Planning for Greying Cities - The Eye for... · 2020. 1. 17. · Tokyo Roji The Diversity and Versatility of Alleys in a City in Transition Heide Imai Cognition and the Built Environment

Planning for Greying Cities

Planning for Greying Cities: Age-Friendly City Planning and Design Research and Practice highlights how modern town planning and design act as a positive force for population ageing, taking on these challenges from a user-oriented perspective. Although often related to ‘healthy city’ concepts, the contexts of age-friendly cities and communities (AFCC) were not empha-sized until the early 2000s. Planning for Greying Cities is the first book to bring together fundamental and cutting-edge research exploring dimensions of age-friendly cities in different spatial scales. Chapters examine the ageing circumstances and challenges in cities, communities, and rural areas in terms of land use planning, urban design, transport planning, housing, disaster resilience, and governance and empowerment, with international case stud-ies and empirical research results of age-friendly environment studies. It is essential reading for academics and practicians in urban planning, gerontol-ogy, transport planning, and environmental design.

Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and a Research Fellow in the Healthy City Research Center at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. Her research focuses on demo-graphic change and urban planning systems. She was the first project leader of the National Age-Friendly Cities Program in Taiwan in 2010–2011 and has been highly involved in Age-Friendly Cities research in Taiwan as well as Asia.

Routledge Research in Planning and Urban DesignSeries editor: Peter AcheRadboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design is a series of academic monographs for scholars working in these disciplines and the overlaps between them. Building on Routledge’s history of academic rigour and cutting-edge research, the series contributes to the rapidly expanding litera-ture in all areas of planning and urban design.

www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Planning-and-Urban-Design/book-series/RRPUD

University Spatial Development and Urban Transformation in ChinaCui Liu

The Virtual and the Real in Planning and Urban DesignPerspectives, Practices and ApplicationsClaudia Yamu, Alenka Poplin, Oswald Devisch and Gert de Roo

Unplugging the CityThe Urban Phenomenon and Its Sociotechnical ControversiesFábio Duarte and Rodrigo Firmino

Planning for Greying CitiesAge-friendly City Planning and Design Research and PracticeTzu-Yuan Stessa Chao

Heritage-led Urban Regeneration in ChinaJing Xie, Tim Heath

Tokyo RojiThe Diversity and Versatility of Alleys in a City in TransitionHeide Imai

Cognition and the Built EnvironmentOle Möystad

http://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Planning-and-Urban-Design/book-series/RRPUD

http://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Planning-and-Urban-Design/book-series/RRPUD

Planning for Greying CitiesAge-Friendly City Planning and Design Research and Practice

Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao

First published 2018by Routledge711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2018 Taylor & Francis

The right of Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Chao, Tzu-Yuan Stessa, author.Title: Planning for greying cities : age-friendly city planning

and design research and practice / Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao.Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Includes

bibliographical references.Identifiers: LCCN 2017026702 | ISBN 9781138216075 (hardback)Subjects: LCSH: City planning—Social aspects. | Population

aging—Social aspects. | Urban elderly. | Urban policy.Classification: LCC HT166 .C3638 2018 | DDC 307.1/216—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026702

ISBN: 978-1-138-21607-5 (hbk)ISBN: 978-1-315-44288-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabonby Apex CoVantage, LLC

To Lin-Lin Chao, Yen-Chang Chu, Yu-Chuan Tsai, Shauna, Charles

I am deeply indebted to, supported by, and made wise by my families.

‘This book is a welcome addition to the debate on healthy cities, recognising the issues that come with ageing populations. The research and case stud-ies underpinning the book confront the impact of emergent demographic changes on physical, economic and social environments. It offers wisdom and guidance to planning and public health professionals all over the world to enable better planning and governance.’

Janet Askew, Chartered Town Planner, Former President RTPI

‘At last a volume that looks specifically at urban environments for ageing populations. This book contains plenty of concepts and analysis that can readily be of value across a wide range of interests in the field of urban environments for healthier ageing. The book provides insight through city case studies from several countries and excellently sets out the international policy context. For those wanting to expand their understanding of age-friendly city planning and design, I strongly recommend this publication.’

Marcus Grant CMLI FFPH, expert advisor to the WHO European Healthy Cities Network and Editor-in-Chief

of Cities & Health

Contents

Acknowledgments ixNotes on Contributors x

1 Population Ageing in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities for Planners 1

2 The Need for an Age-Friendly Environment and Rethinking of Urban Planning and Design 9

3 Scale Matters: Age-Friendly Planning as a New Urban Governance Agenda 29

4 Planning for Ageing-in-Place: International Age-Friendly Environment Case Studies 46TZU-YUAN STESSA CHAO AND BALINT KALMAN

5 Listening to the Elders: The Case of a Bottom-Up, Context-Sensitive Place Audit in Tai Po District of Hong Kong 72YI SUN, ANNA WONG, ANSON K. C. CHAU, MOSES WONG,

AND JEAN WOO

6 Ageing and Mobility: Towards Age-Friendly Public Transport in Taiwan 89HUI HUI LIM, OLIVER F. SHYR, AND TZU-YUAN STESSA CHAO

7 Ageing- and Walking-Friendly Communities 110

viii Contents

8 From Isolation to Inclusion: The Importance of Empowerment in Planning Age-Friendly Communities 128TZU-YUAN STESSA CHAO AND HSIANG-LENG CHEN

9 Ageing and Disaster Resilient Communities 143TZU-YUAN STESSA CHAO AND HUIWEN HUANG

10 Towards the Silver 21st Century: A Conclusion 164

Index 173

Acknowledgments

Many empirical studies included in this book are with different funding resources. Supporting funding comes from the Ministry of Science and Tech-nology, Taiwan (Chapter 9); Architecture and Building Research Institute, Ministry of the Interior, Taiwan (Chapter 7); Health Promotion Administra-tion, Ministry of Health and Welfare; NCKU Research Center for Energy Technology and Strategy (Chapter 6); the CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, Taiwan Collaboration Fund (2016–17) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Vice Chancellor’s One-Off Discretionary Fund (Chapter 5).

Anson K. C. Chau is a Research Assistant at the CUHK Jockey Club Insti-tute of Ageing, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. His research interests are well-being and mental health. He is currently work-ing on a project to investigate the quality of life of older people in Hong Kong.

Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and a Research Fellow in the Healthy City Research Center at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. Her research focuses on demographic change and urban planning systems. She was the first pro-ject leader of the National Age-Friendly Cities Program in Taiwan in 2010–2011 and has been highly involved in Age-Friendly Cities research in Taiwan as well as Asia.

Hsiang-Leng Chen is a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. She gained her PhD in urban planning from Shef-field University, UK. Her current research interests include partnership in urban regeneration, sustainable planning, and computer-aided spatial planning and design.

Huiwen Huang gained her PhD in urban planning at National Cheng Kung University in 2016. She is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Graduate Institute of Science Education and Environmental Education, National Kaohsiung Normal University. Her current research interests include disaster prevention for elderly, innovative senior industry, urban–rural senior community planning and age-friendliness.

Balint Kalman is a trained urban planner and has practiced urban planning in Taiwan, Shanghai, and Hungary. His research interests include pedes-trian friendly urban environments, inclusive design, and contemporary place-making theories.

Hui Hui Lim is a PhD candidate for the Department of Urban Plan-ning at NCKU since 2013.

Contributors

Contributors xi

Oliver F. Shyr is an Associate Professor for the Department of Urban Plan-ning at NCKU since 2011 and received a PhD degree from the Depart-ment of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993. His areas of expertise include transport policy, demand modeling, and transport system management.

Yi Sun is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Building and Real Estate, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research interests include urban planning and urban studies, urban sustainability policy, and healthy cities.

Anna Wong is a postdoctoral fellow at the CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She has a background in psychology of music in education. Her research interests include lifelong learning, psychological well-being, and loneliness in later life.

Moses Wong works as a project officer at CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has been participat-ing Hong Kong Age-Friendly City Project sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

Jean Woo is Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Henry G. Leong Research Professor of Gerontology and Geriatrics. She is currently the director of CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests are geriatrics and gerontology, nutrition, and epidemiology.

http://taylorandfrancis.com

Tzu-Yuan Stessa ChaoPopulation Ageing in the 21st Century

1 Population Ageing in the 21st CenturyChallenges and Opportunities for Planners

Introduction: A Radical Discussion of Urban Planning in an Era of Crisis

After three decades of promoting the healthy cities movement and nearly one century of modern urban planning practice (zoning system), we plan-ners have come to a crossroads to face an inconvenient truth, where we bring ourselves to question, why are most urban dwellers still not healthy and most urban areas still chaotic in a general sense. Meanwhile, the WHO has had in place a ‘Health for All’ program that was enshrined in the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978, aimed at promoting primary health care ser-vices for individuals at the community level (WHO, 2013). The following Healthy Cities Movement has practiced on a 5-year cycle, and each cycle had interrelated themes corresponding with the health-for-all goal since 1987. According to the latest publication by the World Health Organization European Region, announcing the initiation of Phase VI of the Healthy Cit-ies Programme from 2014 to 2018, two main strategic goals are ‘improving health for all and reducing health inequalities’ and ‘improving leadership and participatory governance for health’ (WHO & European Healthy Cities Network, 2013). Clearly, the public health sectors are still investing tremen-dous efforts on improving human health conditions. In the meantime, the WHO also recognized that the scope of health promotion challenges has expanded beyond medical services and had increasing significant associa-tions with overarching social contexts. Modern health issues include mental conditions and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), mostly derived from stressful lifestyles due to economic developments that constantly increase the amount of medical expenses in every country. For instance, according to the WHO, ischaemic heart disease and stroke have been the top two causes of death globally in the last 15 years, and NCDs caused 70% of deaths globally, ranging from 37% in low-income countries to 88% in high-income countries (WHO, 2016). It is obvious that the public health issues we used to deal with in the 19th century that were believed to be the origin for urban planning to collaborate with public health, mostly related to communicable diseases such as pulmonary tuberculosis or cholera, are no longer the case

2 Population Ageing in the 21st Century

in the 21st century. Other factors, including social, cultural, and environ-mental elements are playing more significant roles in the discussion of what accounts for healthy living today.

In the meantime, when we look at the history of urban planning or town planning from ancient Greece to the present day, it is quite an embarrassing fact that we do not have many successful model examples to show to other disciplines that urban planning can contribute significantly to urban well-being in the long run. Especially at the turn of the century, according to the New Urban Agenda announced in the UN-HABITAT 3, urban areas where we created and implemented urban planning—only 2% of total land in the global context—are responsible for 70% of economic activities, 60% of energy consumption, and 70% of greenhouse emissions and artificial wastes (Sun, Chao, Woo, & Au, 2017). Hence, urban planning and its professional techniques have been challenged as important for fulfilling its duties, to keep city dwellers’ well-being. Thus, the New Urban Agenda has a set of trans-formative commitments for sustainable urban development and social inclu-sion, and ending poverty is the number one commitment. Accordingly, in this book, we would like to take this opportunity to argue that it is the right time for us to planners review the way we used to plan our cities, rational planning being the dominant urban planning method since the 1960s (McLoughlin, 1969). Although long criticized, blueprint plans in this new era are still the most frequent adopted planning means in so many countries. The emphasis on top-down elite decision-making approaches and an economic-oriented development focus might be major reasons for over-exhausted and socially unequal urban areas that could result in health concerns in many aspects.

There is no doubt that we are heading towards an even more challeng-ing future in urban areas. The speedy trend of urbanization has broken the balance between urban and rural areas and resource distributions. The WHO estimates that approximately 70% of the earth’s population will live in urban settings by the middle of the 21st century. It is highly likely that cities will not only be the engines of economic prosperity and centres of greatest wealth, but also places of concentrated poverty and ill-health (WHO & European Healthy Cities Network, 2013). In addition, the global climate change will result in cities exposed to the full gamut of climate-related impacts, and according to UN Habitat, vulnerable population and assets are concentrated in urban areas; thus, scientists expect those impacts to increase over the course of the 21st century (UNHABITAT, 2015). In short, urban areas in the future will be more crowded, more vulnerable to potential hazards, and more socially polarized. Nevertheless, the systems approach, which we planners relied on so much in the second half of the 20th century, is also questioned for limited abilities to obtain immediate data and time-lag between different data (Faludi, 1970). Planning research and practice have been quickly evolving into a strong tool to cope with the complex real world since the new millennium. The future challenge can be an alarming reality check for urban planners that we need to react faster

Population Ageing in the 21st Century 3

than we think we should and seek more integral planning and development approaches in dealing with such dynamic challenges. The architect–master planner has to make a place for a multidisciplinary team of planners that are able to listen and mediate before drawing plans.

The Time-Bomb: Ageing Challenges Are on the Doorstep

Speaking of heading towards a more sustainable city in the future, demo-graphic projections are another important area that planners look into closely from a blueprint planning perspective. The WHO and UN Hab-itat have also warned of global population ageing trends and the possi-ble impacts. It will be an ageing society confirmed by census globally and locally. There is a foreseeable worry of rapidly increased medical demands and possible welfare financial burdens worldwide. A more concerning issue for urban planners is to imagine when the world population aged over 65 will make up 40% of the total population by the 2060s, at a life expectancy approaching 100 years old. What kind of urban living can we envision? Can older people live exactly like younger people? Can those design principles that we used to apply in creating good places work by then?

Global Age-Friendly Cities—A Guide, published by the WHO in 2007, tried to provide possible answers to such questions based on a global research project followed by the full initiation of the Global Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFC) movement in 2009 (WHO, 2007). The guide sent a clear message that the ageing challenge and its spillover effects are greater than any of us could have imagined, and it should take overarching efforts from at least the city level to deal with it. The core idea is if we lower the disability threshold for older people from every aspect in their daily life, older people can stay independent and remain healthy for as long as pos-sible (Kalache & Kickbusch, 1997). Accordingly, the WHO proposed eight domains in which most cities would encounter challenges in common when entering aged society, including outdoor spaces and public buildings, hous-ing, transportation, social participation, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication and information, and com-munity support and health services. Nevertheless, in the real world of older people’s daily life, each domain should not be treated separately. It is also strongly encouraged, for all participating cities, that collective approaches and cross-departmental collaboration are the main keys to delivering AFC. On the other hand, it is strongly emphasized in the guide that older peo-ple’s characteristics and individual needs can be very different according to locality, and living details matter more for older people than for youngsters. Hence, greater involvement of older adults in every phase of AFC advocacy is considered essential to forging a place that is recognized by its users. In 2015, after 5 years of AFC promotion, the WHO Kobe Centre had collected promoting experiences around the world and tried to summarize a general core value and a set of core indicators out of more than 100 local indicators


collecting from the participating cities. Finally, 16 core indicators of AFC were published under three pillars, equity measures, age-friendly environ-ment outcomes, and impact on well-being to highlight the core values of equity, environmental determinants, and well-being in an ageing society (WHO, 2015). The ultimate goal for setting the core indicator is to advo-cate the priority of local older adults to ageing well, and older people need to be active participants instead of customers expecting services. To this end, it is to say the success of AFC promotion relies on the partnership establish-ment between a place and its older dwellers. Each partner has to pay equal efforts and draw on the strength of each to offset the weakness of the other to perform a unique cohesion.

More importantly, when planners are picturing what kind of age-friendly built environment to deliver and to whom, the ageing trend is right at the corner, and soon the super-aged society—defined by the UN as 20% of total population aged over 65—will be knocking on our door. For instance, Taiwan has just put out an official announcement that for the first time in its history, the older population outnumbered those under 20 in two-thirds of munici-palities by 2017, and Taiwan will officially become a ‘super-aged’ society by 2022. Combined with a super-low fertility trend, Taiwan will become one of the fastest-ageing countries in the world. Currently, according to the national census, Taiwan is ageing 1.6 times faster than Japan (National Development Council, 2015). Hence, immediate and proper actions to ensure ageing well in Taiwan is urgent, as well as in other ageing cities and countries globally. Many empirical studies and extended discussions in this book are collected from cases in Taiwan and cities in Asia to illustrate how planning issues meet with the speedy ageing trend. We do believe that it is an era in which plan-ning for ageing is planning for our common future.

The Context of Ageing Well and the Metaphysics for Urban Planning: The Glocal Solutions

There is an interesting but significant observation I have picked up during my involvements of AFC field research and practice in the past 6 years. Many orthodox planning principles we used to take for granted and con-sidered as universal facts are not really making sense in an ageing society. For instance, we always consider that adequate and decent living space per person is highly related to older people’s physical and mental health. The better living space is supposed to have a positive association with better well-being. We even have set up minimum living space standard to ensure living quality in our planning regulations in many countries. However, to our surprise, Hong Kong and Tokyo are two cities famous for their high urban density and smallest average living space per person, but they are also the top two cities with the longest life expectancy in the world. In addition, older people in these two cities generally feel a high degree of well-being and a great sense of happiness. Plus, green space is considered an essential


element for good place-making, and average green space per person in a city is even collected in the WHO AFC core indicators as the most relevant environmental attribute indicator for age-friendliness. It is still debatable that locating more green spaces will result in increased usage or physical activities of older dwellers residing nearby. In other cases, for instance, older people in high-risk disaster areas in the rural villages of Taiwan have no interest in understanding disaster mitigation plans, even they are warned seriously. Clearly, these all suggest that we need to pay more attention to the knowledge gap between what we think we know about older people and the reality.

As mentioned earlier, if we take local characteristics, other emerging chal-lenges (i.e., climate change), and older people’s recognitions into account when promoting AFC, planners would have to take a higher viewpoint but make plans in detail. In a recent comparative study of AFC promotion expe-riences between Hong Kong and Taiwan, Sun et al. emphasized that the successful AFC delivery for ageing well would rely on searching for ‘glo-cal’ solutions (Sun et al., 2017). In other words, the AFC was never about establishing a model village as in the late 18th century, but to grasp its spirit of creating the sense of ideal living for local people that will definitely dif-ferentiate from one another. The way each city and community interpret ‘active ageing’, the core element for ageing well in the AFC indicated by the WHO, will definitely be different. To this end, the context of ageing well can be drawn from functional and subjective perspectives of older people’s point of view as Scharlach and Lehning argued (2016). The functional perspec-tive focuses on the status of certain criteria that contribute to older people’s functional life. Three major criteria include avoidance of disease and dis-ability, maintenance of physical and cognitive function as one ages, and active social engagements. They are more about interrelationships between older individuals and society, and many recent studies have confirmed that the built environment usually plays a significant role for functional well-being. Similar environmental psychological studies have also confirmed that hedonic well-being is highly related to functional perspectives of ageing well (Ryan & Deci, 2001). The subjective perspective, on the other hand, shares a similar concept with eudaemonic well-being, and is more about how older people feel about themselves in the human settlements. It is related to self-establishments, cultural backgrounds, and societal value norms signifi-cantly. This has drawn our attention and inspired us to another key point of this book: the distinct differences between cultural contexts (i.e., Eastern and Western) will influence the layouts of the physical environment directly and further have diverse impacts on older people’s daily behaviours as well as their perceptions towards ‘good places’. Therefore, we believe that place qualities, place attachment, and older people’s physical and mental well-being are all strongly interlinked. So far, we only have little knowledge about the existence of such interlinkage, and further field research is needed to help planners understand the components and patterns systematically to


actually make good places meet older people’s needs. Hence, grassroots and multimethod studies are very much needed at the local level, as well as city-wide investigations to initiate dialogue within planning at different scales.

Thus, the framework of this book basically follows the WHO AFC eight domains but tries to interpret from both urban planning theory and practice perspectives. Chapters in the first part of the book take the global stand and mainly initiate dialogues between possible impacts of population ageing and planning theories and instruments. International case studies are conducted to understand how ageing issues are responded to by the urban planning system in four cities from different continents, and also to identify the simi-larities and differences. Chapters in the second part are more issue-oriented. Issues that are considered most relevant to active ageing are explored and re-examined with possible interpretations in the local contexts. Life percep-tions, mobility, walkability, empowerments, and disaster risk reductions are thoroughly discussed from planning literature and practice to empirical field studies based on older people’s perspectives. We intend to find the proof of such knowledge gaps and possible differences between different ageing societies (i.e., East and West), as the main goal set up in the beginning of this book. Accordingly, multimethods are adopted from the different discipline to conduct the survey in order to approach the complicated interrelation-ship between older cohorts and place-making, furthermore, and provide a different angle for future planners in delivering AFC.

Planning Is Everything. Plans Are Nothing

Cities act as a result of individuals co-settling to seek for wealth and well-being. In an ageing society, it is no doubt that urban planning needs to pay more attention in planning right places ahead for the ageing population to achieve the overall well-being of the city. More importantly, planners really should adjust their pace and react on the possible changes with more flexibil-ity, and consider that planning for AFC is a dynamic process instead of a set of ‘plans’ reviewed once every 5 years. Strategic or taskforce-oriented planning methods can be helpful to adopt in delivering AFC. Just as Dwight Eisen-hower said, ‘Planning is everything and the plan is nothing’. We believe that the planning profession in the new era will become part of preventive medi-cine, and needs to be more proactive than before to deal with the dynamic change in the future urban areas. Every urban planner needs to unlearn and retrain to become a planner for planning, not a planner for plans.

Finally, the most frequent questions I have come across in the past years from planning experts are, why plan for older cohorts specifically? Wouldn’t we create another arena for discrimination and equity issues between gen-erations by promoting AFC? What about the other minority groups? My answer is always, ‘why not plan for ageing groups?’ Yes, it is always dif-ficult for planners to keep a delicate balance of what issue needs more effort between different stakeholders, and not to go over the top at the same time.


But at this crossroads, as I mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, urban planning has to return to the origin of the discipline, to take people back to the heart of planning, as Barton urged (2016). We have to acknowledge the fact that the whole context of the built environment for 40% of the popula-tion is aged over 65 will not be the same, as only 7% of the population is aged over 65. Is it not possible for us to persuade ourselves to ignore these upcoming changes and not react to them? Besides, elements, issues, and strategies discussed in the following chapters regarding the delivery of AFC actually can create an all-inclusive solution that benefits other age cohorts at the same time, as Fitzgerald and Caro point out in their latest book of international perspectives on Age-Friendly Cities (2016). Although it might look like making places for older adults only, the outcomes of the project will be serving a friendlier built environment for better well-being.

In conclusion, Chapter 10 reflects on what has been explored and exam-ined in each chapter of the book. We also propose some further ongoing planning research and practice agendas at the end for future researchers and policy makers to take on.

References

Barton, H. (2016). City of well-being: A radical guide to planning. New York: Routledge.

Caro, F., & Fitzgerald, K. (2016). International perspectives on age-friendly cities. New York: Routledge.

Faludi, A. (1970). The planning environment and the meaning of ‘planning’. Regional Studies, 4, 1–9.

Kalache, A., & Kickbusch, I. (1997). A global strategy for healthy ageing world health. World Health, 50(4):4–5.

McLoughlin, B. (1969). Urban and regional planning a system approach. London: Faber & Faber.

National Development Council. (2015). Ageing society white paper. The Executive Yuan, Taiwan.

Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 141–166.

Scharlach, A., & Lehning, A. (2016). Creating ageing-friendly communities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sun, Y., Chao, T-Y., Woo, J., & Au, D.W.H. (2017). An institutional perspective of ‘Glocalization’ in two Asian tigers: The ‘Structure−Agent−Strategy’ of building an age-friendly city. Habitat International, 59, 101–109.

UNHABITAT. (2015). Climate change strategy (2014–2019). Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/Stessa/Downloads/UN-Habitat%20Climate%20Change%20Strategy% 2014–19_05.pdf

WHO. (2007). Global age-friendly cities—a guide. Geneva: World Health Organi-zation.

WHO. (2013). Research on universal health coverage: World health report 2013. New York. Retrieved from www.who.int/whr/2013/report/en/

http://www.who.int/whr/2013/report/en/


WHO. (2015). Measuring the age-friendliness of cities: A guide to using core indica-tors. Geneva: WHO.

WHO. (2016). The top 10 causes of death. Retrieved from www.who.int/mediacentre/ factsheets/fs310/en/index1.html

WHO, & European Healthy Cities Network. (2013). Phase VI (2014–2018) of the WHO European healthy cities network: Goals and requirements. Copenhagen. Retrieved from www.marebalticum.org/brehca/images/stories/documents/phase6/phasevigoalsrequirements.pdf

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/index1.html

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/index1.html

http://www.marebalticum.org/brehca/images/stories/documents/phase6/phasevigoalsrequirements.pdf

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Tzu-Yuan Stessa ChaoThe Need for an Age-Friendly Environment

2 The Need for an Age-Friendly Environment and Rethinking of Urban Planning and Design

Introduction: Planning for the Ever-Changing World

At its genesis, the city was primarily an aggregation of populations due to military, commercial, and administrative reasons, and with time it has evolved into various physical forms. The discipline of urban planning has been expected to sustain the living quality for a growing population in the city. As Corburn argues, urban planners should play the role of doctor in a city and fix the unpleasant living conditions of city dwellers (Corburn, 2013). In other words, urban planning proposes a possible solution to peo-ple’s changing needs by manifesting itself in our physical and social environ-ment. During the history of urban planning, many theories and planning models have been conceived to adapt the physical environment with popula-tion growth and the changing needs of civilization.

According to the census by UN, the world population has increased from 1 billion to nearly 7 billion over the past 200 years, and within the last cen-tury the increase in world population was three times greater than the entire previous history of humanity (Kremer, 1993; Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2017; UN, 2011). Nevertheless, in the latter half of the 20th century, the annual growth rate of the world’s population has been constantly dropping, from 2.1% in the 1960s to approximately 1.2% in 2015. In the meantime, urban dwellers have been increasing constantly, from 54% of the world’s popula-tion in 2014 to 66% in 2050 (UN, 2016). Also, population growth is steady worldwide and heading towards an ageing society by the turn of the 22nd century. It will soon become one of the greatest tasks for urban planning to adjust the ways we used to plan with rapid population growth and when young people were the main users of the built environment.

Since the 1980s, urban planners in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have been aware of the possi-ble increase of ageing populations and the potential demographic challenges that might occur accordingly (Rosenberg & Everitt, 2001). Back then, debates were focusing on what kind of physical environment should be prepared for the increasing older population. Hence, divergent planning approaches such as integrated-oriented and segregated-oriented planning strategies were

10 The Need for an Age-Friendly Environment

both proposed and practiced in various cities. These different approaches were influenced by how the society and urban planners considered the older population cohort. The advocates of the integrated approach believed older people’s well-being could be best served through implementing an overall friendly community or city. All aspects of urban development should take older people’s demands into account to support seniors’ daily life in the city. On the other hand, the supporters of the segregated approach considered older people as a unique age cohort which needs special attention. Hence, tailor-made communities for seniors only have been introduced to ensure that their social, health, and living demands are fulfilled (Rosenberg & Ever-itt, 2001). Each approach has criticisms from financial feasibility or equality concerns. As a quick response to such diverse approaches, in 2004 the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) in the UK stated that the upcoming greying population will need full attention from the government as well as planners, and recommended ‘mainstreaming’ provision planning strategies for an age-ing population (RTPI, 2004). Considering the ageing trend, the segregated approach would be overwhelmed by the speedy older population increase and, apparently, a more integral urban planning system with explicit consid-eration of the ageing population should be a more timely approach.

Nowadays, aged societies already present challenging issues globally, and have a comprehensive effect on topics such as age-friendliness of the built environment, economic structure, or health policies. In other words, changes in the population structure thoroughly influence the way cities work and how they look. Urban planning and design is capable of integrat-ing many aspects of urban life, which explains why cities and ageing socie-ties are strongly interrelated. In addition, although older people have much in common in general, ageing takes various forms, and differences can be mapped at many scales ranging from individual variances to regional dif-ferences between the East and West (Chao & Huang, 2016). This feature highlights the importance of spatial scale in the discussion on age-friendly environments, and informing many themes of urban planning and policy design. Furthermore, it reinforces the proposition that ageing population structure and future urban development are closely related to one another, which is the underlying concept of this chapter.

From Healthy Urban Planning to Age-Friendly Cities Planning

The origin of the urban planning practice (mainly for public health purposes) dates back to the 19th century in the UK, and the cooperation between planning and health-related policies has continued to this day. The healthy cities (HC) movement is one of the most well-known programs intending to reunite health with planning in the late 1980s with the expanding con-cept of urban governance instead of only particular health status (WHO, 2008). The main contexts of HC related to physical environments focusing

The Need for an Age-Friendly Environment 11

on pursuing a clean and quality physical, stable ecosystem, access to a vari-ety of activities, and sustainable development. It has extended the context of long-term collaborations between physical environmental planning and the public health discipline to go beyond field-site health improvements for each individual (Corburn, 2013). In addition, the HC movement is highly involved with public health policies as well as urban governance, and mostly depends on partnerships and cross-departmental collaborations. In Phase VI of the HC movement from 2014–2018, one of the four core themes is creat-ing resilient communities and supportive environments for protecting and promoting health at both individual and community levels (WHO, 2013). As a result, town and country planning is further considered as a vital role to avoid health inequities in minority groups. The scheme of ‘health-promoting settings’ represents the necessity of integral planning initiatives. Furthermore, in order to help cities better adapt to forthcoming population ageing, since 2007 the World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized that the emerging ageing challenge will need special attention and set aside another program of age-friendly cities and communities on this matter. Global Age-Friendly Cities—A Guide was published to serve as a manual for cities in order to practice the age-friendly cities concept, and manifests the importance of improving the overall physical environment in a way that is in favour of the elderly. Encompassing spatial, social, and psychologi-cal dimensions, the guide provides a set of age-friendly checklists grouped around eight topics, all related to urban development: Outdoor spaces and buildings, Transportation, Housing, Social participation, Respect and social inclusion, Civic participation and employment, Communication and infor-mation, and Community support and health services. This guide can be considered as the very first overarching global attempt to tie our ageing societies, urging improvements and adjustments of the built environment together to manifest the urgent need for changes in responding to popula-tion ageing.

A Glance at the History of Well-Being Related to Planning Instruments and Current Issues

Urban planning has the capacity for tackling well-being issues—one only has to think of how the concept of hygiene was applied in 19th-century urban planning in response to the worrisome trends of urban development according to the industrial revolution (Sutcliffe, 1983; Schubert, 2000). Before the modern urban planning system was introduced a century ago, such as zoning ordinances to regulate land use and density, there had always been a profession dealing with the well-being issues of humans living thou-sands of years ago in many ancient civilizations (Baumgart, 2017). Back then, urban form created by planners was meant to complement the geo-graphical conditions of each settlement and usually for better ventilation and cozier shelters. For instance, the layout of most Greek towns illustrated


the classic urban planning profession’s aim to refine environments and safe-guard well-being (Mumford, 1986). In the Oriental cultural context, the Book of Changes in ancient China was believed to be an instruction to allocate human activities to the right locations and to further guide housing developments and place-making for the well-being of residents. Up to a city population booming period in the 19th century, urban planning tools were applied to limit urban growth for public health and security purposes, such as the famous concept of the Garden City by Ebenezer Howard. Also, land use regulations such as zoning ordinances were starting to be applied to avoid conflicts in usage.

