Ageing in Place in Urban Environments: Critical Perspectives

Ageing 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 in place”, a term used to describe the goal of helping people to remain in their own homes and communities for as long as they wish. However, while this has been the dominant approach, the places in which older people are ageing have often proved to be challenging environments. The book explores the forces behind these developments and how older people have responded.

Drawing upon approaches from social gerontology, urban studies, geography, and sociology, this book will be essential reading for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners searching for innovative ways to improve the lives of older people living in urban environments.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Tine Buffel is Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology at the University of Manchester, UK, where she leads the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group. Her research primarily focuses on issues of inequality, ageing in place, and underlying processes of spatial and social exclusion in later life. Much of her work has involved co-production methodologies, building on partnerships with older people, local authorities, and community organisations to study and address equity and justice issues in urban environments. She has published widely in the field of ageing and age-friendly cities, contributing a critical lens to the study of urban ageing and assisting the development of policies to improve the experience of ageing in cities.

Chris Phillipson is Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester, UK. He has led a number of research programmes in the field of ageing concerned with family and community life in old age, problems of poverty and social exclusion, social theory and ageing, and issues relating to urbanisation and migration. His theoretical work has focused on developing a critical gerontology which explores and challenges some of the dominant social and cultural assumptions made about ageing and ageing societies. He has published a number of books in the field of ageing and a variety of papers on age-friendly issues.