wiles,et al.  The meaning of "aging in place" to older people. , 2012, The Gerontologist.

[25]  C. Phillipson,et al.  Ageing in urban environments: Developing ‘age-friendly’ cities , 2012 .

[26]  Andrew Sixsmith,et al.  Ageing in Place in the United Kingdom , 2008 .

[27]  Paul Higgs,et al.  The Impact of Age, Place, Aging in Place, and Attachment to Place on the Well-Being of the Over 50s in England , 2007 .

[28]  Hans-Werner Wahl,et al.  Environmental gerontology at the beginning of the new millennium: reflections on its historical, empirical, and theoretical development. , 2003, The Gerontologist.

[29]  Michael J. Kahana,et al.  Person, Environment, and Person-Environment Fit as Influences on Residential Satisfaction of Elders , 2003 .

[30]  E. Casey.  Between Geography and Philosophy: What Does It Mean to Be in the Place-World? , 2001 .

[31]  M P Lawton,et al.  Environment and other determinants of well-being in older people. , 1983, The Gerontologist.

[32]  C. Phillipson,et al.  Introduction: Developing age-friendly cities and communities: A global perspective. , 2018 .

[33]  Graham D. Rowles,et al.  Environmental gerontology : making meaningful places in old age , 2013 .

[34]  F. Oswald,et al.  Environmental Perspectives on Ageing , 2010 .

[35]  Caroline Holland,et al.  Making space for identity , 2005 .

[36]  G D Rowles,et al.  HISTORY, HABIT, HEART, AND HEARTH: ON MAKING SPACES INTO PLACES. IN: AGING INDEPENDENTLY. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS AND MOBILITY , 2003 .

[37]  Douglas D. Perkins,et al.  Disruptions in Place Attachment , 1992 .

[38]  E. Relph.  Place and placelessness , 1976 .