During the dynamic process of industrialization in the 18th century, Ged-des hastened the necessity of legalizing urban planning integrated with pub-lic health context. Until today, the modern building codes of many counties still follow the same goals (Platt, 2007). Similarly, urban redevelopment/regeneration tools are for renovating outdated built environments for safety and better living quality purposes. However, all efforts of applying urban planning tools to sustain the well-being of daily life still fall short of meeting public health expectations and are often criticized as merely reaching the minimum standards of actual well-being (Baumgart, 2017). Just as Lopez pointed out, although the built environment is an extremely important health factor for city dwellers, as an involuntary factor to most individu-als, the parameter of the built environment is still set by the administration and society (Lopez, 2012). Hence, urban planning professions have been utilizing all sorts of tools, techniques, and approaches to ensure the envi-ronmental setting’s positive influence on public health to some extent. Nev-ertheless, disputes over what kind of built environment can best stimulate mental and physical well-being remain, due to the various types and forms of built environments. For instance, many laypeople may have very different ideas of ‘good environment’ and ‘good health’, and usually assume that liv-ing in denser cities leads to enduring lower living quality (i.e., poor air and water quality). As a result, the search for a better living environment has channeled the trend of urban sprawl and suburbanization and has evoked more sustainable concerns (Frumkin, Frank, & Jackson, 2004). Many stud-ies have also intended to explore the possible impacts on the direct health outcomes or activities of urban dwellers by the urban characteristics or lev-els of urbanization, yet most have failed to find consistently significant cor-relations among countries and continents. Some even identified the positive correlations between older adults’ physical activities and highly urbanized areas (Arnadottir, Gunnarsdottir, & Lundin-Olsson, 2009; Kemperman & Timmerman, 2009; Wu et al., 2016). Accordingly, good collaborations of urban planning and public health might be dynamic, and further studies are required to obtain a better understanding between the built environment and health outcomes from time to time, to feedback to more effective place-making approaches, especially under the foreseeable global climate change challenges that may pose more health issues everywhere (Ng, 2016). The


comprehensiveness of urban planning could be more helpful in terms of balancing the needs of ageing population, ecological sustainability, and eco-nomic activities. Various planning theories and models developed through-out history were all based on giving consideration to human needs, and it is no exception in the case of planning for global ageing. Urban planning and design professionals should be in line to deal with the age-friendly agenda. In fact, urban planning instruments are even more important to provide cities with planning strategies that meet the goal of well-being (Baumgart, 2017). Hence, the chapter will review several important instruments of urban planning and design based on the three urban components, namely urban form, infrastructures, and cultural norms, proposed by Sturm (Sturm, 2000). Through such discussions, we can have a better idea of how urban planning links with well-being and discuss the possible contributions they may have to formulate a more age-friendly city.

Urban Form: Land Use Control and Zoning Ordinance

In the first decade of the 21st century, many cross-discipline researchers started to explore the relationship between urban planning instruments and public health priorities, and found out that many concepts of each discipline actually match with each other. For instance, land use control is the most obvious example. Before zoning ordinances were applied a century ago, the context of urban layouts and allocations of compatible land uses had always been part of the main concerns of urban planning and public health. One of the most representative ideas of modern urban planning is the ‘Garden City’ concept proposed by Howard in 1898. The Garden City model proposes an ideal settlement with a total land area of 6,000 acres, 5,000 acres being agricultural land, and 1,000 acres being a built-up area accommodating 32,000 residents; the land is divided into different land use zones according to different activity types, and zones are separated from each other by green belts. The main contribution of the Garden City model is that it consider-ably defined the moderate relationship with population size and land usage from a sustainable community perspective. This planning model has had a profound and long-lasting influence on 20th-century planning concepts. With being adapted to different regions, and having gone through various transformations, it paved the way for the Neighbourhood Unit concept pro-posed by Clarence Arthur Perry in 1929.

In an age when motorized traffic started to conquer the Western Hemi-sphere, Perry believed that face-to-face encounters and societal relations were values to safeguard. Hence he drafted a livable and safe residential environment well-served with facilities, and he made the neighbourhood the basic component of planning. According to Perry’s definition, the Neigh-bourhood Unit (NU) should be defined based on the daily life of residents and their walkable periphery in a neighbourhood (Perry, 1929) (Figure 2.1). Six spatial design principles are identified, namely scale, defined edges, open


spaces, community institutions, local retail, and an internal road network with no through traffic. Also, land use planning should be applied to ensure the layout of the urban form can lower the impact of automobiles on neigh-bourhood walkability. In addition, concerned by huge rises in private auto-mobile ownership and the increasing number of traffic accidents during the 1920s, the community of Radburn was another example of using urban form to sustain walkability by proposing the ‘superblock’. Influenced by Perry’s NU, often referred to as the Radburn-type traffic system, the novelty of this concept is to propose a pedestrian circulation network completely separated from auto traffic. In addition, interestingly, although Le Corbus-ier’s idea of the contemporary city for 3 million people never came true in the 1920s, some of his planning notions, such as applying advanced technol-ogy into modern planning, good service accessibility, a 400-meter grid road network with appropriate walking distance to public transportation, and abundant green space contributing to a city’s aesthetic in high density cities, are actually very inspirational in facing today’s urban population ageing trend (Le Corbusier, 2011).

The preceding cases are examples of classic urban planning instruments in formulating a good urban form that could greatly benefit well-being or public health. According to Baumgart, the urban instrument can be an

Figure 2.1 The Schematic Diagram of the Garden City

Source: Howard, 1902.


interface of individual well-being and public welfares. Hence, the applica-tion of land use regulations, zoning ordinances, and building codes is meant for smooth construction of the ideal urban morphology. From the urban land use aspect, planning regulations and zoning ordinances safeguard pub-lic hygiene as well as overall quality of life, while building codes are set for basic security purposes to prevent hazards (2017). The concept of main-taining environmental ‘capacity’ or ‘resilience’ has been connoted through regulations. As the zoning ordinance is the most frequently applied land use regulation around the world, it has long been criticized for being unable to achieve how it is supposed to work ever since its first appearance in New York in 1916 (Elliott, 2008). The general components of traditional zon-ing ordinances include a list of permitted uses, and a list of setbacks and height limits. It then obviously controls where various activities should take place and how street blocks look. Therefore, the actual morphology could be practiced by the land use regulation in reality. Until today, although there have been hybrid approaches of zoning to make it more flexible (e.g., Plan-ning United Development [PUD], form-based zoning, and floating zoning), zoning ordinances remain the core context of land use controls and guide the urban form. Therefore, considering the nature of an ageing society in the near future, a more human-oriented zoning ordinance would be more favorable for older urban dwellers’ everyday life.

As urban planning adapts to the characteristics, culture, and society of different regions, it follows diverse development paths; also, as the temporal context of planning changes, new concepts are proposed, such as ‘healthy city’, ‘eco-city’, ‘smart city’, and ‘age-friendly city’; the latter refers to the urban planning concept reflecting on ageing society. As Elliott suggests, under the trend of more cross-departmental collaborations, participatory planning, and stronger land use drivers such as property market force, there should be better ways to zone land use in the future. Principles such as mixed-use attainable housing, dynamic development standards, and better webbing might be more applicable in an ageing society (Elliott, 2008).

Urban Infrastructures

Urban infrastructures can be defined as various basic systems that facili-tate city service networks to ensure city functions (Moss, Marvin, & Guy, 2016). Also, urban infrastructures are provided for urban dwellers to live up to a certain living standard and to help to reduce poverty (Allen, Hofmann, & Griffiths, 2007). Physical systems including transportation, communication, sewage, water and electric systems, and service systems such as emergency department and medical facilities are all examples of infrastructure.

As urban infrastructure is the most relevant connection between urban planning and public health, it stands at the front line of urban hygiene and usually faces more challenges from the speedy urbanization trend. In


addition to an ageing society, it is also an essential factor for older people to live independently and well. Despite most concerns of an ageing society increasing spending on the priority infrastructures for older people and the resulting fairness issues within generations, it is inarguable that investing in good urban infrastructure systems can contribute to urban well-being in gen-eral. It could benefit all ages and also help to decrease older people’s future possible costs by providing a supportive environment to keep their healthy status for as long as possible, which has been the core aim of AFC projects. The WHO has clearly identified the importance of green infrastructure and transportation systems for promoting age-friendly cities (WHO, 2007). In addition, according to some epidemiological studies, there is a positive asso-ciation between green space and self-reported health, especially for older people. According to a policy statement by Public Health England, people may experience a variety of pressures reflecting physiological and cognitive vulnerabilities with poor urban infrastructure systems, spatial use, and pub-lic services for supporting their daily life (PHE, 2014). Recent studies have also pointed out there is a strong correlation between health inequality and both quantity and quality of urban infrastructures, as it’s a part of the tasks for urban governance (Corburn, 2013; Rydin et al., 2012).

Since urban infrastructures are usually very costly, when it comes to mak-ing sustainable urban policies regarding future urban infrastructures, the context of a feasibility analysis should involve community well-being and health equity domains in terms of both physical and service infrastructures. There are increasingly integrated planning and design instruments applied to meet the more livable and financially feasible goals. For instance, green infrastructure (GI), defined as a network of multifunctional green spaces, is increasingly recognized by the UK government, and the guidance on green infrastructure planning advocates that the contributions of GI in ‘place-making’ with providing and maintaining particular green spaces in the com-munity for both environmental and social sustainable purposes (DCLG, 2008). Furthermore, low impact development tools (LIDT) as an important part of GI can be applied to decrease environmental and ecological impacts by using new urban developments and linking the green spaces within a built environment in a more sustainable way (Natural England, 2009). In addition, smart city planning instruments can also assist the optimal infra-structure resource distribution by introducing up-to-date big-data analyses for planning decision-making.

Cultural Norms

Cultural norms are usually defined as collective behaviour standards that a society adopts as a whole and that appear in citizens’ interactions with each other in daily life. From an urban planning and design perspective, cultural norms can be the essential components in observing the ‘sense of place’ or ‘community identity’ as the intangible assets of a place. According to recent studies, cultural norms can affect how community dwellers think


of a place and may influence the adoption of environmental designs as well as urban forms (Nassauer, Wang, & Dayrell, 2009). In other words, cultural norms may reflect local people’s unique lifestyles or expectancy in terms of how the physical environment should be. It is important for urban planners to acknowledge the distinct cultural contexts between different cities and countries. Karasawa et al. conducted a comparative study of ageing and well-being from cultural perspectives between Japan and the United States. They have confirmed that older adults are affected by the cultural norms in their society more than younger ones, and there are significant variations in two study societies of how older people consider well-being (2011). Among the two major types of well-being, eudaemonic well-being and hedonic well-being, built environment is considered as a factor contributing to hedonic well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2001).

From a spatial design perspective, the mutual relationship between physi-cal environment and cultural norms is significant and had a strong influence on the City Beautiful Movement back in the 1890s and early 1900s. Accord-ing to Bluestone, planners believed that by creating aesthetic public places, establishing grand monumental public buildings, and making over urban landscapes, a society can be more harmonious and ordered (1988). Until today, environmental behaviourists have emphasized the positive impacts of good urban form on people’s physical and psychological status. Environ-mental psychology also become the backbone of modern zoning ordinances and building codes, as well as urban design codes.

Planning and Design for Urbanization and Ageing

In the 21st century, human settlements are facing a double challenge, urban-ization and population ageing, as claimed by the United Nations (UN). Although these two phenomena have been in the process along with the history of human civilization, the UN has projected it will reach the peak of both trends and results in the greatest challenges of human settlements. However, it is very easy to assume that most people are going to live in high density and crowded metropolitan areas if one only takes reference from the percentage of ‘urban’ dwellers of total population. In fact, definitions of ‘urban’ vary in different countries depending on their demographic size, pop-ulation density, and specified characteristics. For instance, in North America and Oceania, a built environment that gathers more than 1,000 residents could be considered an urban area, such as in Canada and likewise in New Zealand. In the United States, a standard population size of 50,000 or more is set to define an urban area. A large amount of European countries share a standard of 2,000 inhabitants or more in localities. Many Asian urbanized areas have population sizes from 3,000 to 5,000. In Taiwan, according to the Urban Planning Law, the population threshold for defining an urbanized area is 3,000. Despite not having a unanimous definition of ‘urban’ area, the concept of urbanization still represents a trend of increasing populations residing in a relatively concentrated land coverage, so considerable planning


is required thereof. Of course, there have been numerous indices or indica-tors developed to further define the urban hierarchy representing levels of population density and types of industry and services. Nevertheless, during the history of urbanization within civilization, as mentioned earlier, various planning instruments have been applied to form the basic layout of settle-ments and are consistent with how urban areas appear at the present day. The people inhabiting a city pass away inevitably, but the physical forms of the settlements remain. Hence, in the process of continuous habitation, urban planning tools are utilized to maintain the functions of a city and to renovate areas from time to time. However, changes to physical envi-ronments take time and money, and improvements might easily come with delays, especially in older/historical cities.

Ageing Cities vs. Ageing Population: A Case Study in Tainan

It is common that a physical environment does not always match its current users’ needs from time to time. As most AFC initiatives focus on the ageing population and their active ageing strategies, it is important to acknowledge that urban areas age as well, so different age-friendly urban planning strate-gies should be applied accordingly. Based on our study, Table 2.1 shows the ageing trend in some historical cities and their countries in Asia and Europe. Although there is no distinct similar pattern of ageing trend of those cities, a great difference between the East (i.e. Japan, China, and Taiwan) and the West (i.e. England and Sweden) can be identified. According to the table, historical cities are not necessarily ageing faster than national average ageing

Table 2.1 Ageing Trend by Country and Historical City

Percentage of aged population of total population (reaching year)

Years of doubling the number

7% 10% 14% 20% 7% → 14% 10% → 20%

Taiwan 1993 2006 2018 2025 25 19Tainan 1997 2012 2022 2034 25 22Japan 1970 1984 1994 2005 24 21Kyoto 1955 1980 1994 2005 39 25South Korea 1999 2007 2017 2026 18 19Seoul 2005 2010 2020 2027 15 17China 2000 2016 2025 2035 25 19Beijing 1995 2000 2017 2025 22 25England 1929 1946 1975 2026 46 80Sheffield 1937 1950 1972 2035 35 85Sweden 1887 1948 1971 2015 84 67Stockholm 1930 1960 1970 1980 40 20

Sources: Beijing Statistical Information Net, 2017; Kyoto City Official Website, 2017; OECD, 2017; Seoul Urban Solutions Agency, 2015; Sheffield City Council, 2017; Statistics Sweden, 2017; Stockholms Stad, 2017; UN, 2011


trends due to at different development stages. Many studies confirm that age-ing cohorts tend to agglomerate around built/historical areas since they have been living there from a young age and ageing-in-place naturally nevertheless (Beard, Kalache, Delgado, & Hill, 2012). With the expansion of urban areas in the process of urban growth, younger dwellers tend to reside in newer parts of cities for various reasons, such as job opportunities and school districts. It is more likely that older residents stay in older parts due to their local attach-ments and better social capitals. Studies in the UK also identify that, aside from original residents, there is a new trend for older people to move back into the city for a more convenient lifestyle, realizing Perry’s NU idea (Oc, Chao, & Brown, 2007). However, the physical characteristics of such built areas usually come with public health and disaster prevention concerns, such as narrower alleys, poor pavement, and outdated infrastructure (Fernandez, Byard, Lin, Benson, & Barbera, 2002). Considering the vulnerability and frailty of older people under various types of hazards, the urgency of updat-ing built environments could pose more challenges for policy makers.

To further understand the relationship between an old city and its ageing population, a local study was conducted in Tainan City, located in southern Taiwan, which was the first capital city over 200 years ago in Taiwan, and has a long history of urban development since the 17th century (Rubinstein, 2007). According to the census, Tainan City officially entered ageing soci-ety in 1997, with people aged over 65 occupying 7% or more of the total population. In the meantime, the ageing trend in old cities has constantly increased since 1987. The study was carried out in 2014 to study the ageing population distribution pattern and its spatial correlation with the historical part of the city. The study can be divided into two stages: (1) the Geographic Information System (GIS) was applied to do the mapping, and (2) the Spa-tial Autocorrelation Analysis (SAA) was adopted to further analyze the age-ing distribution and transitions from 1987 to 2011.

In the first stage, Moran’s I statistic is employed to measure the spatial association of population ageing. Spatial autocorrelation correlograms based on Z(I) value (12.63 > 1.96) have also shown during the study period that the distribution of ageing exhibits a positive spatial concentration over time. In addition, according to the Cluster and Outlier Analysis (Anselin Local Moran’s I) result, the spatial concentration scope is highly consist-ent with the old city wall constructed in the Qing dynasty back in the 19th century, as illustrated in Figure 2.2. It is reasonable to say that older people prefer to stay put when it comes to deciding where to live.

In the second stage, we expect to uncover that, given the ageing distribu-tion tends to concentrate in older parts of the city, there are factors influ-encing various ageing speeds among older communities. Factors that could derive from older people’s daily activities include medical resources, recrea-tional facilities and social welfare services (Oc et al., 2007). After mapping the information from an ageing population distribution with public facilities distribution according to the year of allocation, as Figure 2.3 illustrates, it is


confirmed that most speedy ageing communities share similar land use tran-sitions, including improved public transportation services and easy access to medical and recreational facilities. Hence, it is likely that older people will prefer to move to areas with characteristics that can contribute to their later life, if necessary.

From the urban planning and design perspective, the preceding case study can start further dialogues on the urban planning policies in Tainan. Similar to historical cities around the world, Tainan has been constantly urged for urban regeneration in order to keep its competitiveness. The dilemma as to what extent an older city should change in order to revitalize economically

Figure 2.2 The SAA Cluster and Outlier Analysis of Ageing Population in Tainan

Figure 2.3 The Map of Public Facility Distribution and Ageing Distribution


and maintain its societal capital at the same time is a difficult task. We argue that urban planners should pay more attention to understanding the special companionships between older residents and older areas, as they are both assets of cultural norms in the city. The application of planning and design instruments should be more sophisticated in terms of improving safety and security without disturbing too much of the original place characteristics.

Time Matters to Both Cities and Population

The preceding case explains the complexity of urban areas with ageing pop-ulation issues. Each urban area has its own path in urbanization history, and the time factor is an important matter when we pursue the AFC goals. To this end, there is a recent report of Ageing in Cities by the OECD intended to explore the time factors of the urban settings and their residents. Nine metropolitan areas were selected as target areas in this research project; each represented a different urbanization status, and their demographic age-ing speed indicated diverse trends within each metropolis. Hence, it is sug-gested to undertake further observation on different combinations of age of cities and population ageing trends by the end of the report. In addition, they discovered that a high percentage of older people were found residing with poor living quality in old residential communities in wider metropoli-tan areas developed in the 1960s aiming for young families to settle (OECD, 2015). On the other hand, they also found that some younger cities with younger demographic structures are ageing fast as well. This, then, has led to another need of discussing cities at different urbanization stages, as they might encounter different issues with their older residents. Of course, some AFC issues are common to any city, just as the eight domains proposed by the WHO in 2007 after a 2-year global research project. Such research provides a basic ground by highlighting important pillars in older people’s lives. Figure 2.4 illustrates the proposed types of cities in different urbaniza-tion stages and with different levels of demographic transition inspired by the OECD.

It is our belief that cities belonging to different types encounter dis-tinct issues in terms of promoting an age-friendly built environment. The

Ageing Fast

TypeI

Population Ageing Speed

Age of Cities

TypeIII

TypeII

TypeIV

Old Cities

Young Cities

Ageing Slowly

Figure 2.4 The Combination Types of Age of Cities and Population Ageing Speed


following discussions provide a different angle to see how similar issues should have been responded to in different types of cities.

Type I Cities: Aged Cities With Population Ageing Rapidly

The profile of a Type I city usually includes an upside-down popu-lation pyramid and older people occupy the population proportion that used to be occupied by children. A low fertility rate is usually the side effect. Economically, it has its own advantage of playing a relatively important role in the country as it was developed earlier for that reason. With outdated infrastructures, diminishing advantages, and a decreasing labor force, it could encounter serious problems to keep prosperous. Most mid- to large-sized European cities and Tainan City in Taiwan would meet the profile. From an urban governance perspective, the OECD suggests that this type of city should anticipate and prepare for the demographic structure in the post-ageing era, since such a city will reach the peak of population ageing in the latter half of the 21st century. In terms of actual sustainable urban development, we strongly suggest that the transformation of the city should take place soon to support the life of the current and future ageing population, as they are already the main population cohort in the city, as well as the lifestyle in a city with its long history and stories. Urban form in such cities should be maintained as much as possible but brought up to modern standards in dealing with new challenges such as climate change.

Type II Cities: Aged Cities With Population Ageing Slowly

The profile of a Type II city includes a relatively stable demographic structure with a normal age distribution. There are two possible pat-terns of Type II cities. One is the capital city kind, which has a long suc-cessful urbanization history and owns irreplaceable edges that ensure competitiveness as well as population increase. The other is the sta-ble yet slowly shrinking city kind, usually with one or two locational and industrial advantages. From an urban governance perspective, it is important to maintain its demographic status. Also, from a sustainable urban development aspect, when updating most city infrastructures, we suggest that designing for an all-age concept should be introduced to elevate the city texture to a more friendly level. For the first kind of city, it is usually more resourceful to introduce more up-to-date facili-ties, such as cloud health monitoring technology. Hence, a smart city approach would be appropriate. For the second kind of city, it needs to focus on keeping the city compact without further shrinking. A com-pact city concept would be useful.


Type III Cities: Young Cities With Population Ageing Rapidly

The profile of a Type III city usually involves a sound urban infrastruc-ture with a certain special niche appeal to older people. According to the population analysis from 2001–2011, Type III cities usually have a higher total population increase in both young and old (OECD, 2015). Some Type III cities might encounter older people relocating themselves there in pursuing a better retirement life or better welfare services. Such cities would have fewer economic challenges at the moment depending on how rapidly the population is ageing. Hence, from an urban govern-ance perspective, it is important for city policy makers to re-evaluate the priority development items of the city, taking the possible impacts that they might encounter in the near future, including the ageing trend, into account. From a sustainable urban development aspect, we sug-gest focusing on all-age developments with universal design elements that could prevent the possible loss of the young population and create more intergenerational spaces. It will also help to propose well-designed places to stimulate the fertility rate so as to slow down the ageing trend.

Type IV Cities: Young Cities With Population Ageing Slowly

The profile of Type IV cities is at the prospering stage of urbanization with strong population growth. Their demographic status will be least affected by the ageing trend in the short term. Cities in most developing countries usually belong to this type. Thus, ageing issues are the most likely underestimated. Hence, from the urban governance perspective, it is crucial to foresee the demographic change in the long run to make sure urban growth does not exceed its public health and environmental capacity. Quality of life should be one of the priorities. In addition, since young cities are in the process of development, from a sustainable urban development aspect, it is also important to introduce the collec-tive urban layout that arranges the public services in companion with the preventive-medicine and age-friendly concept and deliver a healthier urban form for people at any age.

To summarize, there could be other cross-sectional studies that address the spatial planning with ageing issues, but the above category is what we con-sider the most appropriate one for addressing the importance of the ‘time’ factor to both human and place. In this part, we integrated the interna-tional research conducted by the OECD and our local study in Tainan to confirm the dynamics of every city related to the processes of urbanization and history. Time also matters to spatial planning and composes a different tune when cities of differing ages encounter different ageing trends. A self-reflection of how we plan and what to plan and design by taking the time factor into account is important accordingly.


Conclusion: The Way Forward

While we are worrying about the ageing trend and discussing how to react from all aspects, sometimes we might ignore the fact that population ageing actually represents great achievements of civilization, technology, and medi-cal advances. World life expectancy has extended constantly since 1950s, and the overall mortality rate is also decreasing (OECD, 2017). If ageing is a natural process to all species, and humans manage to extend our life expec-tancy longer, it should not be considered a threat or a challenge. Instead, it should be considered as a triumph and a good chance to reconsider the way we use our lives and our cities. Also, how to make sure we can age well in our cities is an inevitable task for today’s urban planners. In this chapter, we intend to understand the dynamic relationship between urban life and the built environment by first reviewing the history of planning. We have pointed out that although different urban forms have resulted from various planning concepts and theories, the main goal of urban planning remains the same: to make livable land use, quality urban infrastructures, and enhance the sense of place and well-being. Hence, some planning and design instruments are suggested to be more appropriate for older dwellers. In the new millennium, we have faced another challenge, however: the speedy urbanization that poses difficulties to sustaining city well-being in a denser built environment, especially for older people. We further pointed out the importance of con-sidering these two factors closely and exploring the possible combination of ageing urban areas and population ageing speeds in order to propose more sophisticated age-friendly urban planning and design strategies accordingly.

Still, there are many concerns over whether it is really necessary to focus on one age cohort, older people, from an urban planning perspective since urban planning as part of public policies should care for all age groups. Will the emphasis on age-friendly cities result in another kind of inequality? We would like to argue the necessity for AFC from several perspectives. First, from the medical cost perspective, just as the WHO claims, the amount of older people will cost too much for taking on individual medical care as we are used to. We need an overall supportive environment to practice preven-tive medicine, and urban governance can be the key pillar. Second, a proper emphasis on the ageing cohort can be considered as a compensation for the unfriendly places we have created in the past due to our overemphasis on economic developments. We owe a friendly and livable place-making to older dwellers, and various urban planning and design instruments can be applied to make things right. Participatory planning tools can also be very helpful when involving an ageing population in the planning process. Instead of overemphasizing industrial and economic-oriented place mak-ing, planners and designers should pay more attention to making places more appealing to the ageing population cohort, who will soon become the majority of most cities, and who will really appreciate a supportive environ-ment. Finally, just as many AFC advocators have stated, when we deliver


an age-friendly place, we deliver a place for all ages. The ultimate goal for age-friendly planning and design practices will and should be to find a better way to plan a friendly place for the young and the old, as well as for every urban dweller.

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Tzu-Yuan Stessa ChaoScale Matters: Age-Friendly Planning

3 Scale MattersAge-Friendly Planning as a New Urban Governance Agenda

Age-Friendly as a Planning

As urbanization and industrialization progressed over a century ago, urban planning has been heralded as an effective approach to the public health issues derived from speedy urbanization (Sarkar, Wesbter, & Gallacher, 2014). To fulfil the aim of creating a livable built environment, demographic data is an important source of information for urban planning. Design pro-fessionals and population projections are also considered as essential sup-porting evidence for modern town and country planning. Many planning policies and land use types are formulated based on population projections. Zoning tools were first introduced to designate urban land usage in order to manage comprehensive actives, as well as needs of urban dwellers in 1916, and soon became the major urban planning tool in many countries (Natoli, 1971). Although it aims to promote an orderly pattern of development and to separate incompatible land uses, the ultimate goal is to balance the ten-sion between human activity and physical environment, and to seek for a smarter way of accommodating an increasing population in a limited spatial capacity. Public infrastructures and service facilities are planned for provid-ing necessary service for future populations and to maintain service quality under the pressure of high population density.

Nevertheless, the contexts of population taken into account in modern urban planning have focused more on quantity and the industrial workforce relating to urban competitiveness. Economic-oriented urban planning has dominated the urban land use policies for creating an urban environment for better economic prosperity in the past 50 years. With the globalization trend, urban development is conditioned to greater extent global industry and economy. In the meantime, the definition of urban population in world capital cities has expanded beyond the real urban dwellers to the broader context of international urban users in terms of urban planning and design. Thus, who we should plan for has become a long debate in the urban plan-ning practices. A previous review of planning history shows that planners and designers have always emphasized the importance of good place-making from the very early garden city movement, slum clearance, and urban regen-eration to the latest sustainable and disaster-resilient city (Chao, 2016). The major urban challenges may change over time, but making an enjoyable city

30 Scale Matters: Age-Friendly Planning

for its users should always be the main purpose for urban planning. How-ever, the continuous reiterations of walkability in a city reflect the reality of vehicle usage dominating the urban space actually, and the re-emphasis of well-being and quality of life mirrors the serious degradation of urban living status (Speck, 2012).

There is no doubt that the planning profession has been dragged into the dilemma of what or who should be the priority, especially in most developing countries. Economic developments overpower urban life, and living quality is usually the first to be sacrificed in most cases (Jim & Zhang, 2015). Hence, by the turn of the 21st century, criticisms on neglecting the role of people in the planning process and underestimating the social and health impacts by urban planning have urged the need for rethinking the fundamental purpose of planning. Also, as mentioned in the previous chapters, it is the era of age-ing, where the population structure has faced drastic changes, and ageing groups inevitably will be the majority of the total population in the next half century. Clearly, the way we used to consider demographic data to urban planning has come to a crossroads. Older urban users and their needs from spatial planning have never been more important. Characteristics of ageing populations will have direct influences on every aspect of planning theory and practice in future urban planning.

The Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFC) movement by the WHO is the first program that proposes a comprehensive and cross-departmental framework that acknowledges that an overarching reaction is needed for a specific demographic phenomenon, ageing in future cities (Chao, 2015). Focusing on ageing groups, spatial-related domains listed in the AFC frame-work including ‘outdoor spaces and public buildings’, ‘housing’ and ‘trans-portation’ induce planners to review the age-friendliness of existing urban environments. Prior to the advocacy of AFC, the Healthy City movement has been promoted globally since the 1980s in attempting to unite public health and the urban planning profession (Sarkar et al., 2014). According to studies, the healthy cities movement is about enhancing the physical, mental, social, and environmental well-being of the people who live and work in cities (Duhl, 1986; Webster & Sanderson, 2013). Similarly, both movements are develop-ing a set of core indicators identifying spatial elements related to health out-comes from service-oriented perspectives, such as walkability, accessibility to public transportation, and housing affordability (WHO, 2015). Take the AFC action plans in New York, for example , 58 action plans developed by bottom-up approach responding to the daily needs of older New Yorkers in their communities. In addition, both movements emphasize on promoting healthy and age-friendly environment with little cost but big effects.

However, any change in physical environment is costly from urban plan-ning perspective depending on the spatial scale.Figure 3.1 illustrates the correlation between age-friendly strategies and scales of space applied. The necessity of establishing indicators is to provide a stable evidence-based data-base for prioritizing urgent issues and monitoring the action plans adopted from a quantitative perspective to ensure a cost-effective results. Although

Scale Matters: Age-Friendly Planning 31

the AFC core indicators include two equity indicators as a measure to bal-ance the possible inequity between subgroups, the overall issues of inequity deriving from urbanization and urban planning are unable to be detected by such indicators. Hence, from the public health policy point of view, it is lim-ited to addressing the obstacles resulting from an urban planning system for urban citizens to pursue a healthier or friendlier life. As Lawrence mentioned, there is very little research concerning natural environments as a catalyst of healthy human behaviour, so we need to examine further how planning policy at the national level and planning/design techniques at the community level would affect health outcomes unintentionally (Lawrence, 2015).

Until 2010s, researchers from the urban planning discipline have started to analyze spatial determinates of health outcomes seeking significant envi-ronmental variables for healthy place-making (Dannenberg, Frumkin, & Jackson, 2011). Utilizing geographic analysis models to explore built envi-ronment configurations and health outcomes has also gained much atten-tion recently (Sarkar et al., 2014). Nevertheless, research findings are mostly

Housing1) Provide housing funds on low income housing2) Amend the zoning code flexibly3) Provide loans for affordable housing

Small

Large

City(Urban planand policy)

Street andCommunity

Housing(Space and

product)

Community & Civic Participation1) Provide job training and search assistance2) Promote intergenerational volunteering and learning3) Cultural & recreation activities4) Provide information through more user-friendly website or services

Health & Social Services1) Wellness & Healthcare Planning (health insurance)2) Take care of older adults at risk of social isolation and add silver alert to notify NYC3) Access to nutritious food: food stamps, Green Cart Program … etc.4) Increase access to community-based care

Public Place & Transportation1) Accessible & affordable transportation and public space2) Equipping vehicles with GPS devices and implementing phone notification system3) Create new, pedestrian-friendly public spaces while calming traffic4) Design and identify age-friendly parks

Figure 3.1 Age-Friendly Strategies and Spatial Scale


reflecting the community plan and interior design scale and are still seeking planning/design solutions for poor health outcomes. For instance, the lack of public open/green spaces is one main reason identified frequently for fewer physical activities and other forms of exercise for residents (Giles-Corti, Fos-ter, Koohsari, Francis, & Hooper, 2015). However, there is still very little systematic discussion about reviewing the spatial distribution standards or principles for allocating different types of open spaces from the urban plan-ning regulatory system to meet older people’s physical capabilities and exer-cise habits. We would like to argue that if we cannot change the planning standards for pedestrian path networks based on older pedestrians’ walking habits, how are we going to create safe and secure pedestrian environments that can be used in everyday life? Without establishing planning policies at the national level in response to the health-related or ageing issues, land use planning will still be made to follow the zoning ordinance and land use regulations, as per usual. Nevertheless, Strategic Urban Planning (SUP) is an emerging planning method that applies to problematic urban issues and determines the direction in which a city should head. SUP is the official mod-ern planning approach suggested by the UN HABITAT for more inclusive and sustainable urban planning (UN, 2007). As the UN has started to become aware that population ageing and urbanization might interact and result in challenges for urban developments, SUP was adopted as urban acupuncture methods (Lerner, 2016) for exploring such new urban issues on the smaller-scale and single-case base. Hence, we suggest that the lack of a systematic discussion of what an urban planning system can do to facilitate a healthier urban environment as a preventative approach instead of a problem solver might be compensated by introducing new analytical methods such as SUP.

Meanwhile, the concept of Health in All Policies (HiAP) has arisen to be used to advocate health public policies across sectors in the latest phase of Healthy Cities Movement. It systematically takes into account the health and health system implications of decisions, seeks synergies, and avoids harmful health impacts in order to improve population health and health equity (Leppo, Ollila, Pena, Wismar, & Cook, 2013). This concept has brought healthy cities movements to another level and has aimed at formu-lating cross-sectional policies for avoiding health impacts at the beginning of policy making instead of dealing with health consequences afterwards (St-Pierre, 2009). In other words, HiAP represents a governance strat-egy that reaches the healthy cities goal from outside of the health system. As Leppo et al. state, key determinants for successful HiAP include early cross-sector involvement, high level political support, and public involve-ment (2013). Hence, since AFC started off as a Healthy City Movement 2.0 version, the implementation framework should lay out a cohesive political agenda instead of dividing into eight domains, where each domain takes ageing people separately. Acting as a political decision itself, urban plan-ning and design is a technique proactively reacting to the population ageing issue and considering it as the major factor in the whole urban system. To create a supportive environment, enhancing active ageing physically and


socioeconomically is emphasized in the core concept of AFC and urban planning as well. Therefore, this chapter suggests that a new understanding of AFC from the urban governance perspective is needed. Accordingly, we believe that different spatial scales and socioeconomic characteristics should be taken into account when proposing age-friendly urban planning as well as urban governance.

Governing Ageing Issues at Different Spatial Scales

According to Brenner, urban governance generally refers to a certain terrain which contains various regulatory problems related to all types of urban development, and the alleviation requires collective actions across depart-ments (Brenner, 2014). Clearly, population ageing is one of the urban chal-lenges requiring collective actions through sophisticated urban governance. To identify the population ageing issue as the emerging agenda of urban gov-ernance is important because urban governance shapes and manages both the physical and social characters of the urban realm. It also concerns and affects quantity and quality of public services at different scales. In short, urban governance aims to achieve equality among stakeholders in terms of feasibility and efficiency. The World Bank report states that the core concept of urban governance is management, which includes formal and informal aspects, namely planning regulations, systems, behaviours, culture, social norms, and business practices (1992). In the recent international guidelines on urban planning published by the United Nations (UN), urban govern-ance is re-emphasized for enhancing integrative and participatory decision-making process towards a shared vision in the world (UN-Habitat, 2015). According to recent healthy cities research, Sarkar et al. developed a ‘health niche–based model’ emphasizing the hierarchy of spatial planning sys-tems and scales to deliver public health through an urban planning system (2014). Thus, in the case of promoting AFC through urban planning, the hierarchy of the planning system should be acknowledged. If we planners start to consider population ageing as one of the catalysts of distinguishing one city from others qualitatively, proposing appropriate urban governance to expand the complex interconnections of population behaviour and var-iegated socioenvironmental geographies is inevitable and much needed. The following section will try to identify planning-related issues in an ageing society at different scales of urban governance. Figure 3.2 briefly illustrates different planning instruments applied for different spatial scales.

National Level: Urban Policy Point of View

Although population ageing has now been identified as the priority issue at the national level in almost every country, the main focus of national policies for older people still varies among countries. National policies towards age-ing issues can be differentiated between developed countries and developing countries due to differences in the ageing process and national development


goals. Developed countries, such as in North America and most in the Euro-pean Union (EU), have faced both population ageing and low fertility rates simultaneously, while developing countries only have the population ageing challenge. Hence, developed countries will first focus on how to take care of older persons with the possible shortage of younger manpower in the long run at the national level. Thus, a series of policy statements advocating the establishment of a supportive environment for older people to manage self-care and independent living has become a common notion. Based on the investigation by initiated the WHO in 2007 before launching the AFC movement, creating age-friendly environments refers to the adaptation of an everyday living environment to the needs of the ageing population, both physically and psychologically to developed countries. (WHO, 2007) Also, the empowerment of older people to age in better physical and mental health to maintain their autonomy in old age is also emphasized in order to sustain a workforce for as long as possible. Numerous cross-national networks have been established between developed countries for age-friendly environments in the past 10 years to echo the regional spatial governance in the Western world. Towards an Age-Friendly Europe, for instance, is one of the most active networks collaborating with six other large age-friendly networks for greater synergy. (http://www.afeinnovnet.eu/content/towards-covenant/)

To developing countries, on the other hand, despite population projec-tions suggest many countries are ageing much faster than industrialized countries, awareness of issues concerning older populations remains low at the national level (Shrestha, 2000). Hence, national action plans are mostly tackling the challenges from welfare systems and medical services in order to maintain basic medical service quality. Older people remain as groups that should be taken care of instead of playing a more active role, in most

National level

Regional/rural level

City level

Community/street level • Inclusive design• Elderly empowerment

• Urban governance• Master/detail plans• Urban design

• Spatial plan• Planning policy statements

• Ageing vs. climate change• Older workforce and industrial spatial policy• Housing policy

• Regional service distribution• Rural sustainable strategies

• Local age-friendly action plans• Participatory community planning• Inclusive design

• Age-friendly urban planning principles• Development density• Infrastructure allocation/accessibility standards

• Regional planning• Rural area governance

Figure 3.2 Different Planning Instruments for Different Spatial Scales Under AFC Context


cases. For instance, the Turkish central government in 2007 published a report titled ‘The Situation of Elderly People in Turkey and the National Plan of Action on Ageing’. Most of the action plan deals with societal and equality issues and aims to create a socially inclusive environment. Acces-sible transportation and exclusion issues were the only two actions in rural areas that involved spatial planning (Tiktik, 2007).

To further review the age-friendly vision from planning systems, concepts including smart growth, new urbanism, transit-oriented development, and active living by design are the most frequent planning approaches related to health promotion in healthy city movements (Ewing, Meakins, Bjarnson, & Hilton, 2011). The smart growth concept was advocated in ageing poli-cies by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2004 (Sykes & Robinson, 2016). As mentioned in the preceding paragraph, in developed countries such as the United States, smart growth initiatives include the regeneration of poor physical environments, integration of new IT tech-niques with social welfare systems, and emphasis on innovative localiza-tion to make sure planning for an ageing society is feasible and sustainable. Overall, land use principles of smart growth, such as mixed land use, com-pact design, accessible transportation choices, participatory planning pro-cess, strengthening development in existing communities, and a walkable environment, are coincidentally matching older people’s lifestyles. Thus, we expect further developments of smart growth concepts and monitoring of planning policies to target smarter and ageing-well goals should be high-lighted in future national planning statements.

Recently, one of the emerging trends of the spatial planning system is a movement towards simplification. For instance, the UK passed the Local-ism Bill in 2011 and simplified the planning system from three to two lev-els, and so the national planning policy should play a more guiding and constructive role in directing local/neighborhood plans. The latest National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in the UK emphasizes that the plan-ning system can play an important role in facilitating social interaction and creating healthy, inclusive communities (DCLG, 2012). Nevertheless, such a statement is only responding to transport, housing, and design domains of NPPF. That is to say, although the ageing issue has gained much concern from national security perspectives, national planning policies remain con-servative and focus on traditional ways of designing inclusive environments. For instance, how to provide a supportive environment to enhance older people’s engagements in society through work and education is neglected in the NPPF, as those usually dealt with social welfare departments. From a higher stand of governance, national planning policies should respond to challenges such as how to facilitate new markets and new growth forces under an active-ageing concept. Thus, stronger planning policy statements or commitments in response to the needs of creating both growth-oriented and age-friendly cohesiveness are needed.


Regional/Rural Level—Urban System Point of View

It was soon realized by experts involved in the AFC movement that there is a great divide between urban and rural in terms of ageing speed, population characteristics, and lifestyle (V. Menec et al., 2015; Spina & Menec, 2015). Moreover, although urbanization is a major global demographic trend, there is a substantial and increasing proportion of the older population living in rural communities, who have stronger attachments and social connections with the local areas. According to the UN, many rural, remote areas face the double challenge of higher numbers of older adults and the outmigration of working-age adults at the same time (United Nations, 2009). Recent research has indicated that decision-makers should take a different approach when promoting age-friendly rural communities because of the distinct charac-teristics of individual remote rural communities (V. H. Menec et al., 2015). Canada was one of the first countries to respond to the AFC movement and soon developed the Age-Friendly Rural and Remote Communities: A Guide in 2009 to focus on ageing issues in rural and remote communities, consid-ering that almost a quarter of total seniors live in the rural areas and small towns of Canada (Canada Federal/Provincial/Territorial (F/P/T) Committee of Officials (Seniors), 2009). The report indicated the need for further study before laying out AFC schemes in terms of the very different physical and socioeconomic contexts of these rural community settings. Moreover, stud-ies also confirmed that while enjoying nicer natural amenities and a tranquil life in rural communities, older people might encounter more disadvantages living in rural communities due to the relative lack of medical and commu-nity care resources (McHarg & Kay, 2009; Winterton & Warburton, 2011; Menec, Bell et al., 2015). Hence, there is a need for the implementation of the AFC eight-domain framework at the meso scale, a regional planning level.

Regional plans aim at enhancing the sustainable growth of a region, guid-ing spatial uses of a great amount of rural lands, and overseeing industrial activities (Barnett, 2000). Regional planning deals with the efficient place-ment of land use activities, infrastructure, and settlement growth across areas of land larger than an individual city or town. Usually encompassing more than one city or county, regional plans can be expected to balance the resource distributions and to sustain social equity between urban and rural areas (Wheeler, 2000). With regard to the demographic ageing trend, regional plans differ from the national planning framework and can take a more holistic approach to supporting older people’s daily lives and well-being in each rural community, thereby ensuring the availability of services for older people from a broader point of view. Regarding the planning and design for regional/rural areas with an ageing trend, just as in urban areas, the countryside also encounters multidimensional changes. For instance in Taiwan, only 13% of total land is urbanized areas with zoning plans, while non-urban areas have greater ageing populations. It is clear that the


transformation in the population structure of rural areas reflects the impact of depopulation in rural communities resulting from urbanization. Mod-ern rural communities tend to suffer from speedy population ageing and economy decline simultaneously. Hence, regional plans can play significant roles for:

• Collaborating regional stakeholders, including local governments, key private sectors, and the wider community from urban system perspectives;

• Generating synergy among core cities and suburban areas within the metropolitan area;

• Balancing the social inequity between rich and poor ageing communities.

For countries with statutory regional plans, many ageing issues and plan strategies at the local level can be monitored and advised through regional plans. In addition, many social welfare services can be financially feasible with expanding service pools at the regional level. Whereas others without statutory regional plans—take England for example—the establishment of public–private partnerships at the regional level, such as local enterprise partnerships (LEP), could introduce a new approach for working with the entire urban system.

City Level—Urban Technique Point of View

The city level is the scale where the WHO first initiated the AFC move-ments in 2009. Eight domains regarding older people’s needs in daily urban life are proposed based on a 2-year international survey, from 2007 to 2009. In many AFC city level promotion models, public health or medi-cal departments are the actual leading actors of the whole campaign, given the mayor’s political commitment of an umbrella policy. For instance, in the New York City AFC experience, the leading roles include a trio of dif-ferent sectors: the mayor, the City Council, and the New York Academy of Medicine. It is also a common promotion model to establish a delivery framework within the city government to evoke departmental collabora-tions led by the Department of Health in 22 cities in Taiwan. Of course, the urban planning department is always required to be involved in the AFC project as an important supporting role, just like the Healthy Cities move-ment. However, there are other experiences worth looking into. In Saanich, Canada, one of the first municipalities designated as a Global Age-Friendly City by the WHO, the campaign was initiated by the Planning Depart-ment at the municipality level to oversee the AFC goals and incorporate the age-friendly elements into its planning process, annual strategic plan, and budget (Plouffe et al., 2013). No matter from how many domains we expect to deliver active ageing, every activity will have to ‘take place’ some places. That is to say, the AFC’s eight domains all interact with certain types of


spaces. The planning department should be responsible for applying urban planning tools on satisfying space requirements from all domains instead of only three domains—transportation, housing, and outdoor spaces—and buildings see mingly having direct relations with the physical environment.

As in the past half century since the 1960s, many researchers and urban planning theoreticians have debated how and what planning professionals can do to make places for the dwellers. Hence, it is the argument of this book that, as a planner, urban planning and design techniques can be very effective in creating a comprehensive age-friendly environment. At the city level, the zoning plan can be made more responsive to land use dynamics for ageing stakeholders and citizens. Regulatory tools can be more flex-ible and updated in terms of coping with new land use types and friendly place-making design codes directed from the new main users. As for creat-ing a walkable environment, adjustments of street network patterns and the route morphometrics of a city can be the essential solutions. There are eight health-defining factors indicated in Sarkar et al.’s ‘health niche-based model’, including route network, citywide land use dynamics, transporta-tion, regulations, microeconomic structure, food network, services (health, education, and social), and pollution and waste disposal. (2014) The model has expanded and integrated the whole urban system in delivering the true essence of ‘healthy cities’ from Sarkar et al.’s point of view. Therefore, simi-lar to Sarkar et al.’s viewpoint, we propose an ‘ageing-well urban planning model’. As Figure 3.3 illustrates, the usage of a place for the elderly can depend on its publicness, and there should be different planning tools to apply accordingly. When we analyze the spatial publicness of the AFC’s

Transportation

Natural

Outdoor Spaces &Buildings

Privatespace

Semi-private

Semi-public

Public space

Respect & SocialInclusion

Spatial needs:Community activity spacesEducation facilities/schoolsService facilities

Spatial needs:Road networksPublic transportationTracks, stops and stationsParking spaces

Community &Health Support

Communication &Information

Social Participation

Civic Participation &Employment

Housing

Spatial needs:Open space systems (Public/private)Parks, plaza, cycle pathsService buildings

Spatial needs:Community centersActivity Facilities

Spatial needs:Community centersWorking environments

Spatial needs:Quantity of social housingInternal design and layoutBarrier-free buildings

Spatial needs:Location and quantity of information centers

Spatial needs:Social & health service facilitiesEmergency planning and rescue shelters

Accessi

ble or walka

ble

environmentUrban

Culturalstatus

characteristic

Figure 3.3 AFC Spatial Needs vs. Modern Planning Tools


eight domains, several domains have very clear spatial requirements due to strong publicness, such as public transportation stations and road net-works listed in the transportation domain. Moreover, the outdoor Spaces and Buildings domains usually would focus on the availability of green spaces and barrier-free spaces. It is very easy to neglect the spatial needs of other social-service domains and therefore underestimate the corresponding urban planning approaches. If we take a closer look at other domains, we could identify the spatial needs of every AFC domain systematically and utilize urban planning techniques to match the demand and supply properly. For instance, to enhance the social inclusion of older people, we will have to provide barrier-free and accessible activity facilities or open spaces for such activities to take place. Also, older people could benefit from upgraded com-munication equipments and well-arranged telecommunication networks to receive immediate and accurate information from the outer world.

Furthermore, regarding the human scale, the AFC’s eight domains can be categorized into four levels of spaces according to publicness: private, semi-private, semi-public, and public (Gehl, 2010; Madanipour, 2003). According to gerontology and the physical condition of older people, the concept of ageing-in-place was proposed to meet older people’s ideal lifestyle so that they can all reach the services they need in a short dis-tance. Therefore, when defining the spatial scale of public and private in age-friendly cities, we should pay more respect to traditional organic city planning, which was grown on the basis of everyday activities over time. Spatial scales for older people expand from an individual’s home to city-level public areas. The priority of the planning principle should be acces-sibility and preferably walkability between difference scales, and usages should echo the core concept of ageing-in-place. Each domain involves different spatial needs with different forms, patterns, scales, and types of land use. In terms of further discussion of planning tools applied in differ-ent spatial scale, we follow the four-type category proposed by Tiesdell & Allmendinger, namely shaping tools, regulating tools, restructuring tools, and developing tools (2005). As Table 3.1 illustrates, we can further match the potential AFC spatial needs with modern planning tools. It is quite clear that planners can utilize a variety of planning and design tools more actively, and they can promote AFC from the planning system as a whole to fulfil the well-being of a city.

Community/Street Level—Tailor-Made Urban Design Approaches

Community level is the scale that evokes most interactions between places and older people in their everyday life. The emerging emphasis of envi-ronmental gerontology over the past decades has fueled the discussion of the need of an age-friendly ‘community’ (Kendig, 2003; Lui, Everingham, Warburton, Cuthill, & Bartlett, 2009; Phillips, Siu, Yeh, & Cheng, 2005).


Just as mentioned earlier, because of older people’s physical condition and their deep psychological attachments to the community where they have resided for many decades, community is the best scale to implement the core concept of ageing-in-place, especially in the developed countries where planning techniques tend to apply more at the neighborhood levels. Most frequent discussions regarding AFC at the community level usually include two perspectives: the establishment of a friendly environment to implement the ageing-in-place concept, and the development of local partnerships and elderly empowerments to facilitate the bottom-up approaches.

From the friendly environment design perspective, recent research find-ings of urban studies have confirmed that older people’s mobility, inde-pendence, and quality of life are significantly affected by spatial layout at the neighborhood scale (Phillipson, 2007). The collective effects of a built environment are also taken into account by Burton and Mitchell, as they considered streets as the front line for physically disadvantage people and proposed inclusive design principles for local street life, including six design principles, namely: familiarity, legibility, distinctiveness, accessibility, com-fort, and safety (2006). The latest discussions concerned with community scale tend to be around social and long-term care services working in con-junction with outer environments. Local planners and designers should create a proactive and healing environment instead of just implementing inclusive design concepts. Thus, the design concepts have been shifted from inclusive, universal, and barrier-free to active design. For instance, New York City released the Active Design Guidelines in 2010 as a manual for

Table 3.1 The Framework of Continual Improvement Cycle

Planning Techniques Scale Responding to AFC Spatial Needs

Shaping Tools ▪ Master and detail plans

▪ Periodically review

Citywide planning vision, urban road-networks, infrastructure plans

Regulating Tools

▪ Zoning plan/Land use regulations

▪ Urban design guidelines

Citywide/District

mixed and inclusive land usage

instructions for inclusive and universal design standards

Restructuring Tools

▪ Urban renewal plans

▪ Brownfield redevelopments

District reconstruction/ renovation of deteriorated quarters and buildings

enhance quality of lifeDeveloping

Tools▪ Transit-Oriented

Developments (TOD)

▪ Public private partnership (PPP)

Citywide creating convenient environment according to lifestyle at old age

Source: WHO, 2015


creating healthier streets and public spaces (NYC, 2010). The guidelines mostly focus on neighborhood-level design strategies and emphasize facil-itating walking, cycling, and active transportation from an everyday life perspective. In other words, as many nationwide surveys have confirmed, walking is the most practicable physical activity for older people, so it is crucial to have a walkable neighborhood first (Frank, Engelke, & Schmid, 2003). This is to say, in delivering an age-friendly environment, it is not enough merely to adopt inclusive design concepts. Design strategies should aim at creating an active environment that can interact with older users and stimulate their willingness to do physical activities in order to sustain both physical and mental health.

In addition, it is important to acknowledge that, at community level, the budget is always limited due to its relatively smaller scale from development perspectives. Chao and Huang point out that both financial realities and characteristics of local seniors should be taken into account and suggest the need for prioritizing the implementations of AFC design strategies accord-ing to budget availability. (Chao & Huang, 2016b) Accordingly, prioritizing standards has been suggested according to the urgency of improvements and the physical conditions of local older residents. From a gerontological perspective, there are various factors effecting older people’s physical con-ditions including community culture, personal background, diet and exer-cise habits, and so forth, which can be very different among communities. Hence, an index, such as activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) to evaluate local seniors’ abilities during daily life would be helpful to identify the most needed improvements based on local people’s actual physical conditions. It is a first attempt to integrate medical evaluations with planning and design tools. In the case of Taiwan, according to the nationwide report of the senior citizen condition survey in 2013, there are significant differences in ADL evaluation results among the cities and communities of Taiwan. The percentage of older people with lower ADL scores spans from 8.9% to 28.32% of the total population among cities island-wide (MHW, 2014). Hence, only when planners obtain the average physical condition of the local seniors as the first step and prior-itize the built environment improvements accordingly will the utilization of limited resources at the community level be genuinely effective.

Rice and Hancock state that urban settings should be places of equitable and sustainable action (2016). Especially at the community level, equitable challenges due to the ageing trend need to be addressed profoundly through forming new approaches to social participation (Lui et al., 2009). Hence, the role of older people in the promotion of AFC is strongly emphasized in the WHO AFC handbook to foster the participations of usually excluded groups. It is believed that when older people in the community take more active roles and empower themselves more, AFC planning can be more sus-tainable and value-based. Thus, bottom-up approaches are highly encour-aged in most Western countries to activate older residents participating in


the process of AFC instead of just being served. It also expects to stimulate intergenerational activities and to diminish possible conflicts between older and younger generations. Nonetheless, several issues have been discovered from planning and design perspectives. First, levels and ways of participa-tion for older people are difficult to manage. Many pilot AFC cases tend to focus on collecting older people’s needs through various approaches at the local level and seeking for most efficient solutions with minimum costs. As a result, older people are engaged in conventional ways through focus groups and interviews, and community consensus towards AFC seems to reach to a certain level. But actual improvements of the physical environ-ments are compromised with limited resources in most cases. In other cases, the engagements of seniors are in a more ongoing way as active participants, sometimes as community leaders to develop AFC initiatives in their neigh-borhoods, just as the EFC Project in Calgary, Canada (Lui et al., 2009). The literature clearly highlights the increasing importance of older stakehold-ers in terms of ageing community governance. Nevertheless, we would like to further emphasize that the tailor-made participatory approach in each community is much needed due to the unique components of ageing groups under different cultural contexts. For instance, Chao and Huang identified the need for an oriental paradigm from Taiwan’s experience as the decision-making process at the local level, and the action plans are made based on interpersonal relationships rather than rational needs (2016a). In addition, some other East Asian communities are rooted in family values as a whole and common participatory approaches might not work. Therefore, planners and designers should be aware of the strong social characteristics in the com-munity and adopt different bottom-up approaches wisely at the local level.

From Problem-Solving to Preventive Planning: Planning for the Ageing

In this chapter, we started with the debates around what is the ultimate goal of urban planning system in the 21st century. As we are reaching the greatest success of ‘urban planning’, the majority of the world’s population will live in urban areas in the near future. We are also facing the greatest challenge of populations ageing rapidly beyond predictions. It is obvious that although Ebenezer Howard’s ideal garden city concept would be very attractive in an ageing society, the reality of globalization and modern technology has gone too far from that. Nevertheless, an urban planning system can still play a more active role than the WHO had expected in the promotion of AFC. With the emerging calling for redemptions of overdeveloped and overcrowded urban environments, we explore the possibilities of utilizing planning tech-niques at different spatial levels to practice age-friendly environments from a holistic perspective. We believe that age-friendly could be a new urban governance agenda in the 21st century in response to the UN statements of the two greatest challenges in this new millennium: population ageing and


urbanization. Space embodies the linkage between the built environment, natural environment, and life activities, and it could be a perfect carrier to demonstrate friendly place-making. Hence, at four spatial scales of planning with different goals, we analyzed ways of governing ageing issues at differ-ent planning scales. Finally, we proposed an urban planning system that can start from making policy statements at the national level, balancing urban systems at the regional level, adopting planning tools at the city level, and integrating friendly design concepts with individual physical status at the local level. In addition, a modern urban planning system can transform with changes of population context and become preventive-oriented urban plan-ning in the ageing era by integrating gerontological knowledge and meas-ures in planning decision-making process.

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Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao and Balint KalmanPlanning for Ageing-in-Place

4 Planning for Ageing-in-PlaceInternational Age-Friendly Environment Case Studies

Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao and Balint Kalman

Introduction: Cities, Planning, and Ageing

As urban planning adapts to the characteristics, culture, and society of dif-ferent regions, it follows diverse development paths; also, as the temporal context of planning changes, new concepts are proposed, such as ‘healthy city’, ‘eco-city’, ‘smart city’, and, of course, ‘age-friendly city’, which refer to the urban planning concept reflecting on an ageing society. The con-cept also demonstrates the importance of urban planning in response to population ageing. Hence, this chapter discusses how recent urban devel-opment reflects on ageing. The Cycle of WHO Global Network of AFC published on the WHO’s website proposes a 5-year framework of contin-ual improvements (Figure 4.1). This framework is intended to help regions promote age-friendliness by providing a general implementation model that can be adjusted according to local conditions. Within the cycle, the formulation of action plans is the first step towards improvement. Action plans show municipal priorities, and hence by analyzing the set of action plans proposed by a city aiming at increasing age-friendliness, information can be gained on which aspects are regarded as most essential to overall environmental improvements by different regions and municipalities. The WHO Global Network for AFC and Communities currently includes 314 cities and communities in 35 countries, covering over 124 million peo-ple worldwide (World Health Organization, 2016b). A look at the action plans prepared by some member cities of the Global Network shows that priorities include physical environmental aspects, such as open space improvements, transportation, and housing—this is the case in New York, Manchester, Melville, Edmonton, Chiayi, Seoul, Canberra, and Vancou-ver, to mention a few (Chao & Huang, 2014; Senior Welfare Department Health & Welfare Office, Seoul, 2012; ACT Government, 2009; City of Vancouver, 2012).

As urban planning is primarily concerned with the physical environment, this chapter focuses on issues related to hard planning rather than soft plan-ning. In order to make it easier for the reader to understand the correla-tions between urban planning and age-friendliness, a comparison table is

Planning for Ageing-in-Place 47

provided, listing checklist items of Global AFC and core urban planning concepts, respectively (Table 4.1). The chapter then proceeds with applying the findings of this comparison to different spatial scales.

It is apparent from Table 4.1 that the physical environmental require-ments of age-friendliness and the urban planning principles listed have many points in common: adequate green and public spaces, compact and conveni-ent neighbourhoods, separation of auto and pedestrian traffic, a considera-ble emphasis on traffic safety, and accessibility of services and facilities. This chapter provides case study analyses of four cities: New York (USA), Can-berra (Australia), Seoul (Korea), and Newcastle upon Tyne (Great Britain). Based on the topics mentioned earlier, this chapter discusses to what extent the selected case study cities incorporate elements of age-friendly planning into their planning systems at different spatial scales, varying from strategic city vision plans to neighbourhood and community plans. These four cit-ies all have their own specific urban planning systems, and as members of WHO’s Global AFC network, they also have developed specific age-friendly initiatives.

Figure 4.1 The Framework of Continual Improvement Cycle

Source: WHO, 2016a.

Table 4.1 Comparison Table of Urban Planning Concepts and Age-Friendliness

Urban Planning ConceptsSource: Howard, 1902; Perry, 1929

AFC Checklist ItemsSource: WHO, 2007

Garden City▪ Appropriate distribution of land uses

and population densities▪ Adequate natural open space

provision for all residents▪ Self-sufficient communities▪ Easy access to transport facilities,

marketplaces, educational services, and community retail centres

Neighbourhood Unit▪ Scale: one unit should provide

accommodation for a population that can be served by one elementary school—the actual area depends on population densities

▪ Boundaries: the neighbourhood unit should be bordered by trunk roads wide enough to handle auto traffic, in order to avoid through traffic within the neighbourhood unit

▪ Open spaces: provision of small parks and playgrounds, planned to serve the population of a particular community

▪ Public facilities: the service radius of schools and other facilities should reflect the boundaries of the neighbourhood unit, and should be grouped along the centre, or the central public space of the neighbourhood unit

▪ Local retail: one or more commercial units of a scale suitable for the population of the neighbourhood; located at the edge of the neighbourhood unit, preferably along a traffic intersection, or close to the commercial facilities of a neighbouring neighbourhood unit commercial district

▪ Inner road network: the neighbourhood unit should be provided with a road network planned in accordance with its estimated levels of traffic; roads should be designed to make inner traffic convenient, while discouraging through traffic

Barrier-free and safe public spaces▪ Pleasant and clean public

environment▪ Well-maintained and safe green

spaces with adequate seating▪ Well-maintained walkways that

are free from obstructions, and pedestrians have priority of use

▪ Roads are adequately non-slip, regularly spaced pedestrian crossings ensuring that it is safe for all people with movement difficulties to cross roads, pedestrian crossing lights allow sufficient time for older people to cross roads that have visual and audio signals

▪ There are separate cycle paths for cyclists

▪ Services are clustered and can be easily accessed

Transportation▪ All areas are well-serviced with

adequate, well-connected transport routes within the city, and timetables and bus routes are clearly indicated

▪ Transport stops and stations are easy to access, located conveniently, provide seating and shelter from the weather, clean and safe, and adequately lit, and legible signage is provided

▪ Roads are well-maintained, well-lit, and have covered drains

▪ The traffic flow is well-regulated▪ Roads have traffic signals and lights

at intersections, and intersections are clearly marked

▪ Drop-off and pick-up bays are safe and conveniently located, and an adequate number of drop-off points is provided

Housing▪ A range of appropriate and

affordable housing options is available for older people, including frail and disabled older people, in the local area


City Profiles

This section provides background information on selected cities, planning frameworks, and age-friendly initiatives.

New York, USA

New York has always been a pioneer of urban planning among American cities. In the early 20th century, New Yorkers voted to approve the New City Charter (Department of City Planning, New York City), and the city set up its City Planning Commission, which was in charge of drafting, approv-ing and amending zoning regulations. In 1914, the Commission proposed that New York adopt a permanent urban planning framework; hence, in 1916 the Zoning Resolution was approved. From this time on, New York has been playing an innovative role in the development of land use zoning. The current Land Use Resolution of New York City was enacted and took effect in 1961 after public debate and a daylong conference. This Resolu-tion already considered the tools of zoning as a means for the government to tackle the major economic, social, environmental, and physical challenges that New York was to face by the 21st century.

Today, the strategic objectives of the city include neighbourhood improve-ment, housing, economic development, resilience and sustainability, and land use reviews (Department of City Planning, NYC, 2016a). These objectives correlate with suggestions of the Global AFC guidebook at many points. According to forecasts based on US statistics, in the period from 2010 to 2050, the proportion of people aged above 60 will increase from 18.4% to 26.6% of the total US population (Age friendly World, 2014). New York was the first city in the United States to reflect on the issue of ageing in its planning framework. In July 2007, the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) launched an initiative called ‘Age-Friendly New York City’, which is in concert with the city council’s objectives and the city government’s related proposal, ‘A City for All Ages’. The goal of these initiatives is to carry out an assessment of the city from an elderly perspective and to define areas with potential for improvement. Through active cooperation of public and private entities, New York City responded to the challenge of ageing in a rather top-down manner by preparing specific plans complying with WHO’s suggestions. New York was the very first city in the world to join WHO’s Global AFC Network in 2010. New York’s age-friendly policies aim at making both the hard and soft elements of the urban environment inclu-sive, by giving consideration to the needs of older people (The City of New York & The New York Academy of Medicine, 2011). In order to turn New York into an age-friendly city, the Age-Friendly NYC partnership proposed a set of 59 specific action plans, among which 15 have to do with the physi-cal environment (Table 4.2).

50 Planning for Ageing-in-Place

Canberra, Australia

Canberra, founded in 1913, is the capital city of Australia. The planning and spatial developments of Canberra were largely influenced by three different planning models: the Garden City concept, the Y Plan drafted for Canberra in 1967, and the New Urbanism Movement (Nakanishi, Sinclair, & Lintern, 2013). In 1911, American architect Walter Burley Griffin participated in the Federal Capital Competition and won first place with honours. Grif-fin played a large part in promoting the Garden City concept as an overall underlying spatial framework for Canberra (National Archives of Australia, 2016) (Figure 4.2). In his plan, Griffin proposed a plan based on public transport–oriented community development. The distinctive difference in Griffin’s composition is the overlay of the (nearly) equilateral triangle of tree-lined boulevards (Turnbull, 2004). Although the plan met considerable

Table 4.2 New York’s Age-Friendly Action Plans Relating to the Physical Environ-ment

Strategic Priority Actions

Information and Planning ▪ Conduct local community assessments of neighborhoods to determine age friendliness.

Affordable Housing Development

▪ Target housing funds and streamline process of building low income housing for older New Yorkers.

▪ Examine parking requirements for affordable senior housing and amend the zoning code as necessary to facilitate construction of senior housing.

Ageing-in-Place ▪ Promote development of and access to new models of housing that support ageing-in-place.

Accessible and Affordable Transportation

▪ Improve elevator and escalator service and enhance accessibility of subway stations.

▪ Improve efficiency of Access-A-Ride (AAR) by equipping vehicles with GPS devices and implementing phone notification system.

▪ Match accessible taxis with users who need them.▪ Develop accessible taxi.▪ Develop taxi voucher program for older adults who

are unable to use public transportation.Safe and Age-Friendly

Public Spaces▪ Increase seating in bus shelters.▪ Install public restrooms at key locations citywide.▪ Create new, pedestrian-friendly public spaces while

calming traffic.▪ Redesign street intersections at key locations

citywide to improve safety for older New Yorkers.▪ Identify age-friendly parks and encourage older

adults to utilize them.Planning for the Future ▪ Conduct study to better address the mobility needs

of older New Yorkers.

Source: Age-Friendly NYC, 2013


Figure 4.2 Plan of City and Environs From Walter Burley Griffin

Source: National Archives of Australia, 2016.

resistance, Canberra has still developed according to Garden City principles throughout the century until today.

The Y Plan was prepared in response to population growth and the increasing number of automobiles in Canberra. Its main concern being urban transport, the plan established a transport framework to eliminate


traffic congestion and proposed an effective public transport system. The Y Plan highlights how urban planning reacts to changing needs and specific local issues—such as reliance on the personal automobile of suburban popu-lation in the case of Canberra (Fischer, 1984; Nakanishi, Sinclair, & Lint-ern, 2013). As ecology and sustainability have already become important notions during the course of recent urban development, the concept of New Urbanism was applied in Canberra to facilitate the sustainable development of the city and improve the quality of life (Kaufman, Morris, Jones, & Rich-ards, 2006). It is apparent from the urban development process described earlier that Canberra is a planned city with its earliest layout rooted in the Garden City concept. The city structure has gradually been adjusted applying various planning concepts in order to respond to the challenges of changing times.

Canberra joined the Global AFC Network in 2011. Currently, 16% of the city’s population is aged 60 or older. In 2009, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Office for Ageing initiated cooperation with other depart-ments and drafted the Strategic Plan for Positive Ageing 2010–2014 (WHO, 2016c). This action plan contains 41 action plan items, including 11 physi-cal environment–related strategic priorities (Table 4.3).

Table 4.3 Physical Environment–Related Strategic Priorities in Canberra’s Age-Friendly Action Plan


Housing and Accommodation

▪ Promote livable design in housing.▪ Develop flexible housing options to meet the needs of older

adults.▪ Address safety issues for senior public housing tenants in

line with the 2012–13 budget—the Security Improvement Program for elderly public housing tenants.

▪ Undertake discussions with industry and residents about appropriate regulations to accompany the Retirement Villages Act 2012.

▪ Provide crisis accommodation or priority access to housing for older people who become homeless.

Transport and Mobility

▪ Continue to improve the accessibility of the public transport bus fleet for seniors and others with mobility limitations in accordance with the Accessible Transport Plan.

▪ Develop park and ride options throughout Canberra to reduce driving time and eliminate the need for driving on congested major roads.

▪ Promote community transport options and concessions.▪ Promote transition from driving, including education, in the

use of public transport.▪ Regulate for safer use of mobility scooters and provide user

education.▪ An electronic card system is developed and implemented

with clients of the Taxi Subsidy Scheme.

Source: ACT Government, 2009


Urban PlanningContext

Green Space ofGarden City Plan

PublicTransportation

Pedestrian-and-Vehicle Dividing

System

ConvenienceLiving Perimeter

Cycling Programfor Seniors

Flexible Housingoptions

AccessibleTransport Plan

Age-Friendly Plan

Figure 4.3 Correlations Between Urban Planning and the Age-Friendly City Con-cept in the Case of Canberra

Besides the planned separation of pedestrian and auto traffic, the City Gov-ernment of Canberra also proposed the cycling program for seniors to keep older Canberrans active. The initiative is intended to promote active ageing, while it also contributes to a greater sense of social inclusion (ACT Govern-ment, 2016). The implementation of this kind of plan needs to be paired with various spatial planning measures if it is to effectively motivate older people to cycle in the city. For instance, for older people to choose the bicy-cle as a means of getting around, facilities attracting or serving them should be placed in close proximity to bicycle paths. Furthermore, traffic safety is an essential prerequisite, just as the provision of basic infrastructure—these key elements are to be integrated by urban planning, which proves once again the inseparability of urban planning and the age-friendly city concept. The case of Canberra shows how physical environment–related age-friendly improvements correspond with the development of the city’s planning foci, and how the two complement each other (Figure 4.3).

Seoul, South Korea

Seoul became the capital city of the Joseon dynasty in 1394. Today, the capi-tal of South Korea is a metropolis with a population of 10 million, extend-ing over 605.25 km2. The city sustained serious damage during the Korean War, but the 1960s brought about rapid urbanization and industrialization, facilitated by the implementation of the First and Second National Eco-nomic Development Plans (1962–1971). From the 1970s onward, comply-ing with state policies aiming at a balanced national development, Seoul has gradually been developing into an international metropolis. Quality of life has been given greater consideration in the early 2000s, and new paradigms


in urban planning advocating the importance of culture and environment laid the foundation for humanistic urban development in Seoul (Seoul Met-ropolitan Government, 2009).

At present, the 2030 Seoul Plan is the city’s highest citywide statutory plan coordinating all plans and policy directions to the year 2030. Accord-ing to its vision, the 2030 Seoul Plan ‘is a plan of hope for the life and home that one child can have until he/she becomes an adult’ (Seoul Metropoli-tan Government, 2016a)—this vision tells of the people-oriented approach taken by the plan, which matches the age-friendly concept well.

As 17% of Seoul’s population is aged 60 or above, and 16% is aged between 51 and 59 (the ‘baby boomer’ generation), promoting the age-friendly city concept is treated as a priority in Seoul, with special attention paid to baby boomers. The city drafted its first ‘Age-Friendly Seoul’ action plan in 2012, and it was the first Korean city to join WHO’s AFC network in 2013. Among the 35 action plan items proposed, three action plans focus on the physical environment improvements (Table 4.4).

Newcastle upon Tyne, England

With approximately 280,000 residents, Newcastle upon Tyne is the largest city of North East England, and together with Gateshead, it forms the eco-nomic centre of the region. In 2016, 19.4% of its population was over 60, and 15% was above 65 (Newcastle and Gateshead Council, 2015) The city joined WHO’s Global Network for Age-Friendly Cities in 2014.

Coal mining and shipbuilding dominated the city’s economy for centuries, but the latter half of the 20th century brought about the decline of heavy industries, and this has had a dramatic impact on the social and economic status of the city: unemployment and outmigration have become serious issues for Newcastle, and a general deterioration of the urban environment came with them. Until today, the health of people of Newcastle is still much worse than the national average, with life expectancies being highly polar-ized within the city. Although in recent years the population has started to show a growing tendency and people of working age continue to leave Newcastle, the proportion of older people has been steadily increasing. Poor

Table 4.4 Seoul’s Age-Friendly Action Plans Relating to the Physical Environment


Comfortable Living Environment

▪ Application of universal design guidelines▪ Continued expansion of senior welfare facilities (764

places)▪ Increased supply of rental housing exclusive for

seniors (2,263 units)

Source: Senior Welfare Department Health & Welfare Office, Seoul, 2012


quality housing, town cramming, and lack of open spaces are still prevail-ing problems in some deprived districts and in parts of the City Centre itself (Planning for the Future Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan, Newcastle and Gateshead Council, 2015).

Since as early as the 1970s, efforts have been made by the City Council to reverse the negative processes by means of urban planning and policy. The Community Development Project in the early ’70s was followed by the Unitary Development Plan (UDP, first drafted in 1991), the main objective of which was to achieve economic growth via urban regeneration (Newcas-tle City Council, 1998). Many policies of the UDP are still in effect today. In 1999, a 20-year economic redevelopment plan called Going for Growth was adopted by the City Council, with a focus on replacing old housing stock with new homes (Newcastle City Council, 2000). The plan also paved the way for culture- and art-led redevelopment along the river Tyne, includ-ing the Sage Music Centre, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge—these strategic interventions were meant to trigger economic growth by boosting tourism. In line with developing a visi-tor economy, the City Centre Area Action Plan adopted in 2006 proposes pedestrianization in many areas of the urban core (Newcastle City Council, 2006).

In 2015, Newcastle and Gateshead jointly adopted the Planning for Future—Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan for Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne 2010–2030. This document provides an overall planning frame-work for all spatial strategies and future development in Newcastle. Main themes of the strategy include delivering a sustainable city with high qual-ity lifestyles, providing an appropriate range and mix of housing, improv-ing transport connections between the urban centre and the neighbourhood areas, and increasing walking and cycling. The plan indirectly reflects on the needs of older people by setting out the goal of lifetime neighbourhoods, proposing open spaces accessible to all, promoting walkability, and provid-ing leisure, culture, and tourism options for all age groups (Planning for the Future Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan, Newcastle and Gateshead Council, 2015). There are two areas where the plan explicitly addresses ageing-related issues: ‘Housing’ and ‘Wellbeing and Health’. The Housing policy includes providing suitable accommodation for older people, for example, in the form of bungalows, sheltered accommodation, and extra care accommodation. The Wellbeing and Health policy requires all ‘devel-opment to contribute to creating an age friendly, healthy, equitable living environment’ by providing access to open spaces, sports, and health and social care facilities (Planning for the Future Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan, Newcastle and Gateshead Council, 2015). Notably, resolving housing issues and improving the overall health of Newcastle’s population are also among the top priorities of the plan in general.

The City Council has so far adopted two documents specifically focus-ing on age-friendliness. Our Wellbeing for Life Strategy 2013–2016 is a


framework for action with the following ambition: ‘People who live, work or learn in Newcastle equally enjoy positive wellbeing and good health’ (Our Wellbeing for Life Strategy. A Framework for Action 2013–2016 and Our Commitment to Shared Change 2013–2014; Newcastle City Council, 2013). The plan mentions becoming an age-friendly city as a cross-cutting theme, being embedded across all parts of the strategy. By treating age-friendliness as an integral part of a healthy city, the framework is completely in line with WHO’s Global AFC: A Guide, which states that ‘active age-ing is a lifelong process and an age-friendly city is not just elderly-friendly’ (Global AFC: A Guide).

The other document dedicated to age-friendliness, Newcastle an Age Friendly City—Older People’s Housing Delivery Plan 2013–2018, focuses on the various accommodation needs of the city’s elderly population. The plan’s two overarching goals are ‘Helping older people to live independently for as long as possible in their own homes’, and ‘Increasing the number of units and diversity of specialist housing’ (Newcastle an Age Friendly City—Older People’s Housing Delivery Plan 2013–2018, Newcastle City Council, 2013). The document contains an Action Plan listing all proposed hous-ing developments and conversions until 2018, with the exact unit output numbers and locations where possible. Table 4.5 illustrates the highlights of environmental-related action plans of Newcastle in preparing for an ageing society.

It is apparent from the preceding summary that Newcastle pays particular attention to housing-related issues and health and well-being when taking measures to become an age-friendly city; while other aspects, such as age friendly transportation, seem to receive less attention. This can be viewed as a consequence of the past development. On the one hand, Newcastle has been relatively well-served with different modes of public transportation since the opening of the Tyneside Metro in 1980 (History of Newcastle upon Tyne. Local Studies Factsheet No. 6, Newcastle Local Studies & Fam-ily History Centre, City Library, 2009), and a network of bus routes and a well-connected public transport system is regarded the most age-friendly means of motion at a larger scale. On the other hand, due to the decline of traditional heavy industries and economic stagnation, the city has been facing low levels of investment in the housing sector for decades, which has resulted in the deterioration of housing stock and failure to meet modern needs (Planning for the Future Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan, Newcas-tle and Gateshead Council, 2015). Part of the outmigration of the working age population is due to families experiencing difficulties finding adequate accommodation, while it is reported that many older people in Newcas-tle live in homes too large for them. Hence providing a greater variety of housing types, including specialist accommodation for the elderly, could have a balancing impact on the housing market and social composition in Newcastle. Attention paid to the health and well-being of the elderly can also be seen as part of the effort to improve the overall health conditions

Table 4.5 Newcastle’s Physical Environment–Related Age-Friendly Action Plans


Homes ▪ Encouraging provision of Lifetime Homes and Wheelchair-Accessible Homes

▪ Increasing the choice of suitable accommodation for the elderly population and those with special needs including bungalows, sheltered accommodation, and extra care accommodation

▪ A high quality of design and landscaping will be required in all housing developments. Particular attention will be paid to: [. . .] safe, convenient and comfortable circulation for pedestrians especially children, elderly people and those with disabilities, including measures for traffic calming and cycling

People and Place ▪ Requiring development to contribute to creating an age friendly, healthy and equitable living environment through:(a) Creating an inclusive built and natural environment,(b) Promoting and facilitating active and healthy lifestyles,(c) Preventing negative impacts on residential amenity and

wider public safety from noise, ground instability, ground and water contamination, vibration and air quality,

(d) Providing good access for all to health and social care facilities, and

(e) Promoting access for all to green spaces, sports facilities, and play and recreation opportunities.

Open Space ▪ The best possible standards in the range, amount, distribution, accessibility and quality of open space will be sought throughout the city by: [. . .] pursuing provision for all needs in the community, including those of children, the elderly, and people with disabilities

▪ In the determination of planning applications for residential development, the council will have regard to the following standards in assessing the appropriate amount and distribution of open space required as part of, and as a result of, the proposals: [. . .] neighbourhood and city centre parks: substantial public spaces providing for a range of active and passive pursuits for people of all ages and abilities. Most households should be within 0.5 km of a public park of 6 hectares minimum

Transport ▪ Promoting sustainable travel choices including:(a) Improving equality of access to transport for everyone,(b) Protecting and enhancing pedestrian routes, cycle

networks and Rights of Way,(c) An integrated public transport network and interchanges

[. . .](d) Metro re-invigoration and expansion of the Metro

system in the longer term

Source: Planning for the Future. Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan, Councils of Newcastle and Gateshead, 2015; Unitary Development Plan, Newcastle City Council, 1998


of Newcastle’s population, which is reportedly below the national average (Planning for the Future Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan, Newcastle and Gateshead Council, 2015).

These descriptions show that both urban planning and the age-friendly city concept take a comprehensive and synthetic approach when plan-ning the future of cities. In some of the cities, planning takes a people-oriented approach, being in line with the ‘city for all ages’ objective, which in turn highlights the relatedness of urban planning and the AFC concept (Table 4.6).

Table 4.6 Background Information on Age-Friendly Measures Taken by the Case Study Cities

City Year of Joining WHO’s Global AFC Network

Progress Made in Age-Friendliness So Far

No. of Age-Friendly Plan Objectives Related to the Physical Environment/Total No. of Age-Friendly Objectives

New York 2011 (first in the world to join)

A final report issued in 2013 with 59 age-friendly action plans

15/59

Canberra 2011 In 2014, the city’s seniors community debated and passed resolutions on (1) Infrastructure, (2) Transport and (3) Connecting in an Age-friendly City.

11/41

Seoul 2013 Aside from the action plan, the city has been running the Seoul Elderly Policy Monitoring Group since 2012 in order to increase opportunities for older people to get involved in the making of policy decisions.

3/35

Newcastle upon Tyne

2014 In 2013, the City Council adopted the Our Wellbeing for Life strategy and the Newcastle an Age Friendly City—Older People’s Housing Delivery Plan 2013–2018

7/50

Sources: WHO, 2016c; ACT Government, 2009; Senior Welfare Department Health & Welfare Office, Seoul, 2012; Chao & Huang, 2014; Planning for the Future. Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan, Councils of Newcastle and Gateshead, 2015; Unitary Development Plan, Newcastle City Council, 1998; Our Wellbeing for Life Strategy, Newcastle City Council, 2013; Newcastle an Age Friendly City—Older People’s Housing Delivery Plan, Newcastle City Council, 2013


Planning on Different Scales

As cities are composed of districts, neighbourhoods and other smaller spatial units, all having their own distinct character, it seems appropriate here to discuss differences in spatial scales, the more so because the issues needed to consider during planning may vary significantly with scale. Thus, planning frameworks assign plans of different levels to spatial units of different scale—age-friendly planning also uses methods in line with local circumstances; hence, it is adequate to discuss age-friendly planning—and its possible short-comings—at various spatial scales. To this end, this chapter proceeds with analyses of the four case study cities with regards to the relation between urban planning and age-friendliness applied at different scales. Although planning frameworks usually provide a hierarchy of plans and policies applied at dif-ferent scales, yet every country has its own administration with spatial divi-sions that are oftentimes incomparable with divisions used in other countries, this chapter only discusses two more or less well-defined spatial scales when analyzing the four case study cities: the city scale and the neighbourhood scale. Building on the general descriptions provided earlier in the selected case study cities, this section discusses how correlations between the urban planning framework of each city and the age-friendly city concept manifest themselves at different spatial scales. The following section is divided into two parts: the first part focuses on strategic city-scale visions, while the sec-ond part is concerned with neighbourhood and community scale plans.

City Vision Plans

In general, city vision plans orient a city’s future development so that it reaches a desired state outlined in the plan. After setting development direc-tions, the plan also provides action plans that work towards the realization of the city vision. Therefore, most vision plans present broad and rather general goals and are less concerned with implementation details. This sec-tion looks at the vision statements proposed by the selected case study cities to examine if the development paths envisioned are in accordance with the age-friendly city concept. Since these cities all face ageing and are advo-cators of age-friendliness, it bears significant importance whether citywide strategies incorporate elements responding to the issue of population age-ing, in part because it shows if proposed overall urban development can effectively tackle the problems presented by an ageing society, and in part because it reveals to what degree cities consider ageing a crucial issue. Sum-maries of each city’s vision plan follow (Table 4.7).

New York

New York prepares its annual plans based on a 3-year strategic action plan adopted in 2015. In its latest, the 2017 Annual Plan, the city

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of

the

Urb

an C

ore

as t

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nal d

esti

nati

on f

or b

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ess,

sh

oppi

ng, e

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tion

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sure

, tou

rism

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as

a pl

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ve

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ion

2030

:‘B

y 20

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ates

head

and

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cast

le w

ill b

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ospe

rous

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sus

tain

able

cit

ies

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at a

re u

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d di

stin

ctiv

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aces

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ple

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se t

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ork

and

visi

t be

caus

e ev

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ne c

an r

ealis

e th

eir

full

pote

ntia

l and

enj

oy a

hig

h qu

alit

y lif

esty

le’.

(d)

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tren

gthe

n N

ewca

stle

’s p

osit

ion

as t

he r

egio

nal r

etai

l cen

tre.

(e)

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xpan

d le

isur

e, c

ultu

re a

nd t

ouri

sm p

rovi

ding

for

all

age

grou

ps

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dive

rsif

ying

the

eve

ning

eco

nom

y(f

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ens

ure

that

our

res

iden

tial

off

er p

rovi

des

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oice

of

qual

ity

acco

mm

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ion

in s

usta

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le lo

cati

ons

to m

eet

peop

le’s

cur

rent

an

d fu

ture

nee

ds a

nd a

spir

atio

ns(g

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man

age

and

deve

lop

our

tran

spor

t sy

stem

to

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ort

grow

th

and

prov

ide

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aina

ble

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ss f

or a

ll to

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sing

, job

s, s

ervi

ces

and

shop

s(h

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aina

ble

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ss t

o, w

ithi

n an

d ar

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an

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ect

publ

ic t

rans

port

link

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the

he

art

of t

he U

rban

Cor

e, in

crea

sing

wal

king

and

cyc

ling

and

min

imiz

ing

thro

ugh

traf

fic(i

) To

ens

ure

the

deve

lopm

ent

and

use

of la

nd p

rote

cts,

sus

tain

s an

d en

hanc

es t

he q

ualit

y of

the

nat

ural

, bui

lt, a

nd h

isto

ric

envi

ronm

ent

(j)

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rovi

de t

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ppor

tuni

ty f

or a

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alit

y of

life

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ryon

e an

d en

hanc

e th

e w

ellb

eing

of

peop

le t

o re

duce

all

ineq

ualit

ies

(k)

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educ

e C

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s fr

om d

evel

opm

ent

and

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re g

row

th

whi

le a

dapt

ing

to t

he is

sues

[. .

.] o

f cl

imat

e ch

ange

(l)

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prov

e th

e fu

ncti

on, u

sabi

lity

and

prov

isio

n of

our

gre

en

infr

astr

uctu

re a

nd p

ublic

spa

ces

by p

rovi

ding

a n

etw

ork

of g

reen

sp

aces

and

fea

ture

s w

hich

are

con

nect

ed a

nd a

cces

sibl

e fo

r al

l

Sour

ces:

Dep

artm

ent o

f Cit

y Pl

anni

ng, N

YC

, 201

6b; A

CT

Gov

ernm

ent,

201

4; S

eoul

Met

ropo

litan

Gov

ernm

ent,

201

6a; P

lann

ing

for

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ure.

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e St

rate

gy

and

Urb

an C

ore

Plan

, Cou

ncils

of

New

cast

le a

nd G

ates

head

, 201

5

Tab

le 4

.7 L

ist

of V

isio

n Pl

an O

bjec

tive

s

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yC

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lsR

emar

ks

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k(a

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depe

nden

t liv

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ens

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mun

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deve

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ning

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erge

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ter

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tial

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s (E

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38

item

s, a

mon

g w

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11

have

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age-

frie

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berr

a(a

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row

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and

use

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ic r

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an in

clud

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opic

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mon

g w

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nspo

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riti

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impl

emen

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on p

hasi

ng;

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plan

’s v

isio

n is

a c

ity

cent

er w

here

pe

dest

rian

s, c

yclis

ts, a

nd p

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tra

nspo

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oss

the

city

.

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l(a

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elfa

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ndus

try,

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ands

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ity

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rans

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aint

enan

ce

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203

0 Se

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lan

is ‘a

pla

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e lif

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me

that

one

chi

ld c

an h

ave

unti

l he/

she

beco

mes

an

adul

t’. T

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lan

cove

rs fi

ve m

ain

topi

cs.

New

cast

le

upon

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e(a

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enc

oura

ge p

opul

atio

n gr

owth

in o

rder

to

unde

rpin

sus

tain

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ec

onom

ic g

row

th(b

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incr

ease

our

eco

nom

ic p

erfo

rman

ce, r

esili

ence

, lev

els

of

entr

epre

neur

ship

, ski

lls, a

nd b

usin

ess

form

atio

n(c

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incr

ease

our

com

peti

tive

ness

by

impr

ovin

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d ex

pand

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the

role

of

the

Urb

an C

ore

as t

he r

egio

nal d

esti

nati

on f

or b

usin

ess,

sh

oppi

ng, e

duca

tion

, lei

sure

, tou

rism

and

as

a pl

ace

to li

ve

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ion

2030

:‘B

y 20

30 G

ates

head

and

New

cast

le w

ill b

e pr

ospe

rous

and

sus

tain

able

cit

ies

th

at a

re u

niqu

e an

d di

stin

ctiv

e pl

aces

—w

here

peo

ple

choo

se t

o liv

e, w

ork

and

visi

t be

caus

e ev

eryo

ne c

an r

ealis

e th

eir

full

pote

ntia

l and

enj

oy a

hig

h qu

alit

y lif

esty

le’.

(d)

To s

tren

gthe

n N

ewca

stle

’s p

osit

ion

as t

he r

egio

nal r

etai

l cen

tre.

(e)

To e

xpan

d le

isur

e, c

ultu

re a

nd t

ouri

sm p

rovi

ding

for

all

age

grou

ps

and

dive

rsif

ying

the

eve

ning

eco

nom

y(f

) To

ens

ure

that

our

res

iden

tial

off

er p

rovi

des

a ch

oice

of

qual

ity

acco

mm

odat

ion

in s

usta

inab

le lo

cati

ons

to m

eet

peop

le’s

cur

rent

an

d fu

ture

nee

ds a

nd a

spir

atio

ns(g

) To

man

age

and

deve

lop

our

tran

spor

t sy

stem

to

supp

ort

grow

th

and

prov

ide

sust

aina

ble

acce

ss f

or a

ll to

hou

sing

, job

s, s

ervi

ces

and

shop

s(h

) To

impr

ove

sust

aina

ble

acce

ss t

o, w

ithi

n an

d ar

ound

the

Urb

an

Cor

e by

pro

mot

ing

fast

and

dir

ect

publ

ic t

rans

port

link

s to

the

he

art

of t

he U

rban

Cor

e, in

crea

sing

wal

king

and

cyc

ling

and

min

imiz

ing

thro

ugh

traf

fic(i

) To

ens

ure

the

deve

lopm

ent

and

use

of la

nd p

rote

cts,

sus

tain

s an

d en

hanc

es t

he q

ualit

y of

the

nat

ural

, bui

lt, a

nd h

isto

ric

envi

ronm

ent

(j)

To p

rovi

de t

he o

ppor

tuni

ty f

or a

hig

h qu

alit

y of

life

for

eve

ryon

e an

d en

hanc

e th

e w

ellb

eing

of

peop

le t

o re

duce

all

ineq

ualit

ies

(k)

To r

educ

e C

O2

emis

sion

s fr

om d

evel

opm

ent

and

futu

re g

row

th

whi

le a

dapt

ing

to t

he is

sues

[. .

.] o

f cl

imat

e ch

ange

(l)

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prov

e th

e fu

ncti

on, u

sabi

lity

and

prov

isio

n of

our

gre

en

infr

astr

uctu

re a

nd p

ublic

spa

ces

by p

rovi

ding

a n

etw

ork

of g

reen

sp

aces

and

fea

ture

s w

hich

are

con

nect

ed a

nd a

cces

sibl

e fo

r al

l

Sour

ces:

Dep

artm

ent o

f Cit

y Pl

anni

ng, N

YC

, 201

6b; A

CT

Gov

ernm

ent,

201

4; S

eoul

Met

ropo

litan

Gov

ernm

ent,

201

6a; P

lann

ing

for

The

Fut

ure.

Cor

e St

rate

gy

and

Urb

an C

ore

Plan

, Cou

ncils

of

New

cast

le a

nd G

ates

head

, 201

5


proposes 38 strategic objectives, among which 11 are related to age-friendliness, showing that New York is dedicated to the age-friendly city concept at the city scale. Another document worth mentioning is the ‘Emergency Shelter & Essential Services’ (ESG). Although New York has been preparing its age-friendly action plans based on the eight main topics of age-friendliness suggested by the WHO’s guide, in 2014 the city issued its own report on older citizens’ exposure to urban disasters, which goes to show that apart from the aspects covered in the WHO guide, disaster management has also become one of the topics relating to age-friendly planning; hence, we also list the Emergency Shelter & Essential Services (ESG) together with other age-friendly objectives pro-posed by New York’s vision plan.

Canberra

Canberra’s vision plan covers six topics: growth, land use and develop-ment, transport and movement, public realm and design, community infrastructure, and strengthening character. As mentioned earlier, Can-berra is a city brought about by detailed planning, with its strategic plan being continuously adjusted with time to accommodate changes. In response to forthcoming population ageing, Canberra’s current urban planning gives great consideration to age-friendliness, which also mani-fests in its vision plan. Transport and movement objectives, which have priority during the first stage of implementation, include a cycling pro-gram aiming not only at providing residents with safe and adequate cycle routes, but also at making cycling in the city safe, convenient, and accessible for older residents in particular. This program is intended to foster the elderly to cycle in the city, while improving urban dwellers’ tolerance towards older people. It can be said that Canberra considers the convenience of its elderly residents important in its citywide plan-ning, and pays particular attention to population ageing when formu-lating development strategies.

Seoul

The ‘2030 Seoul Plan’ aims at creating a ‘Happy City of Citizens with Communication and Consideration’ (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2009). In other words, as a long-term strategy for improving residents’ quality of life, this comprehensive policy encompasses topics of econ-omy, environment, transport, infrastructure, culture, and social welfare (An & Kim, 2015). The plan’s people-oriented nature is in concord with promoting age-friendly measures. Since the 2030 Seoul Plan is the highest statutory plan of Seoul, its age-friendly content tells about the city’s dedication to the matter, and shows how the implementation of the plan will contribute to improving older people’s living conditions


in the future, including improvements to their physical environment. The plan prescribes that implementation evaluation and plan adjust-ments shall be made every 5 years, which corresponds with WHO’s suggested 5-year improvement cycle. Thus, the 2030 Seoul Plan and the city’s age-friendly action plan support each other: applying the same 5-year cycle of evaluation and improvement provides opportunities for mutual monitoring and effectively helps improve the quality of Seoul’s urban environment.

Newcastle upon Tyne

The vision proposed by Newcastle’s and Gateshead’s jointly adopted development framework, Planning for Future—Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan for Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne 2010–2030, states that by 2030 Newcastle will be a prosperous and sustainable city, providing a high-quality lifestyle for all its residents, where people choose to live, work, and visit. It is apparent from the vision statement that the plan intends to improve and stabilize the social and economic situation of the city in the first place, by focusing on the issues of out-migration, health of the population, and economic performance. At a largeer spatial scale, these issues are mainly addressed by means of revi-talizing the city’s neighbourhoods and communities. Since the city has inherited an Urban Core that at present performs below its possibili-ties, and a number of deprived neighbourhoods, the main strategy the plan adopts is urban regeneration: it aims at facilitating compact and sustainable development. The intention of compactness manifests itself in many ways throughout the plan policies: emphasis on revitalizing the Urban Core area, enhancing walkability, extension of pedestrian and cycling networks, safeguarding local retail and neighbourhood centres, and defining Green Belt boundaries around the city in order to restrain urban sprawl. Although age-friendliness is less explicit in the plan, the notion of compact, sustainable growth in fact addresses most ageing-related issues that can be tackled at city level: it improves access to facilities and local shops, reduces the need for people to travel, improves road safety, facilitates active ageing, and helps create inclusive neighbourhoods in general. We can see that the core values of the plan, sustainability, health, inclusiveness and high-quality lifestyle, imply an age-friendly outcome at the city level.

The vision plan summaries presented above show that all of the selected cities treat ageing as an important social issue, and approach it in a com-prehensive and foresighted manner. As vision plans usually provide legal framework for smaller scale plans, and serve as guidelines for more detailed urban planning, it is extremely important for citywide plans to display an age-friendly mentality. Vision plans are more apt to harmonize different


development goals if they manage to incorporate and integrate various planning considerations. In this case, plans can effectively promote city-wide improvements, which prove the strong relation existing between urban planning and the age-friendly city concept once again.

Neighbourhood and Community Planning

Moving to a smaller scale, this section investigates whether or not neigh-bourhood and community plans can effectively convey the visions set out by the citywide plans discussed earlier, to assess the degree that these visions are being realized in local development. Although the selected vision plans, as well as age-friendly action plans, take a people-oriented approach, the spa-tial scale that has the greatest impact on residents’ quality of life is definitely that of the neighbourhood; therefore, an analysis of neighbourhood plans is of great importance. However, due to difficulties in data collection, some of the selected case studies cannot be profoundly analyzed at the local scale.

Belconnen Community, Canberra

Compared to the local plans of New York and Seoul, the city of Can-berra has developed more elaborate Community Plans. This section dis-cusses Belconnen Community, a district lying north of the city centre. Its neighbourhood plan proposes to ‘build a diverse and cohesive commu-nity at West Belconnen’. The plan lists 16 objectives, 6 of them relating to age-friendliness and the improvement of the physical environment (Consulting, E. and Riverview Group & Australian Capital Territory Land Development Agency, 2014).

(1) Establishing adaptable housing to allow residents to age-in-place as their lifestyles change.

(2) Incorporating an accessible and user-friendly open-space net-work into the development to enhance community interaction and livability.

(3) Provision of public transport for new residents in the earliest stages of the development to embed use of public transport into residents travel behaviour.

(4) Providing community facilities and services, located close to pub-lic transport and in an area where people are likely to congregate to create a sense of place and enhanced community well-being.

(5) Providing public open spaces throughout the development and retaining natural open spaces.

(6) Establishing a network of path and cycle ways to allow for passive recreation and transit throughout the development. This will help to reduce vehicle trips and provide opportunities for health and fitness.


The neighbourhood plan places great emphasis on ‘Community Transport’, considering it as a means to facilitate the independence of older people and people with disabilities and to enable them to partici-pate in community events (Belconnen Community Service, 2016).

As discussed earlier, provisions for quality urban environments and public transport have already been the core concern of Canberra’s planning from the very beginning of its development. Current urban planning still builds on the city structure inherited from the Green City tradition, as can be seen on the Cycling and Walking Map issued by the city, indicating routes with separated auto and pedestrian traf-fic and cycling paths (Transport Canberra, 2016). Not only does this plan fulfil age-friendly requirements on environmental quality, open space provision, compact development, safe traffic separating auto and pedestrian flows, and accessibility of facilities, it also helps achieve the goals of community support and the improvement of the physical environment.

Canberra’s age-friendly community framework follows the structure suggested by the WHO’s AFC guide; yet within the framework, a distinct vision is established, placing greater emphasis on community support and livable environment. As is apparent from this section, Canberra’s planned development gives consideration to population ageing and pro-motes age-friendliness both at the citywide scale and in local planning, with phasing priority given to transport-related improvements. It can also be concluded that plans at different levels link up well, ensuring that local plans help realize citywide visions in local development and promote the age-friendly concept at all scales.

Tapgol Park Area, Seoul

Strictly speaking, Seoul does not have distinct local development plans. Rather, community planning constitutes a part of the citywide strate-gic plan, as issues are analyzed from a citywide perspective, and then certain planning measures are targeted in certain neighbourhoods. The Tapgol Park Area is one such neighbourhood. Having consulted older people, the area is going to offer local age-friendly services, such as increased provision of welfare facilities and more employment opportu-nities for the elderly. The plan for services designed around Jongmyo and Tapgol Park laid the foundation for the ‘Ageing Service Design’ applied in Seoul’s urban planning since 2013. The concept helped develop an elderly-friendly street in Tapgol Park Area by improving welfare facili-ties, transport, sidewalks, and urban design. Stores along the street are also turned into ‘age-friendly stores’ (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2016b). These improvements together have gradually made the Tapgol Park Area a friendly place suitable for older people to live. The city


plans to gradually expand the age-friendly district, with the participa-tion of local residents, shop owners, and the elderly.

Besides the Tapgol Park Area, from public suggestion Seoul also launched another plan aiming at making the city more pedestrian-friendly by improving pedestrian environment quality. The goal of the ‘Road Diet Project’ is to provide more pedestrian space and to improve pedestrian safety. The vision of a ‘pedestrian city’ is to be achieved by reducing auto lanes and installing more walkways. The plan is estimated to be imple-mented by mid-2017 (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2016c).

Walker Riverside Area, Newcastle upon Tyne

The Walker Riverside Area is located east of the City Centre and used to be a major industrial hub, but loss of the shipbuilding industry has had a severe impact on the area’s economy. Walker Riverside has been experiencing population decline for decades, and obsolete housing also presents a major problem.

In order to tackle these issues, in 2005 Newcastle City Council adopted the Walker Riverside: Area Action Plan. It constitutes part of the Local Development Framework and is intended to guide the long-term regeneration of the area, including investment and delivering the government’s Pathfinder Housing Market Renewal Programme. The plan covers a 15-year period, from 2006 to 2021, and is referred to by Newcastle’s key planning framework, the Planning for Future—Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan for Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne 2010–2030, as one of the city’s Area Action Plans.

Informed by demographic data showing an increasing number of older people in the area, the vision of the Walker Riverside: Area Action Plan includes improving and revitalizing ‘each locality in Walker River-side and creating a new centre incorporating shops and facilities that is a wonderful place for families and people of all ages and backgrounds to enjoy safely’. The plan sets out creating a new neighbourhood centre providing good quality local shops, services, and facilities, so that it serves as a community focus and stabilizes the social composition of the area. The Action Plan also treats inclusive transport as a priority: public transport policy includes a more direct bus service to the city centre, more reliable services, and improved, accessible bus corridors introducing bus priority lanes and new bus stops supplying real-time information. Walking and cycling are also considered key elements of an inclusive transport system; hence, the plan proposes an integrated network of continuous walking and cycling routes that are well-linked with public transport and dedicates cycle lanes and walking/cycling paths along the river Tyne that connect the area with the city centre. Development of the neighbourhood retail centre also incorporates pedestrian through-routes.


Although the Action Plan had been adopted well before Newcastle joined WHO’s Age-Friendly Cities Network, these measures definitely work towards an age-friendly urban environment. Compact develop-ment and a provision of local shops, services, and facilities in proximity to one another reduce the need for travel and make it easier for older people to care for themselves. Separation of auto, pedestrian, and cycle routes makes older people feel safe when outside, and they are more apt to leave their homes, which is a crucial prerequisite of active ageing. Being a less mobile segment of the population, the elderly also benefit from public transport improvements.

The Action Plan states that ‘the local housing market is a key fac-tor influencing decline’. Hence, housing provision is a centerpiece of its policies. The plan proposes a target of 20% of new dwellings for social rental housing and requires new family housing to meet the Lifetime Homes Standards (a series of design criteria adopted by the UK gov-ernment to make homes easily adaptable for lifetime use), and it also considers the requirements for special needs housing and wheelchair-accessible homes. The plan identifies that demands for bungalows (among other housing types) is larger than the current supply.

The housing policy set out by the Walker Riverside Area Action Plan is clearly inclusive, and it builds up a framework in which explicitly age-friendly housing provisions can be embedded. Thus, when New-castle’s cross-cutting age-friendly housing policy document, Newcastle an Age Friendly City—Older People’s Housing Delivery Plan 2013–2018 (adopted when Newcastle joined WHO’s Age-Friendly Network), assigns part of Newcastle’s proposed future age-friendly housing units to the Walker Riverside Area, this is completely in line with its Area Action Plan. In order to ‘ensure sheltered housing stock meets needs, is well managed, and contributes to achieving health and social care pri-orities’, The Housing Delivery Plan proposes 45 bed places/8 designated bungalows to Central Walker and the conversion of a former church building into 16 one-bed apartments for older people with dementia.

The case of Newcastle’s Walker Riverside Area shows that a strong commitment to inclusive and sustainable development provides a solid foundation for age-friendly policies, yet targeted planning documents are also needed to specify age-friendly requirements.

It can be concluded that the selected vision plans and local plans all incor-porate people-oriented measures in their future development concepts, even though planning considerations vary with spatial scale and level of implementation. Besides, all plans proactively promote, and in many cases prioritize, walking and cycling via the provision of adequate infrastructure regardless of scale, which not only shows consistency between citywide visions and local plans, but also highlights that urban planning is in com-plete accord with age-friendly city and age-friendly community concepts.


Conclusion

In this dynamic era, all aspects of life, including the environment, popula-tion, economy, society, transportation, hygiene, and urban scale, are exposed to constant change, which requires urban planning to keep abreast of the times and to elaborate new theories and methods reflecting on the changes related to both the parts and the whole. As every city is in a state of constant transformation, each locality gradually develops its distinct environmental features. We cannot but notice the new challenge that has appeared on the global horizon, that of the ageing population. The AFC guide issued by WHO in 2007 has been actively promoting the concept of age-friendliness worldwide. It is clear from this guidance that the age-friendly concept relates to all aspects of the urban environment; in other words, making a city age-friendly requires comprehensive evaluation of the area and an integrated approach in determining the action plans focusing on the improvements needed. Such action plans aiming at an age-friendly environment, however, eventually turn out to serve purposes very similar to those advocated by urban planning. Urban planning can only decide on priorities and come up with appropriate planning schemes and strategic policies if it is able to con-sider the issues of a region in a comprehensive manner and to prepare plans that account for complexity. In view of this, the main focus of this chapter was to investigate the degree of correspondence between urban planning and the age-friendly agenda. Through an analysis of selected case studies, we hoped to understand if plans at different levels and scales can effectively respond to the issue of population ageing.

The case study cities discussed in this chapter all have been implementing, or at least have already drafted, age-friendly city plans, and they have also developed interesting dialogues with distinct urban planning frameworks in the local contexts. Our analysis of the case studies confirms that strategic city-wide plans play the leading role in determining a city’s desired future develop-ment path from a broader sense, while they also serve as reference or guidance for smaller-scale detailed plans at lower administrative levels. Thus, although each locality might have its own urban policies and planning priorities, these still do not break away from the vision stated by the citywide strategic plan. It can be observed that age-friendly plans are all treated as of having great importance, or even as a priority, within both the citywide plans and neigh-bourhood plans of the case studies discussed. There is no surprise that all selected cities advocate people-oriented urban development, which falls in line with the directions set by the age-friendly city concept. Besides, provisions for adequate pedestrian infrastructure and bicycle lanes constitute an important part of each of the plans analyzed, regardless of scale—Canberra even includes them in its city vision, and Seoul prepared a priority plan on the matter—prov-ing each city’s dedication towards livable and friendly urban environments.

As a conclusion, it can be found that, apart from being responsible for pro-found changes in the economic and social structure, population ageing has


also become a pivotal issue in urban planning, inducing significant changes in the field. In the latter half of last century, the main concerns of urban planning were facilitating industrial developments, transportation construc-tion, economic growth, and national defense, so less attention was paid to humanistic well-being planning. It was not until topics such as the ageing of the population structure, environmental pollution, and sustainable develop-ment appeared on the scene that urban planning started to gradually attach more importance to city dwellers’ quality of life in the early 21st century. In this shift, increasing consideration of population ageing and health has been playing a catalytic role. Nevertheless, the case study analysis also highlights certain shortcomings of current urban planning, as well as problematic points in applying the age-friendly concept. For instance, although the age-friendly city framework puts great emphasis on elderly participation, in the case studies discussed earlier, public participation of the target population cohort is given less attention in general; both spatial plans and age-friendly plans follow a rather top-down approach in promoting the age-friendly city concept, and few channels are provided for citizens, and older people in particular, to make their voices heard. Even though contemporary urban planning aspires to become more people-oriented, levels of public partici-pation are yet to be increased in order to fully understand people’s needs and to achieve the vision of the people-oriented city. To this extent, in the next chapter, the case of Hong Kong’s age-friendly project experience will illustrate another approach, the bottom-up approach, on promoting age-friendly housing. This chapter intends to initiate a dialogue between urban planning and the age-friendly agenda in order to facilitate further discussion on the matter, and to encourage all disciplines to get involved—in the hope that future urban planning is going to improve constantly and manage to correspond with older people’s needs.

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Yi Sun et al.Listening to the Elders

5 Listening to the EldersThe Case of a Bottom-Up, Context-Sensitive Place Audit in Tai Po District of Hong Kong

Yi Sun, Anna Wong, Anson K. C. Chau, Moses Wong, and Jean Woo

Introduction

Urban living poses challenges and constraints on older people. The salient features that support the territorial development and population growth can also generate negative externalities affecting older persons in a number of ways. To begin with, traffic congestion, environment degradation, limited provision of green spaces, unreasonable cost of urban housing, and poverty have been some primary factors affecting the quality of life among older people. The change of neighborhood landscapes and its social fabrics, for instance, urban decay and the displacement of community dwellers, can also have great impacts on the psychological and social well-being of older people. Consequently, older people are likely to develop a strong sense of insecurity, which further impedes their individual behaviours, social rela-tionships, and their capability for coping with the environment stressors.

However, the urban development pathway, particularly under the influ-ence of neoliberalism since the late 1970s, is prone to paying insufficient attention to older people and their well-being under the context of the urban change—many elderly become increasingly isolated and ‘invisible’ in society (Buffel, Phillipson, & Scharf, 2012). A previous study has confirmed a para-dox wherein older people, who spend most of their time in their neighbor-hoods, are often among the last to be engaged in decision-making on local issues (Buffel, 2012). The commercial and political interests aim more to elevate profit-gaining activities than to create a community place designed to meet citizens’ social needs (Brenner, Marcuse, & Mayer, 2012; Harvey, 2008).

Locally, urban context of Hong Kong makes the ageing population a more critical issue. While the trend of population ageing is enduring, the elderly may find more hardship to secure a quality of life given the high-density built environment, limited resources, and spaces for elderly life, as well as impacts from climate variability and its extremes. Since the incep-tion of the new millennium, promoting age-friendliness has been addressed by both the government and non-government associations of Hong Kong.

Listening to the Elders 73

Particularly in the Policy Address 2016, substantial efforts will be made to build up age-friendly communities through providing older people easier access to walkways and facilities (such as outdoor seating, outdoor hygiene facilities, etc.).

Albeit the promotion of age-friendly communities becomes a city-wide ini-tiative, some critical research questions arise from scholars of various disci-plines. For example, what are the opinions from older people towards these initiatives? How do they evaluate the age-friendliness for their own commu-nity? What characteristics are important for ageing well? These questions need to be answered before any initiative is proposed and implemented. In this chapter, the actual manifestation and implementation of age-friendly city movement in Hong Kong will be reviewed. This is followed by a place audit on one district of Hong Kong with an aim of understanding commu-nity dwellers’ perceived age-friendliness through a mixed methods research approach. The questionnaire survey was conducted and supplemented by focus groups in an explanatory design to shed light on residents’ perceived age-friendliness in their community. Some key findings will be reported and discussed. In the last part, we will offer several policy suggestions towards a sustainable urbanization that cultivates age-friendly, healthy, and inclusive communities.

Population Ageing in Hong Kong

The population of Hong Kong is no exception to the global trend of ageing. The proportion of people aged 65 and above (excluding foreign domestic helpers) is projected to increase from 15% in 2014 to 36% in 2064 (Census and Statistics Department, 2015), while the proportion of people aged 14 and below is projected to drop from 12% to 9%. Accordingly, the old age dependency ratio1 is projected to rise from 211 to 658 in this period. In particular, the proportion of the oldest old (i.e., aged 80 and above) is likely to surge. The figure will double from 5% in 2014 and further rise to around 16% in 2064, which amounts to around 1.1 million people. While the elderly themselves are ageing, older people reveal some potential to be inte-grated with the community. The overall educational attainment of elderly in Hong Kong improves. The proportion of older persons with no school-ing or only pre-primary decreased from 42.1% in 2001 to 31.7% in 2011, whereas that with secondary and higher education elevated from 18.4% to 31% respectively (Census and Statistics Department, 2011). In spite of the rapidly ageing population, the older people of the next and future genera-tions are likely become better educated and better informed.

For older people ageing in urban cities like Hong Kong, their life experi-ence can be difficult (Phillipson, 2013). Above all, our society is not enabling enough to support older people’s positive functioning in cities. For instance, a study of Sha Tin and Tuen Mun reflected that the willingness of older peo-ple in social participation is carelessly and insufficiently articulated (Wong,

74 Listening to the Elders

Chau, Cheung, Phillips, & Woo, 2015). Albeit older people have different values in society, their zest tends to be dismissed by current elderly policies in Hong Kong. There is little employment opportunity for elders, and there remains insufficient knowledge about their real needs and demands in our society.

Review of this background of ageing population in urban settings reveals three issues to be addressed in this study. First, we draw upon the important concept and movement of Age-Friendly Cities (WHO, 2007), which advo-cates for the return of a focus on creating an enabling environment in the community that helps improve quality of life and achieve the goals of active ageing, health, and well-being. As such, this study will demonstrate how the Age-Friendly City (AFC) framework is used to conduct a place audit as part of the local initiatives to make Hong Kong more age-friendly.

Second, just as the AFC framework is developed out of ongoing, collec-tive efforts and insight from around the world, this study aims to make a contribution to that knowledge base that will be useful for scholars, service providers, and policy makers involved in planning and urban development, particularly in global/Asian urban settings. To this end, we will offer the case study of a Hong Kong district and discuss common challenges and opportunities encountered when considering the needs and rights of ageing populations.

Last but not least, our place audit methodology adopts a ‘bottom-up’ approach, enabling a context-sensitive assessment of the district environ-ment by consulting community members as key informants. Their perspec-tives would also inform our investigation into the underlying needs of older people and their satisfaction with the environment. This approach requires a methodology that produces comprehensive and in-depth insights. Our design of place audit combines survey and focus group with an aim of criti-cally examining the links between older people’s demands and what envi-ronment (both physical and social) can offer.

Age-Friendly City (AFC) in the Global and Local Contexts

WHO is one of the leading actors in promoting international health policies and in leading global efforts in mitigating diseases and ageing. The theme of age-friendly communities is derived from a set of policy initiatives since the 1990s and early 2000s, leading to substantial scholarly discussions (Buf-fel, Phillipson, & Scharf, 2012; Phillipson, 2015). Prior to the age-friendly city, ‘active ageing’ was identified as an influential concept which was devel-oped during the United Nations Year of Older People in 1999. This con-cept was further elaborated in WHO (2002) as ‘continuing participation in social, economic, cultural, spiritual, and civic affairs, not just the ability to be physically active or to participate in the labour force’ (p. 12). Achiev-ing this policy agenda requires synergic efforts of various levels of interven-tion, from individual through his/her physical environment and finally to


the macro-environment. Further development of the active ageing concept was stimulated by challenges of urbanization. Particular attention was paid to how older people can be involved in various facets of urbanism, leading to the promulgation of the Global Age-Friendly City project by the WHO in 2006. Initially, 33 cities were selected, within which several rounds of focus groups were conducted with older people, caregivers, and healthcare pro-viders to develop a universal AFC checklist applicable to different contexts. The checklist includes eight domains of urban living (i.e., outdoor spaces and building, transportation, housing, social participation, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and information, community support, and health services) (WHO, 2007), with an aim to digging out the potential of cit-ies that help all ages, with different capacities, to live well and meaningfully.

To promote AFC initiatives in cities, the WHO launched the Global Net-work of Age-Friendly Cities in 2010. The network aims to link participating cities to the WHO and facilitate exchange of information and best practice. In this way it is expected that an internationally oriented policy network will be built up wherein WHO can provide technical guidance and training to facilitate local implementation. Participating cities are obligated to com-mit to a four-stage implementation cycle (for an age-friendly community), including planning, implementation, progress evaluation, and continual improvement (WHO, 2009). From an institutional perspective, the AFC checklist articulates some universal strategies for evaluating the current practices and proposing future policy initiatives.

The AFC concept was introduced in Hong Kong in 2008, and it was first promoted by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS)—a territory-wide non-governmental organization (NGO) with some 400 agency members in Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong was not a participating member when WHO first announced the AFC project in 2007, a steering committee (with representatives from HKCSS and member NGOs) was set up with a view to raising public awareness and establishing a district-based AFC network joining together the member NGO agencies, district councils, and communities.

From 2009, doctors, particularly those working on the frontline of ger-ontology and geriatrics, initiated a new kind of community program for the elderly as a bottom-up approach in the face of the government’s lin-gering take on age-friendly policies. The initiatives were launched based on a repackage of a previously funded project by the Hong Kong Jockey Club (hereinafter JC). During this program, doctors working together with a group of active academics recognized the need to conduct more research studies in order to learn more about effects of the environment on elders and gain in-depth understanding of their lived experience. They also aimed to change the negative perceptions towards older people and proposed ways that senior citizens could be reconnected to the society (Sun, Chao, Woo, & Au, 2017). These aims and efforts were very much in line with WHO’s prin-ciples for the AFC movement.


In 2014, JC partnered with Hong Kong’s four gerontology research insti-tutes and formally kick-started the AFC project of Hong Kong. The first step was to measure age-friendliness in eight pilot districts (including Tai Po) using WHO’s framework of assessment and identify areas for improve-ment. The baseline assessment was carried out from August 2015 to Febru-ary 2016. Over 4,200 respondents took part in surveys and focus groups, and every domain of AFC was assessed. In the second stage (2016–2018), the universities will provide support and advice to districts to launch an age-friendly campaign. JC will provide funding to each district according to the proposed action plans informed by results from the baseline assessment.

Urban Characteristics of Tai Po

The current study examines the age-friendliness of Tai Po, one of the 18 districts in Hong Kong (see Figure 5.1). Tai Po has a population of 307,100, accounting for 4.25% of the total population of Hong Kong (Census and Statistics Department, 2016). The median age of Tai Po residents is 41 years, with 11.95% (36,700) of the Tai Po residents aged 65 and above.

Historically, Tai Po is a market town famous for trading of agricultural and fish products. The old market was located at the coastal plains where

Figure 5.1 Locations of 18 Districts in Hong Kong


the Tai Po River and the Lam Tsuen River cross. With the expansion of commercial activities, a new market was established at the north-eastern bank of the Lam Tsuen River (Tai Wo). Since then, Tai Po became one of the famous market towns for retailing and wholesaling of market products in the northern New Territories. In particular, when construction of the Kow-loon Canton Railway (KCR) was completed in 1910, Tai Po served as an important market center for the New Territories.

Tai Po is among the earliest places where Chinese migrants from Guang-dong arrived. A noticeable population of Hakka people came to Tai Po before the 1970s, settling into villages and forming a specific community culture among the local Chinese.

In the early 1970s, limited development was envisaged for Tai Po. In 1974, a decision was made that Tai Po should be the site of the first indus-trial estate in Hong Kong, and the reclamation began in 1976. Simultane-ously, the reclamation began for the first public housing estate, Tai Yuen Estate. The subsequent plans for Tai Po increased public housing, and Tai Po was a designated new town in 1979. Nowadays, there are six public hous-ing estates, providing home to some 136,000 population. A wide variety of community facilities have been built, ranging from community centers, healthcare facilities, cultural complexes, libraries, sports complexes, and the center for elderly. Residential lands and village houses take the largest parts among all developed areas (totaling 400 hectares).

In terms of outdoor environment, Tai Po is well-known for its ecologic diversity due to the large amount of natural landscapes. Pat Sin Leng (The Ridge of Eight Immortals) is one of the many symbolic natural landmarks in Tai Po which has great biodiversity.

In terms of urban planning, the concept of ‘balanced development’ was proposed in the initial stage, whereby ‘provision of community services, rec-reational facilities, and education facilities has been a major objective in the development of the Tai Po New Town to benefit community dwellers living in the district.2 For the rural parts of Tai Po, minor improvement works have been conducted to improve infrastructural facilities, backed by an overall imperative to preserve the natural and village environment.

In terms of social environment, a study of age-friendly communities is of great importance since the elderly care and support system in Hong Kong is highly dependent on services provided by NGOs with the support of some government subsidies. However, the management of NGOs is prone to adopting business management practices and market strategies, resulting in top-down models that tend to treat their members like clients. Further, the evaluation of NGOs’ performance lacks detailed consideration on the real needs of recipients of their services and tends to focus on meeting target numbers of beneficiaries. Therefore, it is very important to present the needs and voices of the older population who should have a say in what the city offers, whether in the form of NGO-delivered services or otherwise.


Research Methods

A space is not a neutral container, but ‘an interlinkage of geographic form, built environment, symbolic meanings and routines of life’ (Molotch, 1993, p. 888; Sun, Chan, & Chen, 2016). In this vein, in addition to a set of vis-ible attributes, a space can be viewed as a product and a process that carries specific meanings and cultural imprints (Arefi & Triantafillou, 2005). Place audit is a ground level assessment tool that aims to take a closer examina-tion of neighborhood characteristics. For town planners, conducting place audit is more than a study of status quo—it is a tool to uncover the mean-ings and values that a place can convey and communicate to a group of people who views the place as part of their lives. This contradicts the con-ventional professional dominated planning approach and it aims to get rid of ‘imperative decision-making based on the rational choice by economic interest’ (Harvey, 2009).

In this study, place audit was conducted in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong using a mixed methods research design. This approach is increasingly adopted in social sciences and healthcare research to address contemporary problems that necessitate investigations into processes and systems that are complex, multilevel, and demanding both quantitative and qualitative forms of data (Creswell, Fetters, & Ivankova, 2004; Curry et al., 2013). The place audit made use of a questionnaire survey and focus groups as its methodo-logical tools. Residents living in Tai Po aged 65 and above were invited to participate in this study. A 53-item questionnaire was designed for the ques-tionnaire survey. These items were written based on WHO’s age-friendly city checklist (WHO, 2007), which covers a wide spectrum of physical and social environmental features under the eight domains of age-friendliness in the WHO’s guidelines for an age-friendly city. Respondents rated each item from very unsatisfactory (1) to satisfactory (6) on a 6-point Likert scale. In addition, three focus groups (one group aged 80 and above, two groups aged 65 and above) were then carried out where participants were asked to describe and explain in depth their perceptions of strengths and weaknesses of the physical and social environment in their community, according to the eight domains. They were also asked to give suggestions for change that would contribute, in their view, to a more age-friendly environment and an improved quality of life for older people in their community. The question-naire survey and focus groups were conducted from August 2015 to January of 2016.

For the questionnaire survey, mean domain scores were calculated to find out the ranking of age-friendliness across eight domains. Differences in mean domain scores by age group (65–79 years old and ≥ 80 years old), sex, educational attainment (primary or below, secondary and tertiary or above), employment status (working and not working), housing type (pub-lic, subsidized, and private), and living arrangement (living alone and not living alone) were analyzed using t-test or analysis of variance (ANOVA).


For the focus groups, features of the participants’ community that emerged from the process of group discussion on its strengths and weak-nesses were coded and compared across the groups to identify common views under each AFC domain. Unique views were also included to high-light (a) any unique scheme providing a useful reference or model for other districts; (b) specific concerns for vulnerable groups, disadvantaged groups (e.g., persons with disability), the oldest old (aged 80 and above), and older persons marginalized for other reasons; or (c) special issue(s) that received little discussion but have significant generalizability and applicability to other districts or regions (e.g., perceived insufficiency of burial sites).

Age-Friendly Features in Tai Po: Strengths and Weaknesses

Quantitative Findings

Two hundred eighty-three residents aged 65 and above living in Tai Po were interviewed. Their demographic information is listed in Table 5.1. The domain scores, from highest to lowest, are (i) transportation (M = 4.33; SD = 0.74); (ii) outdoor spaces and buildings (M = 4.16; SD = 0.77); (iii) social participation (M = 4.01; SD = 1.09); (iv) communication and information (M = 3.88; SD = 0.94); (v) respect and social inclusion (M = 3.79; SD = 0.92); (vi) housing (M = 3.72; SD = 1.04); (vii) community and health services (M = 3.59; SD = 0.89); and (viii) civic participation and employment (M = 3.46, SD = 1.15).

The mean scores of two domains, namely transportation, and outdoor spaces and buildings, ranked at the top; while the domains of community support and health services, and civic participation and employment, were given the lowest scores in Tai Po.

Considering demographics of respondents, there was no difference in all eight mean domain scores by age, education level, or living arrangement. However, differences in age-friendliness among the two age groups were found in the domain of information and communication (p < .05): respond-ents aged 65–79 scored higher than those aged 80 and above (65–79 yrs: M = 3.95; ≥ 80 yrs: M = 3.63; t = 2.21, p = .03). Besides, respondents who were working rated the domain of community and health services higher than those not working (working: M = 4.16; not working: M = 3.56; t = 2.52, p = .01). Interestingly, the effect of housing types on perceived age-friendliness was observed in seven out of eight domains (except the domain of civic participation and employment) (p < .05). Specifically, respondents living in public housing estates usually rated higher than respondents living in subsidized housing, with the lowest scores rated by those living in private housing estates.

The results of regression analyses of domain score can be found in Table 5.2. Demographics only predicted significantly the mean scores of outdoor spaces and buildings (F(8, 273) = 3.60, p = .001), communication


Table 5.1 Demographic Information of Participants of Questionnaire Survey (N = 283)

Demographics n (%)

Age (N = 283) 65–79 years old 232 (81.98%) ≥ 80 years old 51 (18.02%)Gender (N = 283) Male 142 (50.18%) Female 141 (49.82%)Education attainment (N = 283) Primary education or below 167 (59.01%) Secondary education 94 (33.22%) Post-secondary education 22 (77.74%)Employment status (N = 282) Working 15 (5.32%) Not working 267 (94.68%)Housing types (N = 283) Public housing 95 (33.57%) Subsidized housing 87 (30.74%) Private housing 101 (35.69%)Living arrangement (N = 282) Living alone 44 (15.60%) Not living alone 238 (84.40%)

and information (F(8, 273) = 3.30, p = .001), and community and health services (F(8, 273) = 4.32, p < .001). Living in private housing (compared with living in public housing) predicted lower mean scores in six out of eight domains (p < .01) (except the domain of transportation and civic participa-tion and employment). Living in subsidized housing (compared with living in public housing) predicted lower scores in outdoor spaces and building, social participation, communication and information, and community and health services (p < .05). In addition, age 80 and above (compared with 65–79 yrs) was predictive of lower score in the domain of communication and information.

Qualitative Findings

The focus group revealed that the availability and accessibility of pleasant physical environment was highly valued by community members in Tai Po, and they are perceived to have positive effects on people’s psychological well-being. Overall, cleaner air, green hills, and closeness to the harbour are aspects of the natural environment greatly appreciated by participants. Parks seemed to be the most popular form of built environment, highlighting older people’s love for being close to greenery and the harbour. The Waterfront Park in Tai Po was perceived to be a local attraction that participants were

Tab

le 5

.2 M

ulti

ple

Reg

ress

ions

Ass

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Mea

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of A

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Cit

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Dem

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phic

sM

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Scor

e of

Age

-Fri

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y C

ity

Dom

ains

Out

door

spa

ces

and

build

ings

Tra

nspo

rtat

ion

Hou

sing

Soci

al

part

icip

atio

nR

espe

ct a

nd

soci

al in

clus

ion

Civ

ic

part

icip

atio

n an

d em

ploy

men

t

Com

mun

icat

ion

and

info

rmat

ion

Com

mun

ity

and

heal

th s

ervi

ces

B(S

E)

βB

(SE

)β

B(S

E)

βB

(SE

)β

B(S

E)

βB

(SE

)β

B(S

E)

βB

(SE

)β

Age

≥80

yea

rs o

ld (

vs.

65–

79 y

ears

old

).1

4 (.

12)

.07

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(.1

2)−.

04−.

11 (

.18)

−.04

−.21

(.1

8)−.

07−.

06 (

.15)

−.03

−.20

(.1

9)−.

07−.

30 (

.15)

−.12

*−.

14 (

.14)

−.06

Gen

der

Mal

e (v

s. f

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e)−.

12 (

.10)

−.08

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02.1

1 (.

14)

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08−.

14(.

12)

−.08

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04−.

23 (

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−.12

−.23

(.1

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12E

duca

tion

att

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ent

Seco

ndar

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ion

(vs.

pri

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15 (

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10.0

7 (.

15)

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3)−.

02.1

2 (.

17)

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).1

2−.

01 (

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Post

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ry

educ

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n (v

s. p

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be

low

)

−.08

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07−.

25 (

.18)

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(.25

).0

2−.

06 (

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−.01

−.17

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2)−.

05−.

14 (

.28)

−.03

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).0

2.2

5 (.

21)

.07

Em

ploy

men

t st

atus

Wor

king

(vs

. not

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20)

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).0

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04 (

.29)

−.01

.00

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0.3

2 (.

32)

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).0

7.6

7 (.

23)

.17

Hou

sing

typ

esSu

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ized

hou

sing

(v

s. p

ublic

ho

usin

g)

−.33

(.1

1)−.

20**

−.15

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10−.

20 (

.16)

−.09

−.37

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)−.

16*

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09−.

32 (

.18)

−.13

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15*

−.48

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25**

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Priv

ate

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(vs.

pu

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50 (

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22**

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48 (

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60**

1.62

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Sign

ifica

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p <

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particularly fond of. It allowed them to enjoy the green environment, har-bour view, and well-maintained gardens. The paths for joggers and cyclists provide sufficient spaces for physical activities. The public space in Tai Po acts as an ideal venue for self-initiated activities ranging from exercising to playing music. Generally, participants perceived Tai Po to be a safe district to live in.

In terms of ‘transportation’, the government-initiated territory-wide con-cessionary fare scheme for elderly residents aged 65 and over (officially named ‘Government Public Transport Fare Concession Scheme for the Elderly and Eligible Persons with Disabilities’) was greatly appreciated. Under this scheme, older people can enjoy a concessionary fee of HKD 2 (around USD 0.26) per ride. Although these elderly people were no longer at work, their needs for mobility are high. Older people commute not only within the Tai Po district but also travel to other districts in the New Terri-tories and Kowloon. According to survey findings, the public transport net-work was perceived to be sufficient in terms of its capacity, efficiency, and network coverage. Interestingly, the focus group revealed that not all older people were satisfied. The transportation costs incurred from longer travel-ling distances to and from Kowloon and Hong Kong Island were perceived to be expensive for elders aged 60 to 65 years old, a group of retirees not yet eligible for the scheme. A sense of unfairness was expressed by some partici-pants regarding the conditional offer of discounts on the bus. For example, the concessionary fee is not applied to all bus routes, nor is the $2 discount offered by all bus companies on weekends and public holidays.

In terms of ‘civic participation and employment’, a mixture of views was expressed. Tai Po residents generally described plenty of voluntary work available through local elderly centers. These were perceived as many and varied, including fire safety ambassador, serving the neglected elderly and disabled in the community, and looking after children whose parents take a full-time job. Some volunteers described a sense of empowerment through home visits, which increased their knowledge about real needs of the elderly in the area and put them in the position to advise others on getting help. Others viewed voluntary work as a way to spend time in the company of others, which was felt to be especially important to their psychological well-being after retirement. However, some retired and elderly participants encountered voluntary work that was uninteresting or age-inappropriate, such as measuring blood pressure on the roadside and participating in lion dance. In terms of employment opportunities, older people perceived a ‘glass ceiling’ when they look for a job, making it dif-ficult to be employed due to age rather than ability. Others felt that they were unable to do any work due to personal limitations, such as no longer being able to carry out physically demanding jobs where a high education level was not required.

In terms of ‘community support and health services’, retired and elderly participants found medical care to be less accessible for those living outside


of central Tai Po and also those aged below 70 who were not yet eligible for participating in the government-funded medical voucher scheme. How-ever, the most difficult problem was, by far, oversubscription at government-funded hospitals:

To be honest, medical care at hospitals is very oversubscribed. If your case is not an emergency, say if something was wrong with my bone here, the doctor would put me on a waiting list for referral, and I would have to wait for two, three years. What happens is, I could walk now, but by the end of the three years of waiting, my leg would have gotten to the stage where I wouldn’t be able to walk.

(Group 3, aged 65 and above, public and subsidized housing)

However, it was remarked that the problem did not limit itself to Tai Po but rather was a problem of overpopulation in Hong Kong as in most urban settings in global cities.

Over in Shatin, it is impossible to get a bed space even after you’re admitted for three days. They simply have no spare beds. Here in Tai Po even if they were to build more hospitals it would be useless, because you would also need more doctors and nurses and there just aren’t enough around. There isn’t enough money to hire them, which is use-less. Actually, it’s the same all over Hong Kong with public hospitals. The population is too high and medical resources are simply not suf-ficient for its demand. How many new hospitals have you seen being built around here in the past ten years? The population rises so quickly it is an impossible situation.

(Group 3, aged 65 and above, public and subsidized housing)

Overall, older people had negative perceptions towards the availability and quality of subsidized services offered to the elderly. Across the groups, lim-ited services and support in the community were also reported and attrib-uted to various reasons, including perceived difficulty for NGOs to secure rental contracts as well as the local district council not doing enough for the community. Across the groups, participants wanted to see more choices in the community support and health services domains. Expansion of afford-able non-public medical care services was suggested by participants to address the gap between unaffordable private medical services and oversub-scribed public health services. They also suggested increasing the availability of practical care and assistance services in the community to address needs of the elderly, for example, assistance with attending medical appointments that would otherwise fall on the shoulders of adult children (for those who have them), who would have to take time off work. The elderly participants also suggested increasing the amount of gym equipment designed for elderly use indoor and outdoor so they could keep themselves fit and healthy.


Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter sheds light on how the Global Age-Friendly City movement can be locally manifested in urban settings with reference to Hong Kong. It is believed that the urban environment, as exemplified by our case study in Hong Kong, poses greater challenges for older people given the high density, unreasonable costs for living, lack of sociable spaces, and so on.

Our place audit indicates three important findings. First, the outdoor environment plays a very important role in older people’s perceived age-friendliness. The results from the questionnaire revealed that the domain of outdoor spaces and buildings ranked first among the age-friendly domains, suggesting that older people living in Tai Po are satisfied with this domain. Supplementing the quantitative findings, the qualitative findings revealed that the green environment, waterfront, gardens, and harbour view are important elements that establish people’s affective bonds towards place and community. Most respondents articulated the park as an important fea-ture for an age-friendly city. Again, a walkable environment is perceived to be important. The lack of sheltered bench and outdoor areas, uneven pave-ment, slopes, and the lack of lift for a footbridge remain key impediments for people wanting to use the space and interact with their environment. Interestingly, participants perceived this to have impeded on their engage-ment in exercising and social interaction, both of which are important for older people’s health and active ageing.

Second, older people’s demands for mobility are still high, and con-sequently there exist unmet needs in the second highest domain of transportation in Tai Po. Although the quantitative analysis indicates that community dwellers are generally satisfied with the transportation domain, more in-depth analysis from focus groups reflects that many households cannot afford long-distance, cross-district commutes. The transport network could be strengthened in terms of better coverage and volume of service within the district, particularly in more remote parts of Tai Po. The high demands for mobility in Tai Po may have resulted from older people’s high level of commitment to various interpersonal social networks (Cornwell, Laumann, & Schumm, 2008). Understanding this need for mobility and addressing it through improvement in transporta-tion would have significant implications on supporting older people to keep up an active lifestyle after retirement, resulting in better health and psychological well-being.

Third, civic participation and employment, and community support and health services, were two domains perceived to be least optimal in terms of age-friendliness in Tai Po. Findings revealed that lack of optimal participa-tion in civic and paid work had negative impact on older people in terms of financial insecurity, lack of purpose, and social exclusion. Conversely, opti-mal participation would lead to a sense of empowerment and well-being, proving to be key to active ageing. On health and community services, older


people expressed a wish for wider choices on a spectrum between afford-ability and quality, or even availability.

Two more significant observations emerged from this study. First, the elderly mostly played a passive role in their community life across all eight domains and seldom took action on a community level to improve their quality of life. They would appreciate and value age-friendly features that were already in place, but felt they could not effect changes in areas that were insufficiently age-friendly.

One explanation for their perceived incapability to improve quality of life is that older people’s competence to master and cope with their environ-ment is on the decline as they age. Interventions such as frailty prevention might be helpful in such cases. Another explanation is that, lacking a com-mon platform to channel the voices of older people, older people tend to express their opinions to the staff at elderly centres or local district council-lors as a last resort. Yet, their opinions are often not taken seriously and the responses received mediocre. Similar to Taiwan (Chao & Huang, 2016), there is now a growing recognition that older people are becoming more and more proactive members of the community. Therefore, a great need also arises for capacity building interventions that would shift the mindset of the society so that the elderly would be supported to exercise their rights, speak up, and take on a more active role in community life. A platform like the AARP3 could be built to strengthen the voices and network of the upcoming cohort of better educated older people.4

Second, this study revealed that provision of social services is largely dependent on NGOs, which serve an increasingly small proportion of older people in Hong Kong. However, there is often a gap between the community dwellers, service providers, and policy makers in terms of what is considered needed and appreciated. Also, the traditional top-down oriented planning or the agency-based service delivery mode may not best address their needs. The communication between them may not be effective due to the asym-metric power relations. This is not helped by the fact that older people are inclined to express tolerance towards their community life as they age and report inflating satisfaction (La Gory, Ward, & Sherman, 1985). As such, it is important to maximize ways to collect their real experience in urban living and present their visions to service providers and policy makers for creating an urban place that is conducive to older people’s physical health, positive social functioning, and psychological well-being from their user perspective.

Methodologically, our study proposed and adopted a mixed methods research approach to the place audit—combining a standardized question-naire to examine magnitudes and dynamics of perceived age-friendliness and their determinants at district level with an interpretation of older peo-ple’s perceptions and lived experience through in-depth and interactive focus group interviews. Community members with different demographic back-ground have varying views towards the age-friendliness of the environment.


For example, the quantitative findings suggested that housing type is one of the influential factors contributing to the difference in perceived age-friendliness, in which respondents living in public housing rated seven out of the eight domains higher than those living in subsidized housing or pri-vate housing. Similar observations emerged in the focus group interviews. These convergent findings hinted that the physical and social environment of public housing may be more age-friendly. This is consistent with findings in previous local studies, where residents living in public housing reported better relationship with neighbours (La Grange, 2010) and more supportive facilities for daily living (Forrest, La Grange, & Ngai-Ming, 2002). Evi-dence of these within-district differences in age-friendliness highlights the need for a context-sensitive, bottom-up approach to capture the underlying real needs of residents and their satisfaction with the environment.

Our place audit not only made use of the global AFC framework devel-oped by WHO, but it also enabled community members to become key informants in the assessment. Community members have abundant local knowledge and can contribute significantly to the good of their community. This is evidenced from our focus group: participants were very articulate about positive and negative aspects of their environment, reporting specific needs and suggestions for improvement from their personal, user perspec-tive. This indicated that older people already possessed a wealth of ideas that could be developed into real solutions if their voices were heard.

Finally, our study has a number of policy implications. Future urban plan-ning and design for an age-friendly city shall pay particular attention to the physical environment, which includes the natural as well as built settings, as well as the social environment that together create a space which is con-ducive to social interaction, inclusion, and empowerment of older members in the community. Policy making and the research conducted in support of it should be sensitive to local contexts, local knowledge, and more impor-tantly, the particular community perceptions of age-friendliness. The find-ings from a context sensitive place audit will provide an important reference for creating an ‘absolute space’ (Lefebvre, 1991)—a place to meet people’s sentimental and social needs, as well as needs for personal growth and self-actualization. This will promote solidarity and collective learning among older members of the community, thereby nurturing their capabilities for personal growth and mastery of environment. In addition, future policy designs need to pay attention to people-making (Ng, 2016a, 2016b) for nurturing older people’s own capacity to live a health and meaningful life. As such, urban spaces should not only satisfy older people’s needs but also be congenial to their active functioning and never-ending zest.

Acknowledgment

The project was funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. Yi Sun likewise thanks the supports from the Vice Chancellor’s One-Off


Discretionary Fund [reference number: VCF2015003] and Taiwan Collabo-ration Fund (2016–17) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Notes1 Old age dependency ratio refers to the ratio of the non-working population who

are 65 years old and above being supported by the working population aged 15 to 64 years old.

2 From Planning Department, HKSAR. www.pland.gov.hk/pland_en/press/publica tion/nt_pamphlet02/tp_html/concept.html

3 Previously named the American Association of Retired Persons, AARP now accepts everyone aged 50 and above to be members, whether or not they are retirees.

4 In Hong Kong, the Network of Ageing Well for All (NAWA) has been estab-lished to foster older people in building an age-friendly Hong Kong, by the CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing (see www.ioa.cuhk.edu.hk/en-gb/nawa).

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Hui Hui Lim et al.Ageing and Mobility

6 Ageing and MobilityTowards Age-Friendly Public Transport in Taiwan

Hui Hui Lim, Oliver F. Shyr, and Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao

Introduction—Mobility as the Key for Independent Living

The global population is getting older, as it is most Asian countries such as Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and China. The number of people in the age group 65 years and older is growing rapidly, and in Taiwan, it is projected to increase from 10% in 2006 to more than 20% in 2026. Mobility independ-ence is an important element for the well-being of the elderly, and it is also this independence that contributes most of all to quality of life. Good mobil-ity and decent transport alternatives are important in regard to enabling the elderly to participate in social interaction and daily activities (Kim, 2011). The checklist of the transport domain of the WHO Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFCC) framework highlights accessibility and affordability as the most prominent factors for older adults’ transport mode. In addition, it is believed that a proper transport system for facilitating functional mobil-ity in an ageing society involves two components: quality public transport service and facilitation of private vehicle usage (WHO, 2007, 2015). To keep older people as independent and active as possible, many studies have indicated that mobility options are necessary due to possible changes in income, family dynamics, and health conditions that might be encountered in the ageing process (Mercado, Páez, & Newbold, 2010); Banister & Bowl-ing, 2004). Musselwhite et al. further indicate there is a need to explore the relationship between older people’s transport and health, since mobility in later life is more than a means of getting to a destination and involves sentimental associations for older people (2015). In this chapter, we will discuss the issues of older people’s mobility and the relationship between their travel behaviour and transport planning.

Transport Planning and Older People’s Active Travel Mode

Transport planning has been one of the key pillars of the urban planning system, as it plays the fundamental role of responding to the current and future travel needs of all urban dwellers and logistic demands. In general, the contexts of transport planning are commonly involved with evaluating demands from different stakeholders, assessing and designing of networks, and siting and managing of transport facilities. With the urbanization trend

90 Ageing and Mobility

and the increasing awareness of sustainability from the last century, the focus of transport planning has been shifting from mostly technical analy-sis to proposing integral transport policies in a sustainable manner (South-ern, 2006; UN-HABITAT, 2013). Hence, approaches such as Transit-Orient Development (TOD) and Compact Cities are considered as the reflection of car-oriented transport in past decades. Once the focus turns to more human-oriented planning, the emphasis on good public transport systems and user-friendly settings will have gained more attention accordingly. As Figure 6.1 illustrates, transport planning coordinates with land use planning closely and constructs activities thereof. In an ageing society, thus, sustain-able transport planning and land use patterns can support a friendly envi-ronment for older adults to sustain their active living.

Another importance task for transport planning policy is to ensure the effectiveness of different transport approaches with a limited budget. In the past several decades, the majority of transport budgets have been largely allocated for road construction. The problem of insufficient budgeting or funding is further exacerbated when limited funding for transport is allo-cated to ineffective, improperly located, poorly designed, and/or extrava-gant projects that are not required by road users. For example, Delucchi and Murphy (2005) highlighted public costs associated with motor vehicle infrastructure and services at different administrative levels. They found that the total government spending annually was over $118 billion on highways alone, over $88 billion on police enforcement related to automobiles, nearly

Figure 6.1 Transport Planning and Land Use Planning in Place-Making

Ageing and Mobility 91

$40 billion on legal and judicial actions, over $63 billion on corrections facil-ities, and $27 billion on firefighting. This represents approximately $340 bil-lion dollars spending annually on constructing, maintaining, servicing, and supporting an automobile-based transport system. Moreover, Garceau et al. (2013) helped inform the public debate regarding the role of automotive travel within the transport system and uncovered that one of the most visible government activities is the provision for transport infrastructure and ser-vice. Thus, they point out that governments have a responsibility to manage budgets in an appropriate and efficient manner in order to avoid misleading the transport system that prioritized the automobile over other modes.

From age-friendly transport service perspective, transport planning is responsible for addressing the existing physical barriers for older people and for improving a range of transport services and mobility options. Although it is a consensus that providing various transport options is vital for maintaining the active lifestyle of older people worldwide, there are still great divides between countries due to different transport policies, public transport planning, and land use systems. For instance, although it is widely acknowledged that public transport is important for older people with degrading cognitive and bodily functions, many remote cities and communities in American and European countries are still unable to provide such services for cost-effective considera-tions. According to Rosenbloom and Herbel, near 40% of older adults in the United States lack access to public transportation, and the most promising approach will focus on keeping older adults driving (2009). To support active living, therefore, age-friendly transport strategies in such communities would include good road maintenance, safer driving instruction, sufficient parking for most private vehicle drivers, and carpooling projects as alternative transport options (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2011). To the contrary, most Asian cities might be able to provide multiple transport choices for older people, but they usually would prefer the cheapest but most dangerous one, such as the scooter. In the case of Taiwan, a survey by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) indicated that only 13% of people in Taiwan choose the public transport system, while as many as 72% still opt for using their own vehicles and scooters, including the elderly (2016a). As in many other Asian cities, as a result, an increasing number of deaths in road accidents often involve older scooter riders. Hence, transport issues for older people in Asia should expand to the road network system and public transport planning. In addition, May, Garrett, and Ballantyne (2010) investigated the meaning of mobility for older people in South Australia and found that the research sup-ported the notion that scooters can assist older people with mobility difficulties in order to maintain control and autonomy over their lives. However, the study also found several structural and environmental barriers to safe scooter usage, such as restricted access to buildings, footpaths, and community places.

From the transport planning policy aspect, transport planners aim to shape an area’s economic health and quality of life at the macro level. A successful transport system can provide mobility of people and goods; it can also influ-ence patterns of development and economic activities by providing better


access to available lands. The context of transport planning usually includes transport demand analysis, street network/pattern design, and travel behav-iour analysis (Edwards, 1999). The emerging transport demands of increas-ingly older populations have strong influence on the advocacy of user-friendly design. Many friendly design tools and guides have been widely adopted to ensure fair accessibility to public transport services and barrier-free streets for all disadvantaged users accordingly. In Taiwan, over the past decade, cit-ies and counties have faced limitations in regard to land use resources and construction budgets to improve overall connectivity. Hence, although the promotion of age-friendly cities in Taiwan since 2011 has highly empha-sized the urgent need for age-friendly public transport, the provision of the integral public transport system has still been a difficult task for transport planning in some medium-sized cities. In such case, age-friendly transport policies should aim for a safer riding and driving environment and feedback to allocate transport routes and services at proper locations integrating with frequent land uses according to older people’s daily life.

Also, Andrews et al. proposed that the influence of space and place-making might be insightful and possessing somatic energy that could change people’s behaviour (2013). Hence, the actual influence on travel modes by the transport planning may differ from place to place. Studies have also indi-cated that some older adults might change their travel behaviours during the ageing process due to changes in status, including working and marital sta-tus. However, current public transport services are designed based on serving the majority of the commuting population and route arrangements are not for making other kinds of trips (Rosenbloom & Stähl, 2003), For instance, according to Rosenbloom, a significant amount of older people in the United States are even less likely to use public transport when they retire than when they are in the labour force (2009). For those all-time car-drivers, it is even less possible for them to use public transit when they reach retirement age, and according to the US Bureau of Transport Statistics (USBTS), of drivers or non-drivers, less than 8% of all trips are made using public transit among all older Americans (2004). There are also recent studies identifying the neg-ative impact of driving cessation on the well-being of the elderly, which can be avoided if transport needs are met through other modes of travel (Cvit-kovich & Wister, 2003; Lehning, 2012). Similarly, a survey done by Bell, Currie, Stanley, and Fletcher (2006) suggested that when offered improved bus services, older people will use them to facilitate their active living. It is therefore important for planners to recognize that age-friendly transport is a local issue, and a grassroots investigation of factors that affect older adults’ travel behaviours and patterns is necessary in the planning process to make sure the services provided meet needed travel characteristics.

Age-Friendly Transport Indicators

The transport domain is one of the eight domains of the Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFCC) and has been considered as the key to keep older


people mobile and active (WHO, 2007, 2015). The contexts of the AFCC transport domain in the original WHO guide actually contain a broader scope acknowledging the various needs of older people in the world. The main concept includes transport services for public and private travel modes, information, as well as inclusive design (2007). Hence, age-friendly strategies and action plans in every participating city and community have included transport plans. In the AFCC core indicators proposed by the WHO in 2015, out of 16 core indicators, there are two transport indictors highlighted, namely, accessibility of public transport stops and accessibility of public transport vehicles (WHO, 2015). Apparently, it is a consensus that despite various environments and situations in different cities, the public transport system is considered as the most relevant component from com-posing the active ageing aspect.

Barrier-Free Public Transport

One of the most concerning issues is to ensure the safety of older individu-als and others on the road for older drivers. Many countries have set an upper age limit for having a driving licence as a precautionary regulation for a safer transport policy. To this end, public transport will play an even more important role in the future of transport planning. Hence, a more reliable public transport system on a daily basis is crucial for older adults to continue leading their dynamic and independent lives when they are no longer able to drive safely or ride a vehicle and/or when physical disabilities interfere with walking. Accordingly, it is vital to know the indicator factors related to satisfaction with public transit from the perspective of the elderly. Hence, in order to head towards a more cost-effective public transport sys-tem that can be age-friendly at the same time, further research should focus on obtaining information regarding the characteristics of a public transport system that the elderly are mostly concerned about and satisfied with. Also, at the local level, knowledge of the socioeconomic factors related to these characteristics and to what extent these factors correlate with the elderly’s expectation of public transit is much needed. Research findings may provide several avenues for public transport system improvements and highlight effective strategies intended to meet older adults’ needs. However, there is still limited research exploring the relationships between socioeconomic fac-tors and public transport characteristics of older adults.

Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between the travel behaviours of older people and the environmental design factors of public transportation. For instance, a study conducted by Chen, Hsu, Lu, and Kao (2009) indicated that there are various public transit conditions that might discourage older adults from using public transit, including unreliable ser-vice, poor maintenance of the bus stops or stations, problems getting on and off transport, risk of falling, unsympathetic service providers, occasional confrontations with other passengers, unfriendly vehicle designs, and the uncertainty of traffic information network systems. Furthermore, Friman,


Edvardsson, and Gärling (2001) conducted a study on the factors affecting public transport users’ satisfaction with offered services and identified that the important service-related attributes are treatment by staff, reliability of service, straightforwardness of information, and vehicle design.

In addition, an empirical study on transport use in the United States by Beverly Foundation (2004) stated that there are five key age-friendly trans-port attributes as determined by older populations: availability, accessibility, acceptability, affordability, and adaptability. These key attributes deal with transport frequency, ease of access, cleanliness and safety in transit or bus stops and transit stations, reasonable fees, and barrier-free environments. Moreover, Gao and Ji (2010) analyzed the accessibility of public transit in Beijing using variables such as public transit services (for instance, the num-ber of bus stations), location features (connectivity of bus stops, proxim-ity to the nearest station, population density) and road construction. Their research suggested that the number of bus stations is a significant factor affecting passenger satisfaction. Beirão and Sarsfield Cabral (2007) studied the main influences affecting people’s choice of travel mode and travel time, reliability, comfort, information provision, and directness of bus route are identified as the most important factors in the transport mode decision-making process.

However, there are some factors that lead older people to use private vehi-cles rather than public transit. Lack of easy access to public transport facili-ties is one of the barriers that extends the issues from providing reliable and friendly transport to the integral barrier-free improvements of the surround-ing environments (Rosenbloom, 2009; WHO, 2007). In cases from Taiwan, according to the recent satisfaction survey results of over 22,000 older adults by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taiwan (2016), older people are generally unsatisfied with poor walking environments due to the lack of side-walks or a system of sidewalk networks connected to public transit facilities, obstructed sidewalks, broken or uneven pavement, and unfriendly pedes-trian environments that lead to disorderly scooters or on-street car parking, all of which increase the dangers for older adults’ accessibility to use public transport resulting from chaotic environments (Figure 6.2). Furthermore, some road design details including proper shelters and/or seats at bus stops (Figure 6.3) are also encouraging characteristics for most elderly bus users.

Socioeconomic Factors and Public Transport in an Ageing Society

In terms of studies investigating the socioeconomic factors of older adults and their public transport deficiencies, several findings can provide valuable information to planners. From an ageing-in-place perspective, Kim suggests that the provisions of public transport should be based on the socioeco-nomic contexts of older residents in the community, which may vary from one to another. Income levels, time period of residency, and gender are three important factors for older people’s transport mode choice (2011).


Figure 6.2 Insufficient Parking and Scooters Blocking the Pedestrian Sidewalk, Both of Which Increase the Dangers for Elderly Passengers Resulting From Chaotic Traffic Environments.

Source: Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao

According to the national travel survey in Taiwan, older females would pre-fer to use public transport than older males by 5% and heading to a more active lifestyle. On the other hand, in the remote communities without a public transport system, older females will have a higher likelihood of being

Figure 6.3 Cars Parked in Front of the Bus Stop (in Circle) and Many Bus Stops Still Without Shelters or Seats in Taiwan.

Source: Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao


isolated (MOTC, 2016a). Paulley et al. (2006) examined a wide range of factors affecting the demand for public transport and found a focus on the influence of fares, quality of service and income, and car ownership. Having said that, Balcombe et al. (2004) indicated that, in practice, the factors can-not be treated either in isolation from each other or in isolation from many other direct and indirect influences on public transport demand and supply.

Case Study: Older Adults’ Mobility and Main Factors for Age-Friendly Transport Planning in Taiwan

Taiwan is a country with approximately 23 million people and a high pri-vate transport dependency, comprising 7.8 million cars and more than 13 million scooters at the end of 2016 (MOTC, 2016b). In other words, this high private automobile ownership implies that the majority of Taiwan-ese commute by car or by scooter, with a 33.9% car ownership rate and a 56.5% scooter ownership by the end of 2016 (MOTC, 2016b). The latest annual national travel survey done by the Ministry of Transport and Com-munications in Taiwan indicated that the main reason people choose private vehicles as their transport mode is for both convenience and higher mobility (MOTC, 2016a). The MOTC survey also found that other factors causing people to favour riding scooters or driving their own cars includes the exist-ence of long distances from bus stops or train stations.

Differing from most Western countries, Taiwan is experiencing a boom in the sales and use of scooters due to the ease of mobility they provide. The number of scooters registered has increased by 24.4% from 2001 to 2010 (Ministry of Interior, 2013), indicating the strongest growth of any vehicle type in Taiwan. As for older people’s travel mode in Taiwan, according to the survey done by MOTC, their major transport mode is walking, followed by riding a scooter and taking the bus (MOTC, 2016a). As an inevitable result, scooter riders and passengers accounted for approximately 31.5% of all road crash deaths in 2001 and constituted an even higher proportion in 2010 (45.4%), as shown in Table 6.1 (MOI, 2013). Within the period of 2008 to 2010, Taiwan scooter riders and passengers aged 55–70 and above consistently comprised approximately 40% of motorcyclist fatalities (38.98%, 38.58%, and 37.66%); plainly speaking, the older motorcyclist remains the largest group of casualties caused by traffic accidents. Age-friendly transport strategies will have to respond to improve older scooter riders’ safety or seek approaches to change their travel behaviours. In addi-tion, with respect to the enhancement of the growth of public transport patronage among the elderly in order to facilitate an active and age-friendly mobility environment, transport planners need to better understand the characteristics of public transport that the elderly need, and the relation-ships between these characteristics with socioeconomic status and policies. It is a worthwhile pursuit to identify potential barriers that older people encounter in using public transit in cities or rural areas; and, particularly


in Taiwan, there is a great divide with regard to the provision of public transit service between cities and rural areas. The low patronage of public transit in the south of Taiwan simply reveals the fact of lower urban density and higher scooter ownership in these cities and counties. Consequently, the operators of public transit can only maintain the minimum services for car-less people. Currently, a new transit scheme called Demand Responsive Transit Services (DRTS) has been launched. These new services are provided on the reservation basis in the form of shared taxi with the public transit fare. And passengers will have to book for services in advance by phone call or internet reservation. These new services are often more cost-effective and reliable for the elderly. As a result, the mobility of ageing people can be much improved by DRTS.

Furthermore, there is a consistency with urban and rural older dwellers’ scooter ridership. It is believed that Taiwanese elderly could better maintain their independent daily life through mobility with private scooters. How-ever, as for participating in increasing recreational activities for the pur-pose of active ageing, older people would expect the government to provide better accessibility. Chen (2010) examined the travel characteristics and factors affecting the willingness of Taiwanese older people to use a demand-responsive service (DRS) bus, and found that most elderly Taiwanese are willing to participate in such outdoor activities as doing outdoor exercise, chatting with neighbours, shopping, gardening, or obtaining needed medi-cation, among other activities if the public transport service is reliable and safe. These findings imply that elderly Taiwanese are interested in partici-pating in activities local to their neighbourhoods. It is apparent that riding scooters provides older people a convenient and affordable mode of travel, especially for short-distance travel. Hence, although it might not be easy to change the travel behaviour of the older population in the short term, there

Table 6.1 Fatal Traffic Accident

Year Semi-truck

Small Truck

Bus Passenger Motor Vehicle

Specially Constructed Vehicle

Scooter Others Total

2001 388 330 74 1,064 8 990 257 3,1422002 341 282 74 864 3 907 254 2,7252003 264 282 50 822 9 871 274 2,5722004 298 250 60 780 7 807 300 2,5022005 303 305 49 893 3 944 270 2,7672006 298 295 43 889 4 1,213 257 2,9992007 230 276 48 682 5 1,019 203 2,4632008 199 211 40 594 3 949 154 2,1502009 164 219 37 543 4 882 167 2,0162010 209 191 26 514 6 896 131 1,973

Sources: National Police Agency, Ministry of Interior (MOI), Taiwan, 2013


is still a great potential and demand for public transport for the future age-ing society in Taiwan. To conclude, although the MOTC has established a national travel database with abundant and complete data updated annu-ally and with many studies on overall satisfaction with travel by mass transit or the travel characteristics of using public transit, there is limited research into the relationship between socioeconomic factors and public transport characteristics at the national level.

As a result, we, the National Cheng Kung University Age-Friendly Cities research team, further conducted a nationwide survey aimed to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic factors and transport characteris-tics, including the public transit system, quality of service, and transport environment and design.

The Telephone Survey for Investigating Older People’s Expectations of Better Mobility

A telephone survey soliciting experiences, behaviour, and perceptions asso-ciated with the use of public transit among people aged 55 and above in 22 cities and counties in Taiwan was developed and conducted by the Sur-vey and Statistics Centre, Department of Statistics, National Cheng Kung University. The survey was preceded by a focus group study that identi-fied issues faced by older road users. Later, these issues and concepts were rephrased and regrouped. Satisfaction dimensions, such as the reliability of transit services (i.e., frequency), ease of access, and the safety and con-nectivity of public transit, were identified. These issues were then used to develop a telephone survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was piloted with five older passengers living in urban and rural areas, respectively, with their reactions and advice guiding modifications and improvements in the clarity of the questions.

Data Collection

A total of 1,600 elderly residents (aged 55+) were drawn from a database of the Age-Friendly City Project in Taiwan for 22 cities and counties in Taiwan based on telephone code. The telephone survey was administered in August of 2010, lasted for one month, and was supervised by the researchers. The selected households were contacted by phone and screened in order to ensure that all respondents could understand the questions and were able to provide responses. In addition, more questions were asked in order to assess the respondent’s ability to drive/ride or be driven, experience with using public transit over the past year, and so on. After deleting numbers that were businesses, had no response, or were disconnected, 1,600 telephone calls were made, from which 869 valid telephone surveys were adminis-tered and completed. The response rate was 54.3%, which was expected since older people have typically been found to be less willing to participate


in survey research as compared to younger persons (Tantiwong & Wilton, 1985). In addition, all of the respondents are classified into four groups by age: 55–64, 65–74, 75–84, and 85+.

Factor Analysis

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy was 0.811 and the Bartlett’s test of Sphericity was significant (p < 0.0001), both of which indicate that the data were appropriate for factor analysis. Principle Components Analysis extracted three components with eigenvalues > 0.5 (2.77; 0.8; 0.73), explaining 72% of the total variance. A varimax rotation was applied to more clearly delineate the factor structure. Table 6.2 shows the three factors and the six items with high loadings (> 0.375) on each factor. A label for each factor was inferred from the content of the items loading on the factor.

The first factor is labelled ‘Transit Service Quality’, since the two items (‘General characteristics of public transit services’ and ‘General information provision’) indicate a belief that services are important to achieve desired public transit choices, that a good quality of service will enhance satisfac-tion in public transit use, and that older people are willing to use public transit.

The second factor is labelled ‘Public Transit System’, since the two items with the strongest loadings both relate to the ‘public transit facilities’ and ‘transit network’ in support of the public transport system. The third factor is composed of only two items and is labelled ‘Transit Design and Envi-ronment’. These items assess whether older people are satisfied with the ‘Accessibility design to disabled, older people and mobility impaired people’ and ‘Traffic environment’ after experiencing public transit service. Table 6.2 illustrates the results of this varimax process. The three levels of satisfaction with the public transit system attributes that were identified by varimax as reliable and consistent are listed.

Regression Model Development and the Box-Cox Transformation

One of the most common non-linear models, including log-linear and Box-Cox transformation function forms, were subsequently carried out with ‘Transit Service Quality’ (Y1), ‘Public Transit System’ (Y2), and ‘Transit Design and Environment’ (Y3) as the dependent variables. In order to prevent our data from conforming to assumptions of normality and/or homosce-dasticity/homogeneity of variance, a Box-Cox transformation (Box & Cox, 1964) was applied to help determine the optimal normalizing data or equal-izing variance. A total of six variables compiled from the 2010 Taiwan Bureau of Statistics, namely ‘Car-Ownership’, ‘Scooter-Ownership’, ‘Elderly Dependent People’, ‘Public Transit Use’, ‘Regional Government Transport Budgets’, and ‘Number of Stations’ (including intermodal stations, railway, and bus), were entered into the preliminary models as independent variables


Table 6.2 Results of Factor Analysis With Varimax Rotation on the Older Respond-ents’ Perceived Satisfactions With Public Transport System (n = 869)

Dimension and label Factor loadings

communa-lities

1 2 3

Factor 1. Transit Service Quality General characteristics of public

transit services.884 .796

General information provision .710 .623Factor 2. Public Transit System Public transit facilities .937 .896 Transit network .555 .591Factor 3. Transit Design and

Environment Accessibility design to disabled,

older people and mobility impaired people

.941 .917

Traffic environment .389 .472Eigenvalues 2.765 .806 .725Explained variance (%) 46.08 13.43 12.08Cumulative explained variance (%) 46.08 59.51 71.59

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy: .811

Bartlett’s test of spherity: 1082.142; Significance: .000

to examine whether all of these variables are related to the satisfaction of public transit performance.

Survey Findings

A total of 22 cities and counties in Taiwan were selected as samples (refer to Figure 6.3). Table 6.3 shows a list of conceptual variables and their opera-tionalization as used for multiple regression analysis.

The log-linear form is the regression model for these three dependent vari-ables with a good fit model. Furthermore, the R-square is the proportion of variation in the dependent variables (satisfaction with ‘Transit Service Qual-ity’, ‘Public Transit System’, and ‘Transit Design and Environment’) that is explained by the independent variables, as discussed below, and is expressed as a percentage. Therefore, 51.6%, 15.6%, and 40.1% of the variation in these three respective types of satisfaction with the public transport can be explained by all of the independent variables in the Log-linear model. On the other hand, although the results of the Box-Cox transformation model and Log-linear model are quite similar, the t-ratio of the Box-Cox model is relatively higher than that exhibited in the latter (Table 6.4). The function form of a Box-Cox transformation is shown below:

Y 2 X 1 1X1 1 2X2 X , ~ , Iλ λ β ε β λ β βρ ρ ε ε( ) ( ) ( )= + = + + + +...... N 0 2σ


Table 6.3 List of Conceptual Variables and Their Operationalization

Variables Variables Description Expected Relationship

Car ownership Car unit per person −Scooter ownership Scooter unit per person −Local government

budgetBudget of expenditure for transport

per persons by each regions+

Transit stations Total of railway and bus stations (include intermodal stations)

+

Dependency population ratio

aged 65 and below 15 years population/total population

+

Public transit use Percentage of the public transit utility rate

+

Sources: The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) of Executive Yuan, 2010

With regard to satisfaction with ‘Transit Service Quality’ (Y1), Table 6.4 shows that the Box-Cox model variant produces forecasted values that are strongly significant as compared to those of the Log-linear model variant. In interpreting the results, independent variables including ‘Scooter Own-ership’, ‘Public Transit Use’, and ‘Elderly Dependent People’ exhibited a negative and significant relationship with public transit service quality, such as schedule reliability and accuracy in information provision. However, ‘Regional Government Transport Budgets’ and the ‘Number of Stations’ were not a significant predictor of ‘Transit Service Quality’.

With regard to the satisfaction with ‘Public Transit System’ (Y2), Table 6.4 shows that the Box-Cox model variant of Y2 produced forecasted values that differ significantly from those of the Log-linear model variant of Y2, and a comparison of the forecasted values shows that all of the Box-Cox model variables are significantly related to public transport facilities and network in support of the public transport system. Thus, some independ-ent variables, including ‘Numbers of Stations’, ‘Public Transit Use’, ‘Car-Ownership’, and ‘Scooter Ownership’ were highly correlated with that main factor and also negatively and significantly related to transport facilities and network services.

Among the factors related to satisfaction with ‘Transit Design and Envi-ronment’ (Y3), unsurprisingly, the independent variables such as ‘Public Transit Use’ and ‘Elderly Dependent People’ were negatively and statisti-cally significantly related to the design of facilities and environment after older riders experienced public transport services, particularly in the case of the so-called captive public transport users.1 Based on the results shown in Table 6.4, it appears that some influential factors affect elderly travellers’ perceived satisfaction with public transport quality of service and perfor-mance. The test of the residuals for white noise was verified using E-view statistics.

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Discussion and Conclusions

In this chapter, we have explored emerging issues of implementing an age-friendly transport system from the planning perspective. We echo the impor-tance of accessible public transport in keeping older adults active and mobile in daily life in accordance with the WHO (WHO, 2015). Despite the fea-sibility of implementing seamless public transport systems among cities in reality, it is undeniable that the public transport system is still the best trans-port mode for ageing groups due to the inevitable frailty of bodily functions in the ageing process. In addition, there is a great divide in the provisions of a public transport system between urban areas and rural areas. Therefore, although ageing-in-place is widely advocated, according to the latest study in the UK, older adults in rural communities with lower social status are more likely to relocate to communities with better accessibility to services or public transportations (Wu, Prina, Barnes, Matthews, & Brayne, 2015). This will be a concerning task in future aged societies worldwide, and trans-port planning should take older people’s travel needs into account, as they will be the main riders from now on. From transport construction projects as an expensive public investment aspect, we would also like to restate the strong association between older adults’ characteristics and their transport mode choice that could provide policy makers and planners an important message when allocating better cost-effective transport investments. To this end, further exploration of correlated socioeconomic factors of older adults with the satisfaction level towards public transport necessary in order to propose effective policies to encourage public transport ridership.

Based on the case study of a national survey in Taiwan, we found ‘scooter ownership’ to have a significantly negative impact on the three dimensions of satisfaction with public transport performance, namely ‘Transit Ser-vice Quality’ (Y1), ‘Public Transit System’ (Y2), and ‘Transit Design and Environment’ (Y3), respectively. For instance, a level of scooter ownership implies that some elderly would lack of confidence towards the reliability and availability of the bus (e.g., waiting time) (Chen, 2010; WHO, 2002) and aspire to have elderly-friendly transport facilities, environments, and designs. Consider that scooters are not a safe transport mode for the elderly and that evidence has also proven that the older motorcyclist remains the largest portion of the number of casualties caused by scooter accidents. In order to encourage people to use public transport instead of motorcycling, there are several important aspects of elderly-friendly facilities and design that have been implemented in Taiwan. One instance is the provisions for bus preferential treatment, such as exclusive lanes in congested areas in order to enhance bus operating efficiency and service reliability. Addition-ally, a number of projects for enhancing Taiwan’s transport infrastructure, such as ‘i-Taiwan 12 projects’, were launched in 2008 that focus on mod-ernizing the nation’s transport infrastructure. These include the construc-tion and integration of the nation’s metro, rail, and freeway systems and the


expansion of public transit networks nationwide in order to improve and upgrade the environment of public transport (MOTC, 2012).

‘Public Transit Use’ showed a significant negative correlation between the satisfaction of ‘Transit Service Quality’ (Y1), ‘Public Transit System’ (Y2), and ‘Transit Design and Environment’ (Y3). In other words, this suggests that the elderly who seldom use the public transport system are unfamiliar with its performance. Hence, while rating the items, they tended to give a relatively lower rate, according their impression, not from real experi-ence, than those who are familiar with the transport system. Therefore, in order to enhance the usage of public transit, the government endeavours to apply transit-oriented development (TOD) by implementing the integration of pedestrian accessibility, schedules, and transfer terminals and providing more exclusive lanes for buses and so on. Pedestrian accessibility plays a fundamental role in TOD, and so greater pedestrian access and mobility would also enhance the effectiveness of public transit, reduce fossil fuel con-sumption, and promote social justice on the roads (Badami, 2009). It can also minimize and curb the inefficient use of motor vehicles, which in turn reduces air pollutant emissions and greenhouse gases from the transport sector.

With regard to the effect of the variables for ‘Regional Government Budg-ets’ for transport expenditures on the respondents’ satisfaction with the dimension of ‘Public Transit System’ (Y2) between urban and rural areas, there is little doubt that reductions in government budgets have had a nega-tive impact on the capacity of some public transport systems. For example, in some remote area bus systems, fewer buses are used, and so fewer routes or shorter routes (limited intercity road coverage) often result, which has led the ridership in these areas to decline. Consequently, there are less and unde-pendable public transport services provided to the inhabitants of remote areas due to low ridership or service termination (Yuan, 2010). These reduc-tions in services can have an economic impact on the municipality as well as on the residents who depend on public transport. This finding is similar with previous findings that have suggested that government budgets or subsidies for public transport systems have a significant impact on public transport performance (Chiang, Russell, & Urban, 2011; Rye & Scotney, 2004; Tay-lor, Miller, Iseki, & Fink, 2009).

In addition to previous studies of ageing and mobility, in this chapter we focused on prioritizing the public transport mode and investigated the pos-sible obstacles from the transport planning perspective. We attempted to address each of the shortcomings found in previous research on this topic by investigating the characteristics of elderly concerns and satisfaction with all public transport within different dimensions of satisfaction. For instance, several researchers have argued that older people experience problems with obtaining information at terminals or stops (Larkins, Worrall, & Hickson, 2004; WHO, 2007; Worrall, Broome, McKenna, & Boldy, 2010). Never-theless, our case study found that those who frequently use public transport


systems are able to access the information by themselves. For those elderly who do not use public transport services frequently will never pay attention to any improvements of any kind. Hence, this finding has extended previous research on the topic of older people feeling that information at terminals or stops is inaccessible.

Contrary to previous research stressing car ownership as the most sig-nificant factor that affects the use of public transport (Holmgren, 2007; Paulley et al., 2006), through this study’s findings, we found that ‘scooter-ownership’ was the most significant predictor of the effects of socioeco-nomic factors on public transport use, which is a direct cause of the different travel characteristics of different countries. For instance, in most Western nations, older adults tend to be car-dependent for maintaining their daily mobility, but evidence shows that in most Asian countries, older cohorts tend to ride scooters or bicycles as their daily transport mode. Further more, the scope of most Taiwanese research has included relatively small samples or specific regions in Taiwan; whereas in this study, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis of transport use in 22 cities and counties and provided a comprehensive analysis and appropriate suggestions to transport policy makers or urban planners in each city.

Note1 Captive public transport user can be defined as a road user of the society for

whom the mode choice is limited.

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Tzu-Yuan Stessa ChaoAgeing- and Walking-Friendly Communities

7 Ageing- and Walking-Friendly Communities

Introduction: Walking Is Living

How to maintain an active status for as long as possible during the process of ageing is a concerning issue. It is stated that our health is a function of where we live, based on an international survey result with more than 6,800 respondents worldwide (Goenka and Andersen, 2016; Sallis et al., 2016). It was confirmed in the survey that if the built environment is supportive of physical activity, residents will have significantly higher physical activity (PA) levels and a healthier lifestyle. Accordingly, the physical environment in a neighbourhood may predispose and enable healthy behaviours (Van Cauwenberg, Van Holle, De Bourdeaudhuij, Van Dyck, & Deforche, 2016). Much research has also provided evidence that regardless of socioeconomic class and culture, regular physical activities such as walking and cycling are very effective in preventing non-communicable disease (Hallal, Ander-son, Guthold, Haskell, & Ekelund, 2012; Sen, Chattopadhyaya, Chandola, Jamwal, & Seth, 2009). Hence, actions to ensure a more inclusively built environment for physical activities have recently been advocated. Among all types of physical activities, walking is considered more preferable for all age groups, and especially for older adults. Research has further stated that walking is an important outdoor PA for elders in maintaining their physical health (Saelens et al., 2003). In addition to the physical health advantages, there is also evidence of other possible benefits from walking in terms of mental health, social capital, and sense of well-being (Cerin, Sit, Barnett, Cheung, & Chan, 2013; T. Hanibuchi et al., 2012). For older people resid-ing in a more compact urban area, it has been confirmed that a walkable environment can stimulate older adults’ willingness to walk for recreation (Cerin et al., 2014). Several quantitative indices have been developed to measure walkability since the last decade, with components mostly focusing on environmental attributes. The World Bank proposed The Global Walk-ability Index and extended the context of walkability to a more comprehen-sive perspective, including indicators such as safety, security, convenience, attractiveness, and policy support (Krambeck, 2006).

Discussions regarding walkability from a spatial planning and design per-spective can be divided into two main areas: urban form and road networks.

Ageing- and Walking-Friendly Communities 111

Urban form can refer to land use types and population densities. Road net-works can include intersections, street connectivity, and walkway routes. From active ageing perspectives, the availability of pedestrian-friendly walkways is highly emphasized on the ‘outdoor spaces and buildings domain’ of the WHO’s Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFCC) program. Also, a recent survey result in Canada further identified that capability well-being is associated with street connectivity (Engel et al., 2016). In addition, the walkability debate can extended to reflections on high car dependency in most Western countries, or high scooter dependency in the case of Southeast Asia, as a consequence of the global trend of urbanization. It is believed that the other benefit of enhancing the walkable environment in an ageing society may be a strong encourage-ment for older drivers and riders to change their travel behaviours for safety reasons. There is accumulating evidence to indicate that older drivers will pose a greater danger to themselves and other drivers as they age due to age-related declines in vision, hearing, and judgement (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 2014). As a result, many countries have started to initiate laws to discontinue senior citizens’ driver licenses after a certain age. However, without alternatives, concerns over losing older people’s independ-ent lifestyles have arisen. Through improving walkability, it might be easier to convince older drivers and riders to give up vehicles and stay active on foot.

For urban planners, creating a walkable environment is an important task. Ensuring older users actually take the walk is the other. As mentioned in pre-vious chapters, planning and design for an ageing society should acknowl-edge the importance of understanding the main users and their behaviours. Hence, when considering the differences between individual communities at local level in reality, it is important first to understand walking behaviours and how elders travel in a community in order to implement better design improvements at the right locations. Accordingly, in this chapter, we empha-size a grassroots approach in proposing walkable environment initiatives for an ageing community. The first part of this chapter includes a thorough review of planning and design theories regarding the walkable spatial char-acteristics. The second part focuses on the context of walkability for older people from individual walking capability and walking behaviour perspec-tives. The third part is an empirical case study in two neighbourhoods of Tainan City, Taiwan. The aim of the study is to investigate and explore the community walking environment characteristics and the possible impact of walking behaviour on elderly residents. We suggest that local design con-texts should meet the local residents’ walking behaviour in order to further deliver a walkable age-friendly neighborhood for elderly people that facili-tates their living while ageing.

Planning Theories and Walkable Spatial Characteristics for the Elderly

The emphasis on walkability in contemporary planning and design literature is common, as it is an effective source of PA in modern cities. In addition,


most great urban planners of the last century would consider walkability as one of the essential elements to good place-making. Several planning and design concepts especially emphasize collective approaches to improve indi-vidual and environmental health. The new urbanism in the 1990s might be the strongest advocator of creating a walkable city, as car dependency has overpowered urban transportation and has dominated the flow of a city. Although there are still debates about the actual association between new urbanism design principles and physical activities, according to survey find-ings by Rodríguez et al., residents of a new urbanist neighbourhood may not be more physically active than residents of conventional neighbourhoods, but they exhibit higher levels of walking activity (2006). In addition, resi-dents of new urbanist neighbourhoods tend to travel fewer vehicle miles and make more socially preferable trips.

Benfield et al. believe that walking is the best travel mode choice for peo-ple to experience a place in detail (2014). In short, the main planning and design concept of new urbanism can be considered as a retrofit of clas-sic planning theory, such as the Garden City by Ebenezer Howard and the livable neighbourhood by Jane Jacobs. Both of them emphasized making a place more human-oriented and user-friendly. They also believe that the walkability of a certain area can represent the vitality and diversity of a place (Talen, 2008).

Smart growth is another emerging planning and design concept advo-cating the walkability of a place as a realization of compact and neotra-ditional urban design (Song, 2005). From an urban form perspective, a walkable place has to be complemented with street and block patterns, land use density and availability of public transportation. Wheeler compared urban forms in six metropolitan areas and identified five design concepts contributing to sustainable urban form, namely compactness, connectivity, contiguity, diversity, and ecological integration (Wheeler, 2008). Although there are still concerns of possible negative impacts on the social diversity of smart growth, the contributions of walkable environment are still confirmed towards a better connective and diverse physical environment (Dong & Zhu, 2015). Nevertheless, changing land use in a built environment is a relatively expensive and time-consuming approach. In contrast with concerns of mac-roscale walkability discussed earlier, ecological models of PA focusing on the microscale of certain spatial elements (e.g., streetscapes and open space components) are adopted to explore detailed interactions between human activity and the built environment (Cain et al., 2014; Sallis et al., 2006; Sallis et al., 2009). Barton et al. stated that the neighbourhood would be a proper spatial scale for planning a health promotion place (2013). Accord-ingly, place audits of environmental attributes in a neighbourhood are fre-quently applied to improve activity-friendly environments at the microscale.

Over the past decade, research has started to explore the relationship between the built environment and health outcomes, especially for the elderly (Zhang, Li, Liu, & Li, 2014). Many community-based studies have


proven that several macroscale spatial characteristics, including mixed land uses, fluent street connectivity, and population density, have a positive asso-ciation with physical activity obtained through walking in general (Frank et al., 2006; Rodríguez, Khattak, & Evenson, 2006; Sallis et al., 2015). With regards to the advocacy of ageing-in-place, some studies have further indicated that other factors should be taken into account when promoting walkability in an ageing society (Badland & Schofield, 2005; Zhang et al., 2014). First of all, at the macroscale, Badland and Schofield suggested dif-ferences in the subdivision age of neighbourhoods are influential in terms of measuring the walkability of certain communities. Planning and design tools applied to improve walkability may vary accordingly. For instance, pre–World War II communities are usually of a more compact urban form and the walkability of older residents in such neighbourhoods may become critical due to inadequate street lighting or outdated pavements. In addi-tion, there are higher chances of lacking sufficient public facilities in older neighbourhoods for older people when going on trips. There are other evi-dences which confirm that the mean age of a neighbourhood is associated with household non-motorized travel (Badland & Schofield, 2005). In other words, older people living in relatively older communities will have more opportunities to choose walking as their main transport mode. This can echo some design concepts of new urbanism. Furthermore, within the com-munity, Ory et al. confirmed that although older adults have a variety of places to take their walks, the majority of older adults reported neighbour-hood streets and green areas as the two most frequently used places for walking (2016). Hence, at the microscale, recent studies in North America have confirmed that streetscape and aesthetics attributes of the built envi-ronment have significant associations with older people’s walkability (Cain et al., 2014; Maisel, 2016). Thus, the quality of street crossings, slopes, shops, and services has a strong influence on older walkers as well.

Second, a more recent study has indicated that the spatial characteris-tics considered highly associated with walking may be different between Western cities and Eastern cities (Zhang et al., 2014). Planning interven-tions applied should be more aware of the cultural differences. Many studies discussed neighbourhood walkability and older residents’ physical activity level and confirmed several environmental attributes, including sidewalk availability, bus stop density, accessible commercial facilities, and amount of green/open spaces with significant association of walkability in both East and West communities (Ding et al., 2014; Van Holle et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2014). Van Holle et al. identified walkability level as being highly related to higher levels of transportation walking for the elderly in Belgium and suggested that planners provide pedestrian-friendly facilities and convenient connecting transportation. On the other hand, a recent study by Hanibuchi et al. in Japan had different study results in their national survey. For older adults in Japan, a walkable environment is considered as a facilitator for them accessing their multiple destinations in daily life (2015). This is due to


the fact that older people in Japanese communities usually would combine walking trips for transportation and for leisure in one trip. They would con-sider how many tasks they can accomplish in one walking trip. Accordingly, good street networks and adequate mixed land use allowing them to reach different services and changing to other transport modes are important for older residents in the community (Tomoya Hanibuchi, Kawachi, Nakaya, Hirai, & Kondo, 2011). However, for older people in China, population density and mixture of land use are not significant factors in terms of taking walking trips in contrast with Western elderly (Zhang et al., 2014). Possible reasons for this finding may be the fundamental differences of the urban context between Western and Eastern cities in terms of compactness and land use types. Many East Asian cities, including Hong Kong, Taipei, and Shanghai, contain much denser populations and various mixtures of land uses vertically and horizontally, whereas most Western cities contain rela-tively lower density populations and simpler land use types. Accordingly, higher population density and mixture land use types would be considered as a normality in most Eastern cities and do not have specific impacts on the walkability of older people. Similar research findings in South Korea have also confirmed there are thresholds of built environment characteristics, including population density and land use mixtures, associated with walk-ability (Eom & Cho, 2015). They further suggest that the compact develop-ment advocated by the New Urbanism could encourage walking until the gross population density reaches around 16,100 persons/km2 in the city of Seoul. Therefore, the spatial forms of residence, transportation infrastruc-ture, and retail or business locations may have distinct differences according to the given country, city, and cultural context. It is important for planners to acknowledge the context of a certain community and the sociocultural background of older people first.

One of the priorities in The New Urban Agenda announced in the Habitat III conference held by the United Nations in Ecuador in 2016 is to ensure the equity and safety of everyone of any age who lives in urban areas. Van Holle et al.’s research findings confirmed that the walkability of a built environment may be of greater importance for older people living in lower income neighbourhoods, as they are less able to afford a private vehicle than older people living in higher income neighbourhoods (2014). They also urge that walkability improvement approaches should be differentiated between communities according to households’ economic status. Therefore, planners and urban policy makers must take into account other spatial characteris-tics such as socioeconomic status, cultural background, and urban micro climates when prioritizing walkable environment strategies.

There are many measures developed over the past decade to evaluate the walkability of physical environments. Table 7.1 lists the most frequently adapted measures in research and practice. Most tools are applied at the neighbourhood level except the global walkability index (GWI), developed by the World Bank, with the most comprehensive items exceeding physical

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elements. Also, special but common transportation modes at the local level, such as motorcycles in Southeast Asian cities, are also considered in the GWI. Nevertheless, such a walkability index can only evaluate levels of walkability in an already built environment. For new developing areas, techniques such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD) can provide useful information to planners and designers when proposing design alternatives from potential customer (user/citizen) satisfaction perspectives. Wey and Chiu have applied QFD in designing a walkable environment around mass-transit stations in order to fulfil the transit-oriented development (TOD) planning goal in New Taipei City (2013).

Proactive and Inclusive Design Principles

Urban design approaches are applied to strengthen the identity of a place. Design concepts mostly include detailed place-making elements responding to human-scale functions. From the 1970s, with the emergence of environ-mental psychology, Fruin first proposed seven design principles for gen-eral pedestrian planning including safety, security, convenience, continuity, comfort, system coherence, and attractiveness obtaining cognitive elements (1971). Jacobs further identified the importance of athletic elements for eye engagement and quality of construction and design of a walking environ-ment in his book Great Streets from a psycological safety perspective. (1995) Paumier particularly emphasized the human-oriented pedestrian system and advocated the creation of an attractive and comfortable walking environ-ment back in the 1980s (Paumier, 1988). Elements such as streetscape, width of walking paths, pavement, and street furniture require special attention when designing a user-friendly walking environment. The integral design contexts developed from barrier-free design, accessible design to universal design also increasingly applied in public spaces since the 1990s for peo-ple with different levels of cognitive difficulties. With the increasing aware-ness of ageing walkers’ demands, several studies further focused on other design details to facilitate an inclusive walking environment for older adults. Street width and crossroad infrastructures have to meet with older people’s walking pace, for instance. Older adults’ body function recession in outer environments include cognitive ability, five senses sensitivity, muscle and bone strength, and individual gerontological illnesses (Rodiek & Schwarz, 2006). Hence, Burton et al. proposed inclusive community design principle guidelines including 17 design elements specifically for older residents with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) conditions to create a more supportive and proactive environment for the most vulnerable users in the UK (Bur-ton & Mitchell, 2006). They further developed a Neighbourhood Design Characteristics Checklist (NeDeCC) as a measuring tool for evaluating how supportive a neighbourhood environment is for ageing-in-place (Burton, Mitchell, & Stride, 2011). Observing the evolution of inclusive design prin-ciples, there is an inevitable trend of sophistication in response to vulnerable


groups. Furthermore, the essence of place-making has also extended to meet both the physical and psychological needs of the users.

Why Not Take a Walk? Tasks for Older Adults

The previous part reviews most dialogue associations between spatial characteristics and older people’s physical activities, especially walking. However, to provide a walking friendly environment according to design principles is not enough from a health outcome perspective. It is even more important to ensure older people take the walk. Menec et al. specifically identified that having amenities such as parks in a community does not encourage older people to walk based on their recent study in Manitoba, Canada (Menec, Brown, Newall, & Nowicki, 2016). Furthermore, a study done by the Graduate School of Human Life Science, Osaka City Univer-sity indicated the average walking distance and walking time of the gen-eral public is usually 400–800 meters and 5–10 min per trip. Most elder adults aged over 65 fall below the average amount. Hence, a proper spatial periphery for ageing-in-place will be less than a 500-meter radius (2009). If planners and designers allocate service facilities beyond that periphery, older people will be reluctant to take the walk. Hence, the understanding of walking behaviour based on older people’s walking capability, physically and psychologically, is the main task for today’s planners and designers. As the elderly get older, their daily transport modes and purposes will change according to changes in their lifestyle. Their commutes will decrease because of retirement from work and instead their trips for leisure will increase sig-nificantly. Accordingly, older people’s walking routes and destinations will alter to serve the change of their travel purposes. According to Barton and Grant’s health map for local human habitat, individual hereditary factors such as age and lifestyle are the core determinants for enhancing individual and community well-being (2006).

In terms of walking as an active behaviour, most recent studies identi-fied several personal characteristics that have significant effects on an older individual’s walking behaviour. For instance, many studies have identified that gender makes a difference, and evidences have indicated that the female elderly tend to walk more frequently than the male elderly (Eom & Cho, 2015; Van Holle et al., 2014). Possible reasons are female senior adults are involved with more community-related activities than males, and so they are more socially active at the local level. In addition, in the Eastern cultural context, fewer older females have a driving license and must rely on walking to fulfil their daily duty as the main shopper for a family. A recent study also indicated that education and marital status are two other influential determi-nants on older people’s walking behaviour (Maisel, 2016). It is believed that older adults in a marriage tend to have better supporting reasons for walk-ing, as older people prefer to have someone to walk with. And since most older people tend to have more walking trips for leisure, survey results have


stated that older adults would prefer to walk for leisure in places with more destinations such as shopping malls and market places (Cain et al., 2014). Hence, active interior design for improving the details of a walking environ-ment in such places is much needed. In the case of Taiwan and some other Southeast Asian cities, convenience stores such as 7–11 have broadly opened in almost every community and provide all kinds of daily services such as seating areas, grocery shopping, free newspaper reading, ticketing, and utility bill payments; some even contain blood pressure detection machines. Older people in the community consider the convenience store as one of their fre-quent trip destinations, and they soon become the main customers of the stores. Some even have social activities and consider the convenience store as a community centre. There are over 4,900 7–11 stores in Taiwan, and since 2014, the managing department of 7–11 has become aware of the significant role of those convenience stores in an ageing community and has announced the age-friendly convenience store program as part of the social responsibility of the enterprise. Many universal design concepts have been applied to reno-vate convenience stores to make older shoppers safer and more comfortable. In return, there is a significant increase of older customers in such stores.

As the importance of creating a supportive environment for walking has been generally acknowledged for ageing communities, it has become even more important to create a more sophisticated user-friendly environment according to the various physical conditions of local older adults in the com-munities. Such a discussion was had back in early 2000s, when industrial designers started to realize that older adults’ physical functions may be the key factor for their daily living activities. It was confirmed by a pioneering survey categorizing 118 older adults’ lifestyles and environmental demands using their Activity Daily Living (ADL) score in Taipei City, that older adults require different environmental attitudes according to their physi-cal functions (Yen & Chung, 2001). Until most recently, there has been an emerging trend of cross-disciplinary research between community planning and gerontology to further explore the association between environmental characteristics and certain ageing symptoms. From instance, although stud-ies have found strong associations between PA and Alzheimer’s disease and have emphasized the importance of regular activities for older adults at the Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) stage, most MCI patients remain unde-tected in the community and miss the best period to apply PA in avoiding the dilatory effects of Alzheimer’s disease (Wang, Cheng, Lai, & Pai, 2014). It is believed that if planning professionals can collaborate with local ger-ontologists and propose proper environment attributes to stimulate older adults having regular PA, we can prevent the Alzheimer’s disease effectively.

From the macro-level spatial planning perspective, and with the emerg-ing trend of climate change, it is important to take older residents’ physi-cal vulnerabilities into account when proposing disaster mitigation plans for an ageing community (Krawchenko, Keefe, Manuel, & Rapaport, 2016). Hence, the understanding of the abilities of walking to safe areas


and escaping from dangerous places are increasingly emphasized with older adults for disaster prevention purposes. While geriatric conditions are com-mon problems in older adults, it is important to further examine the associa-tions of geriatric conditions and the mobility of elderly people in different communities. According to a national survey conducted in Taiwan, Chang et al. examined over 2,700 older adults with two types of physical abil-ity: walking longer distances (200–300 meters) and running short distances (20–30 meters), which represented the abilities of walking to safe areas and escaping from dangerous places among the elderly people. The study identified that certain geriatric conditions, including having fallen once or twice and obtaining an injury within the past year, cognitive impairment (by SPMSQ scores adjusted by education), and depression (CES-D score 10), were highly associated with an older adult’s ability of walking or running under emergency circumstances (Chang et al., 2016). From an emergency management perspective, there is an inevitable need for countries with both higher risk of natural disasters and a speedy population ageing trend, such as Japan and Taiwan, to take immediate integral countermeasures for low-ering potential disaster damages.

In addition, aside from physical health having a direct influence on the walking behaviour of older adults, the mental health condition of older adults is another key factor. According to a recent study in 2016, that older adults with recent poor mental health conditions may have a lower likeli-hood of walking (Ory, Towne, Won, Forjuoh, & Lee, 2016). Mental strength is highly dependent on the social support they obtain from their families or communities. Neighborhood cohesion is also confirmed as an essential element for older people’s mental strength (Michael & Carlson, 2009). In addition, psychological perceptions of older people for walking have been confirmed with increasing significance as individuals are getting older. They would consider themselves particularly vulnerable to poor quality environ-ments, especially for those who have experienced an injurious fall. Maisel identified that worries of safety during walking is the most important obsta-cle for older adults to take the walk, and they would even rather take their cars for amenities (2016).

In summary, for older adults, there are varies influential factors affecting their walking behaviours, as Figure 7.1 indicates. One might be unable to take a walk due to socioeconomic status, physical capability, mental condi-tion, living experience, or cultural factors, even if he or she acknowledges the benefits of walking for leisure or transport purposes. Situations may vary in different spatial and social contexts. One thing is for sure: safety is a priority for any older adult when deciding whether to take a walk. As it is a consensus that walking is the most appropriate and needed physical activity for older adults’ active living style, spatial practitioners should work closely not only with gerontologists and behaviourists but also with older residents to propose user-led place audit approaches in encouraging walkability at the local level.


Case Study—How Urban Form Influences Older People’s Walking Behaviour

In this chapter, we mainly argue that older people’s lifestyle and walking behaviour is easily influenced by environmental attributes in the commu-nity where they spend most of their time while getting older. Since each community may evolve into a very different urban form during the urban development process, older residents will develop different walking patterns accordingly. Considering the differences between individual communities and each with limited resources, it is important to apprehend how elders travel in a community first in order to implement better design improve-ments at the right locations. Hence, we further undertook a field study to investigate the relationship between older people’s walking behaviour and different spatial characteristics in Tainan in 2014. We adopted Hanson et al.’s definition of the built environment, which includes three compo-nents: land use pattern, transportation system, and design features (Hanson et al., 2005). This empirical study aimed to verify whether neighbourhood walking environmental attributes are highly associated with older people’s walking behaviour (i.e., walking frequency and travel mode). The study was divided into two phases. We first adopted a cluster analysis to group 270 neighbourhoods in Tainan City into two main clusters based on their

Figure 7.1 Influential Factors of Older People’s Walkability


environmental characteristics, including building density, land use mixture, cross-road density, average street length, and older people percentage. The two clusters of neighbourhood were defined as Type 1 older residential-oriented communities with higher density and Type 2 younger industrial-oriented communities with lower density, as illustrated in Figure 7.2. Type 1 communities usually are mostly historical and organic in urban develop-ment form. Type 2 communities are mostly newly developing communities with well-planned street layouts on the other hand.

The second phase of the empirical study involves a questionnaire survey of older residents from selected communities of each type in the first phase. Two communities were selected in the Yung Kang district of Tainan City. Yung Kang is an iconic district known for its complicated mixture of historical and newly developed areas and great geographic divide by the National Highway. The two selected communities, Fu-Kuaw (F) and Kuan-Shan (K), are adjacent to each other located at either side of the highway. F community (34.77 hec-tares) is a Type 1 community with denser residential land use. K community (151.47 hectares) is a Type 2 community with lower land use density. The total older population aged over 65 of both communities is 1,181 according to the 2013 demographic census. Through the judgement sampling method,

Figure 7.2 Cluster Analysis Result of Communities in Tainan City


a total of 375 respondents aged over 65 with regular physical activity hab-its were selected to conduct an in-person survey. Final valid questionnaire samples are 335: 165 from F community and 170 from K community. Ques-tionnaires were designed to investigate the walking behaviour, walking fre-quency, and satisfactory level towards environmental attributes. Seven items are included in the questionnaire for respondents to rank their satisfactory level, namely neighbourhood security, traffic condition, road obstacles, traf-fic lights and signage, service facilities, pavements, and street plants.

The survey results basically confirmed previous studies. For example, the majority of older adults (80.1%) would take a walk for exercise or leisure purposes, and older males usually walk for exercise purposes while older females prefer walking for leisure purposes. There is no significant differ-ence between the two types of communities in basic walking behaviour, and most respondents tend to walk every day with a total 1–2 hours of walk-ing per day. Through the Independent-Samples t-test analysis, respondents from F community tend to walk more frequently but K community’s older residents may walk for a longer time per trip. In addition, by conducting the Scheff Post Hoc analysis, it was confirmed that older adults who are frequent walkers have a significantly higher level of physical activity than respondents who rely on scooters more as their daily transport mode.

As for the satisfactory survey towards walking environmental elements, there are significant differences between respondents from the two com-munities. In the older and denser community, F, the majority of the older residents are satisfied with all seven items. In K community, a newer and lower density community, on the other hand, respondents generally have less satisfaction with street plants and service facilities. The results are not surprising given that the walking periphery is three times larger than that of the other community, so spatial configuration such as shading areas will be considered more important for older walkers and most service facilities will take more time or are beyond their reach. This result also confirms with the Osaka study that older adults will be willing to take a walk when they know they can manage the walk within a certain periphery. Nevertheless, the survey also discovered several interesting findings which might be able to provide useful user information for future land use planning in ageing communities. First, respondents with walking distances between home and local parks within 10 minutes tend to have less walking time and less physi-cal activities than others with a longer walking distance from home to local parks. This result confirms Sarkar et al.’s survey findings of older adults in the UK, where older people tend to obtain physical activities on their way to parks, and if the park is too close by, older adults will not be able to obtain sufficient PA intensity (2013). Second, respondents with a higher satisfactory level towards local service facilities tend to walk less. A possible explanation for this finding may be that older adults prefer to go to facilities directly and would rather choose the quickest way, such as riding a scooter to get there, over walking.


This empirical study in Tainan has confirmed that older adults do have different walking behaviours and environmental cognitions in communities with different urban configurations. Hence, it further highlights the impor-tance of acknowledging both the characteristics of older individuals and local environmental attributes in delivering an actual walkable community.

Conclusion—Place-Making for Keeping Elders Walking

Since the promotion of healthy cities started 30 years ago, people today have better knowledge of how good place-making can contribute positively to health outcomes. For the majority of older adults, thanks to the modern media, they acknowledge the importance and advantages of PA in the pro-cess of ageing. However, the dilemma for older people is to keep practicing physical activity on a regular basis, as obstacles appearing with the process of ageing. Due to the inevitable decrease of physical function, walking is considered a mild and safe physical activity for older people to take on as a daily activity. Furthermore, it is not just about keeping the body func-tioning, but about a better quality of life, as Metz first emphasized more than 15 years ago that mobility is the crucial factor for older adults (2000). This chapter continues the discussions throughout the previous chapters of fostering ageing-in-place urban planning and explores issues from walking environment configuration and place-making perspectives. We believe that fostering a walking-friendly environment for older adults can not only ben-efit an individual’s healthy lifestyle but also provide a better way of living socially in an ageing society. Furthermore, walkability is a vital survival abil-ity for older adults in dealing with the future climate change trend and dis-aster circumstances. With the accelerating phenomena of urbanization and population ageing globally, future pedestrian-friendly neighbourhood plan-ning approaches will have to be adopted more sophisticatedly under differ-ent urban configurations. Most importantly, integral planning approaches should take professional knowledge of public health and gerontology into account in order to respond to older adults’ actual needs that have rarely been considered in traditional planning and design. By doing so, planners can propose a timely user-oriented built environment.

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Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao and Hsiang-Leng ChenFrom Isolation to Inclusion

8 From Isolation to InclusionThe Importance of Empowerment in Planning Age-Friendly Communities

Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao and Hsiang-Leng Chen

Introduction

The ageing population has become a global phenomenon in many places. In response to challenges brought by this phenomenon, the Age-Friendly Cities Network was proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2007 in order to react to this challenge. It became a popular global movement with a growing numbers of cities and communities accelerating efforts to better meet the needs of the elderly.

In September 2015, over 280 cities and communities had officially joined the WHO Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities, but only eight cities in Asia. However, the ageing trend also poses a distinct chal-lenge for Asian countries, and it is even more challenging in some East Asian countries with rapid population ageing. The main challenges in Asia usually come from longer life expectancy, lower fertility rates, and limited social welfare resources (Population Reference Bureau, 2010). Therefore, consid-ering the lack of time for preparation when compared with that enjoyed by most Western countries, it is obvious that for some East Asian cities and communities, initiating age-friendly strategies is a relatively urgent but dif-ficult task which many relevant researches have proposed (Chao & Huang, 2016).

The importance of bottom-up initiatives while practicing age-friendly community is highlighted in this chapter. That is because revealing user’s needs is the most important thing in planning age-friendly communities. Without planning for users’ needs, the planning or renewal strategies may change elders’ everyday living which is of the utmost concern to them, or even produce another vacant or unused space in the future (Yung, Cone-jos, & Chan, 2016). In the Brasilia Declaration of 1996, WHO states that ‘Healthy older people are a resource for their families, their communities and the economy’. Both the World Health Organization and the United Nations have placed great emphasis on assisting older people in their active ageing that are expected to adopt a positive attitude in facing the phenom-enon of ageing population themselves or the community at large. In Global Age-Friendly Cities—A Guide led by WHO, three main aspects are indicated

From Isolation to Inclusion 129

that aim to promote the physical health of the older people by participating in public activities and achieving the ultimate goal of ageing-in-place.

The most important target of the aforementioned policies is to enhance the strength and willingness of the older people to participate in their own activities. As a result, more and more old age policies begin to advocate ‘Ageing Empowerment’. Gibson (1991) was the first to advocate the con-cept of empowerment as a social process of recognizing, promoting, and enhancing people’s abilities to meet their own needs, solve their own prob-lems, and mobilize the necessary resources in order to feel in control of their lives. Empowerment can enhance older people’s self-efficacy, help foster a sense of community, enable development of action strategies, and express their own needs to achieve ‘active ageing’ through participation.

However, the promotion of ageing empowerment must be based on con-temporary older people’s clear understanding of the backgrounds as they differ by their growing life experiences, family and cultural background, socioeconomic conditions, external sociopolitical status, and so forth. The levels of recognition and acceptance of the parent–child relationship as the independent and autonomous relationship in the Western society dif-fers from the Eastern philosophy that Confucianism prioritizes the family unit and values elders with the utmost respect. Even under the impact of the Eastern tradition and the modern value consciousness of the West, the parent–child relationship in terms of economic or spiritual dependency, the older generations of the Eastern society became are now economically independent but their spiritual dependence remains strong (Luo & Chen, 2002). Thus the difference in older people’s attitudes and perceptions of life between the East and West may affect empowerment and the way of implementation.

There are two distinctive cultural characteristics of East Asian societies: (1) the deep-rooted culture of respect for the elderly; (2) the emphasis on fam-ily values. Many culture-comparative studies have confirmed several major cultural differences between the West (mostly Europe and the US) and East Asia, whereas these include individualism versus collectivism, universalism versus particularism, and low power distance versus high power distance (Wong & Ahuvia,1998; Richards, 2014; Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 2000; Trompenaars & Woolliams, 2003). The viewpoint of what an age-friendly environment represents in the West may be very different from that in East Asia from both individual and institutional perspectives.

Therefore, this chapter aims to carry out research and investigate age-friendly cities and communities in East Asian society and figure out the dif-ferences between Eastern and Western cultures, and further study the main factors that cause the difference. It is anticipated that through this research to ensure how older people of East Asian society interpret the concept of ‘empowerment’.

The main purposes of this research are (1) to explore the relationship between ageing empowerment and localized community, using the definition

130 From Isolation to Inclusion

and concept of empowerment in Western society as the basis to correspond to the Confucian filial piety culture and seek to sum up what had been done in the Chinese community; (2) to identify the consciousness and expecta-tion of ‘empowerment’ in Taiwan by means of qualitative and quantita-tive research methods aiming at the community with obvious ageing and the background of considerable community empowerment in Taiwan as the empirical analysis area; (3) to reveal the importance of empowerment in the planning of age-friendly environment.

Literature Review

Active Ageing

In 2002, WHO proposed the concept of active ageing, which is the pro-cess of optimizing opportunities for health, participation, and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age so that the older people or the general public can take a positive attitude facing the phenomenon of population ageing. The word ‘active’ refers to continuing participation in social, economic, cultural, spiritual, and civic affairs, not just the ability to be physically active or to participate in the labour force (WHO, 2002). Active participation is an important foundation for the empowerment of older people, and active ageing can be said an important cornerstone of the empowerment of older people.

The European Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) further announced the ‘Active Ageing Index’ (AAI) in 2012, which has four domains: employment, participation in society, inde-pendent living, and capacity and enabling environment for active ageing (National Development Council, 2013). These domains indicate that active ageing is a process of optimizing opportunities for health and continuing participation so as to maintain health in order to further enable older people retaining the ability of empowerment.

Empowerment

The concept of empowerment was developed in the late 1960s. Initially it was deemed an educational philosophy (Chang & Lee, 2004), until 1980s it was began to be widely emphasized in medical, business management and other professional fields (Wu, 2001; Lee, Yeh, & Chang, 2003; Chen, 2005). Gibson (1991) argues that empowerment occurs during participation and is a participant itself, focusing more on the process of participation than its consequences. The process of empowerment is to help individuals identify and act upon the root causes of problems so that individuals can identify and promote and empower individuals by mobilizing available resources to meet individual or group needs. Adams (2003) defines empowerment as


‘the means by which individuals, groups and/or communities become able to take control of their circumstances and to achieve their goals’. Formosa (2013) further argues that empowerment helps achieve goals by acquiring knowledge and skills to solve problems or pressures, and to better control their own lives, social understandings, political realizations, resource accu-mulation, and strategies.

Benefits of empowerment include the ability to make the person feel a sense of hope, encouragement, and direction (Rodwell, 1996). According to Rappaport, empowerment is a construct that links individual strengths and competencies, natural helping systems, and proactive behaviours to social policy and social change (Rappaport, 1984); the development of qualities such as positive self-esteem, perceived competence, self-efficacy, a sense of hope, and social justice facilitate empowerment at the personal level (Gib-son, 1991; Wallerstein, 1992). Hsueh and Yeh (2006) summarize national and international scholars’ opinions towards empowerment into five main domains: (1) empowerment is a dynamic process; (2) empowerment can empower individuals and groups; (3) empowerment can make changes in individuals and groups; (4) empowerment can give individuals autonomy and a sense of self-worth over their tasks and resources; (5) empowerment is often developed through participation, learning, trust, and the development of partnerships.

The definition and connotation of empowerment in recent researches have been discussed extensively. However, most still follow the Western perspective and rarely explore the localization of empowerment in Chinese society. Rifkin (2003) reckons that empowerment is both result and process of participation which aim to empower individuals to develop a sense of personal strength, the capacity to influence others, and the capacity to work with others to change social structures as well as health equity.

Empowerment is considered as a multilevel concept in which people engaged with the empowerment interact with professionals in the process of listening, dialogue, reflection and action that the professionals provide the resources needed to guide decision-making and to reinstate the impact of life-influencing factors (Chang & Lee, 2004). Empowerment may be defined as the process through which people become strong enough to participate within, share in control of, and influence events and institutions affecting their lives, that is, the ability to challenge or change personal, interper-sonal, or political aspects of life (Hsueh & Yeh, 2006). Some scholars have suggested that, although the empowerment view is introduced from the Western society, the Chinese society must be integrated with the localized perspectives. After all, the Chinese culture is deeply influenced by Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. This statement coincides with the Western scholars’ point of view that ‘empowerment can only occur while placing the service users within the context’ (Zimmerman, 1990; Baistow, 1995; Chuang, 2011).


Ageing Empowerment

HelpAge International considers that in the discussion of ageing empow-erment it is necessary to examine empowerment in old age requiring an approach that is able to track and analyze a range of enabling and con-straining interactions in the personal, social, economic, political, physical, and legal spheres that confer dignity, agency, and status on the older person. The empowerment and resistance to the dignity, agency, and status of the older people can build an environment that supports the ageing empower-ment in the whole social system, so as to achieve the effective utilization of resources and promote a virtuous circle (Sylvia Beales, 2012). The study by Meshram and O’Cass (2013) suggests a process that may help to improve ageing empowerment.

Zeng (2003) suggests that empowerment is an alteration strategy and process. Older people are inherently capable and have the potential shaping for change. When the positive energy of older people are supported, their energy can be elaborated, and thereby the possibility of positive growth may greatly increase. Older people are relatively disadvantaged in society. Therefore, if we consider elderly manpower as a kind of resource, their own advantages and abilities must be evaluated so as to understand what the assistance system and resources are before we plan, design, manage, and re-educate to create its value and potential.

In the meanwhile, many scholars believe that the deterioration of bodily functions of the older people is the main factor affecting the empowerment of the older people. Therefore, increasing the effectiveness of the older peo-ple’s self-efficacy, ability to develop action strategies and seek resources can help enhance the personal strength. As for older people who are talented but have no ‘stage’ to provide a runway and opportunities should be a feasible method for ageing empowerment (Tseng, 2003). Moreover, the emphasis on ageing empowerment is that the spontaneous selection must be respected before it can begin the process of empowerment.

From the previous statements, it is known although the concept of empow-erment was gradually formed in the late 1960s, little discussion of ageing empowerment was made. The postwar baby boomers in developed coun-tries are now about to enter or have entered the state of ageing. Population ageing is an irresistible trend, and the education level and economic capacity of this age group is relatively higher than the previous generation, indicat-ing that the baby boomers have greater knowledge and acceptance towards community development and empowerment awareness than the previous generation, and this will be an important period of transformation for the future ageing society. Under the guideline of ‘Global Age-Friendly Cities’ proposed by the WHO, the promotion of relevant policies and supporting measures has increasingly adopted a ‘bottom-up’ approach. However, the role of the older people in the Asian Chinese community is mainly as passive caregivers, their ideas and opinions are often not effectively incorporated


into decision-making, and the policies cannot confirm whether actual needs of the older people can be met. The practice of ageing empowerment in the oriental society shall be an important issue in the contemporary discussion of ageing phenomena and strategies. The ageing of Asian Chinese society is much faster than that of the Western countries and coupled with the dif-ferent background of democratic development, so whether the concept of Western empowerment and practical experience is also applicable to the Chinese community in Asia remains to be discussed. Based on the charac-teristics and the actual situation of the Asian Chinese elderly communities, ageing empowerment should have its unique development in them.

Culture Distinctions

The distinctive cultural characteristics of East Asian societies include the deep-rooted culture of respect for the elderly and the emphasis on family values. Such characteristics are considered as virtue commonly recognized in the society deeply influenced by Confucius. They also form the basic social relationships within and between generations. Many culture-comparative studies have confirmed several major cultural differences between West and East Asia, and three main differences were pointed out in the previous research to explain that reasons for the fundamental differences between Eastern and Western society can be derived from the cultural background (Chao & Huang, 2016). To this end, when we promote the idea of empow-erment under different culture norms, it is important to acknowledge that there cannot be one rule fits all.

Individualism and Collectivism

The emphasis on individualism has a strong influence on the contexts in the Age-Friendly Communities guide and how issues for ‘older individu-als’ should be taken into account in Western culture. However, most East Asian countries are culturally steeped in collectivism. People would be more concerned about how older people interact with their families.

The traditional virtues of filial piety and family values embedded in East Asian culture have stressed the importance of prioritizing the elderly over youngsters in society (Nichols, 2013). Derived from Con-fucianism, filial piety can be considered as a form of normative guidance on issues related to relationships to immediate and extended family, status-seeking behaviour, relationship to government authorities, and other issues regarding the relationships between generations (Nichols, 2002; Munro, 2002, 2005). The elderly in East Asian countries usually place more emphasis on family values, sometimes extended to commu-nity values, and devote themselves to their families and communities because of these deep-rooted culture norms. To the contrary, the elderly usually emphasize individual independence in Western society (Chao &


Huang, 2016). Thus, it is highly possible that the elderly in East Asia can devote themselves in the community but not express their actual needs. As a result, older adults in East Asia can be good followers and volunteers in a community, but may not feel very comfortable to dis-cover their own needs and speak out.

Universalism and Particularism

As discussed earlier, the essence of community values in East Asian communities is rooted in family values. Thus, it is very natural to have different interpretations of certain universal rules. ‘Particularism’ applies to different levels of relationships. The emphasis on ‘orthodox human relationships’ (‘Qing-Li-Fa’ system) affects community residents’ decision-making based on their interpersonal relationships rather than rational reasons. The strong particularism values exhibited in the cul-tures of East Asia would have obvious effects on how empowerment could apply in communities where ‘subjective relationships’ always out-weigh ‘objective rules’ (Richards, 2014; Chao & Huang, 2016). More research is needed on how to empower older adults without challenging too much on the tradition they are used to being proud of. On the other hand, there is an actual need to encourage more empowerment to older adults, as in some communities of Taiwan, older people might be bullied by community leaders by taking their respective attitude for granted.

Differences in Power Distance

Based on Hofstede’s long-term psychology and culture research, ‘power distance’ is one of the six cultural dimensions of the Hofstede Model. It can be defined as the extent to which the less powerful members accept how power is distributed in institutions (Hofstede, 2011). Due to the effects of individualism, most Western societies are low power distanced, which emphasizes equality and democracy. Communities and bureau-cratic systems in East Asian societies are much higher power distanced, meaning that they more readily accept top-down authority (Hofstede, 2011). This could affect the promotion strategies and decision-making processes of how to involve elderly people to participate in AFC pro-jects in East Asian communities. Therefore, the empowerment of the elderly will have very different meanings in Eastern and Western socie-ties (Chao & Huang, 2016)

Case Study

Background of Case Study Area

The statistics also show that Taiwan became an ‘ageing society’ in 1993, and the production shows that 42% of the total population will be aged over 65,


which will make Taiwan the second country to reach the status of a ‘super-aged society’, by 2025 (Council for Economic Planning and Development, 2012). The Jinhwa community was chosen as the case study for two main reasons. First, it is considered as the model community for its community synergy and strong commitments and attachments between residents. The Jinhwa community won the Yushan Award, which is the highest honor of the National Award for the community empowerment in 2005 and also was certified as a healthy community, a safe community, and a green com-munity in the past several years. Several research theses have taken Jinhwa community for case study in Taiwan since 2008 (Liu, 2008). It is located in the southern part of Taiwan, and the area of the Jinhwa community is an estimated 0.2796 km2. Demographically, Jinhwa community is highly popu-lated and about 11% of its population is above 65 years old; the majority of community residents are of middle and upper income families. Figure 8.1 illustrates the location and ageing percentage in Jinhwa community.

Methodology

This research investigated older people’s cognition of empowerment in Jinghwa community by means of a comprehensive survey of people over 60 years of age, and analyzed their cognition of their right and empowerment

Figure 8.1 Ageing Population Distribution in Tainan City and the Location of Jin-ghwa Community


under different ages, educational backgrounds, and health measures. The preliminary analysis results were summarized as follows.

Composition of Older People in the Community

A total of 1,100 questionnaires were sent out from about 20 volunteers in Jinghwa community in March and April of 2012. A total of 968 valid questionnaires were collected and the effective rate was 83%. Among the total of 968 people, 464 (47.9%) are males and 504 (52.1%) are females. The majority of patients were aged between 65 to 74 years (47.7%) (n = 462).

Older People’s Cognition of Community Empowerment

First of all, older people in the community were divided into three catego-ries: ‘community cadres’, ‘community members’, and ‘other residents’. There were 60 community cadre members, 415 community members, and 493 other residents. The cross-sectional analysis showed that there was a significant association between community role, age, and educa-tional level. The main age group of community cadres aged 65–74 years accounts for 66.7% (n = 40), community members aged 65–74 years accounts for 48.9%, and majority of the other residents are 65–74 years old and 75–84 years old. Regarding the education level, majority of the community cadres are high school graduates, which account for 36.7% (n = 22). Three groups of interviewees’ cognition on community empowerment were analyzed. The fifth-order Likert scale was used to measure the degree of consent of the older people regarding the sur-vey questions, including ‘participating in community activities for their own benefits’, ‘community issues are the concerns and responsibility of all community residents’, ‘participation in community activities can cre-ate a sense of accomplishment’, and ‘participating in community activi-ties can exert their influence’. Apart from the ‘community issues are the concerns and responsibility of all community residents’, the consents of the older people to the other three questions are significantly correlated to their community roles.

In the first question, as opposed to other residents, the community cadres and members have a high proportion of ‘participating in com-munity activities for their own benefits’; the feelings of the third ques-tion, community cadres and community members also have a higher proportion agreeing that participating in community activities can cre-ate a sense of accomplishment, 72.8% other residents also agree with the same question. About 60% of the community cadres agree with the fourth question as participating in community activities can exert their influence, while 60% of the community members and other residents’ agreement towards the fourth question is significantly lower than the community cadres.


The chapter further analyzes the community role of each respondent in the Jinghwa community through in-depth interviews, examines their roles and functions, cognition of the empowerment, and their views on the commu-nity empowerment. The interview results of the community cadres, mem-bers, and other residents were collectively depicted. The first three questions were mainly focused on the community cadres and members’ interviews, and the results show that the community cadres simply just want to contrib-ute to make the community better so they were willing to serve as commu-nity cadres. Community members participating in the community activities for the following reasons: feeling satisfaction when servicing others, meeting new friends and learning new things, or hoping to serve the community.

Regarding that participating community activities might affect one’s life, one of the community cadres considers that the community environment was a part of living, so they were willing to incorporate community activi-ties into their living activities, whereas another community cadre considered that working as a community cadre can enrich their lives, but as for commu-nity members, participation in community activities does not change much in life, or in the belief of life enrichment. However, ‘when the community is in the discussion of community affairs, how to resolve the occurrence of disputes or conflict’, the community cadres and members agree to reach a consensus through communication and discussion, and most of whom were based on the chief of village’s opinions. Before the meeting, the chief of vil-lage communicated with everyone so as to reduce the chance of conflict, so in fact there was little conflict.

To sum up the results of the interview, the community activities are still led by the leader, and through the power of chief of village to conjoin a lot of residents who are dedicated in community service. Because a consen-sus towards the community has been reached, together they are willing to service the community. Many community cadres and members are older people, and participating in community activities can enrich their lives and create a sense of accomplishment while servicing others.

Conclusion

Partnership Between Community Leader and Members

During the process of establishing an age-friendly community in Jinghwa, Tainan City, it is observed that older people play a very important part in the community. The community leader, cadres, members, and participants involved in the community activities are mostly older people. The question-naire survey shows that more than half of community members are older people, and that older people are the most important and indispensable key group in Jinghwa community. During the process of community empower-ment, the community leader establishes good working relations with the community organization leading the development of the community as a whole. The leader also deals with the community cadres to discuss their


opinions, and delivers the power of the implementation of each item to the cadres, so they can work together for community affairs.

In contrast to Arnstein’s (1969) stratification of empowerment, the Jin-ghwa community operates with the community leader as the main decision-maker and community cadres and members are given a limited degree of community empowerment. Therefore this type of participation belongs to the sixth rung ‘partnership’ type of cooperative participation where the community leaders are empowered to gain support and cooperation with community groups. Although the level of empowerment is not the high-est, most of the older people have strong awareness and demand towards the their own living environment and are able to suggest a positive vision which has a strong identity of place for the future. Therefore, enhancing the proportion of empowered older people during the process of community empowerment, the older people spontaneously involve and aware that their opinions are valued, it is believed that older people will be a great driving force to create a sustainable community and bring positive benefits.

Personal Demand May Be Hidden

By means of the aforementioned case study, how the impact of empower-ment concepts and practical experiences in Western countries may influence Asian Chinese society under different culture backgrounds and social envi-ronment is discussed here. Discussion is evaluated from the individual and community perspective (Chao & Huang, 2016).

Individual Level

From the case study, some respondents did not know how to express their individual demands because they rarely have this kind of experi-ence and may need to be educated. However, they were also likely to conceal their demands during the public discussion, even if they had understood their own demands. This is due to the strong influence of collectivism in East Asian culture, as most survey respondents tend not to express their individual demands because of peer pressure. They usu-ally provide neutral answers to avoid any potential embarrassment. Meanwhile, the emphasis on filial piety in Taiwanese society also has an influence on older people’s projections of their image to society. It would be considered shameful to admit that their needs cannot be met by their own family or offspring.

Community Level

According to the case study, the decision was not based on the demand assessment but on the community leader’s opinion. The strong attach-ments to the community usually result in a unique social structure which


combines traditional Confucianism and the formation of ‘Qing-Li-Fa’ system. When it comes to the decision-making process, the social struc-ture and community leaders will have an essential influence on how well the decision can be decided and executed. This means that particularism rules the decision-making process at the local level in Taiwan.

Community leaders usually make decisions based on creating greater results for the community as a whole instead of benefits to individuals. For example, the community leader establishes good working relations with the community organization leading the development of the com-munity as a whole. The leader also deals with the community cadres to discuss their opinions, and delivers the power of the implementation of each item to the cadres, so they can work together for community affairs.

The Importance of Empowerment in Planning Age-Friendly Communities

‘Ageing-in-place’ is one of the indicators that WHO aims to promote, as the physical health of older people matters. However, whether the environ-ment of a region supports an ageing population will be one of the most important determinants in whether seniors remain within their communities or are forced to move (Coleman, 2015). Thus, many researchers had paid attention in planning age-friendly communities. Coleman (2015) tried to list the built environment indicators and determine which age-friendly indica-tors were the most effective at improving the environment. There is more emphasis on the safety and comfort of the physical environment.

However, Yung, Conejos, and Chan (2016) stress that the planning of public open spaces should address the special ‘social needs’ of the elderly population. For example, their major social need is maintaining constant interaction with each other in order to avoid feelings of loneliness, and this need may differ from the needs of other generations. Thus, it is very impor-tant to determine and understand the social needs of elderly people, then translate these needs into actual design criteria for planning public spaces. If their needs are not taken into consideration, the planning or renewal strate-gies may change their everyday living, which is of utmost concern to them, or even produce another vacant or unused space in the future. As such, the users’ actual needs should be elicited rather than perceived by planners (Yung, Conejos, & Chan, 2016).

From WHO’s point of view, the participating process is the best way to empower the elder population and reveal their actual needs. It has been implemented better in the West, but with some difficulty in Taiwan accord-ing to the result of case study. Elderly people’s actual demand might be hided because of the culture distinction between West and East Asia. In order to plan a better age-friendly community, the strategies for empow-ering the elder population in East Asia need to be further designed based


on the difficulties revealed in this chapter and successful examples in other Asian countries; for example, through workshops or training to enable elderly people to express their needs and propose suggestions more accu-rately (Chen & Cao, 2015).

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Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao and Huiwen HuangAgeing and Disaster Resilient Communities

9 Ageing and Disaster Resilient Communities

Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao and Huiwen Huang

Introduction—When Climate Change Meets an Ageing Population

Aside from population ageing, another concerning challenge is climate change due to the human activities of the past 200 years. Since the end of the last century, many international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-mate Change (IPCC), have been studying the possible impacts of climate change and proposing approaches to decrease the speed of environmental degradation. There are increasing concerns about older people’s vulner-ability under extreme weather events. This worry was confirmed in 2005, when 75% of those who died during Hurricane Katrina were aged over 60 (Wilson, 2006). Similarly, between 2005 and 2010, 15 typhoons struck Taiwan, and over 40% of all victims were aged people. From 1980 to 2006, 3.6 typhoons hit Taiwan per year and resulted in compound disasters. The Latest World Cities Risk (2015–2025) report from Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies in 2015 pointed out that Taipei will be one of the top 10 cit-ies with high exposure to natural disaster hazards in the world in the next decade. The potential economic loss is estimated at over NTD 5.5 trillion (CCRS, 2015). Hence, the IPCC alert that the impact of climate change on an ageing global population is creating a nexus of vulnerability, which is set to increase further in the 21st century (IPCC, 2014). Also, the projection of increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, and the pos-sible consequences of floods, droughts, and heat waves will affect the health and well-being of older adults mostly. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) first indicated the importance of reconsidering the impact of climate change in the context of an ageing world, and COP21 also urged direct responses to assist older and other at-risk groups in national-level climate change policies (UN, 2015a).

In the meantime, speedy urbanization has posed another challenge for policy makers tackling climate change related disasters. It is projected that by 2045 more than 7 billion people will be urban dwellers; according to the World Urbanization Prospects, the proportion will be higher in developing


countries (UN, 2015b). Also, over 80% of the world’s population aged over 60 will live in developing countries. As a result, overcrowded settlements will be more vulnerable in many aspects, including disaster-resilience, socio-economic conditions, food security, and extreme temperatures due to large amounts of grey infrastructure. In most studies, older people are considered as a more vulnerable group during disasters with a higher mortality risk and possible climate change victims nowadays (Rivera & Kapucu, 2016). Never-theless, recent studies are aware and suggesting that in some ageing commu-nities, older people in good health may contribute positively to enhancing community disaster resiliency (Cohen et al., 2016). The core concept of the Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFCC) program proposed by the WHO claims that we should obtain a positive value and turn over the negative image towards the ageing process and optimize opportunities for older people in terms of health, participation, and security in the case of disaster risk reduction (DRR). However, before healthy older residents can contribute to community DRR, it is important to acknowledge that further investigation is needed for clarifying the characteristics of ageing population cohorts in different communities and the latent disaster hazards and related disaster vulnerabilities in certain areas.

Ageing Society and Disaster Vulnerability

Disaster vulnerability is often defined as a certain objective that is placed at the center of a complex analysis of damage (Kusenbach & Christmann, 2013). In OECD Policy Brief No. 29, Dayton-Johnson stated that the differ-ence between hazards and disasters is whether or not they are natural events (2006). Disasters may be considered as the consequences of natural hazard events: life casualty, injury, and property damage. Vulnerability refers to the inability to anticipate and withstand certain hostile environmental situa-tions, and the levels of inability would be influenced by characteristics of an individual or a group (Wisner, 2004). In other words, certain factors, includ-ing individual characteristics, educational background, socioeconomic sta-tus, and so forth, might deteriorate the impacts of natural hazards and result in worse damages. Also, the inability could be worsened in some cases; for instance, at the city level, population growth can increase urbanization locating more of a population at possible flood-prone areas. Social diversity is identified as another socioeconomic factor for increasing the vulnerability of older people in disasters. Rivera and Kapucu (2016) indicated that the level of vulnerability and damage may be varied due to each individual’s social status, cultural context of perceptions, and educational background, which would give individuals different interpretations of disasters. For older adults, the impacts of disasters might be more distinct due to physical frailty and sometimes to lower adaptability to change.

According to Environmental Gerontology (EG), the balance of the interaction between people and their environment can be affected in two

Ageing and Disaster Resilient Communities 145

dimensions. One is the demand from individuals, where the environment may become unfriendly, along with changes in personal demands due to the process of ageing, thus causing individuals to try to improve the envi-ronment to meet their demands. The other is pressure from environmental changes. Individuals may feel stressed as the environment changes, which may indirectly effect what they need (Schneiderman, Ironson, & Siegel, 2005). Also, Lawton (1990) states that an individual’s ability to adapt to changes in the environment will decline with the ageing process, as older people might be more sensitive to the environmental changes (i.e. disasters within their communities) than younger residents.

With the ageing population quickly growing, there is more attention given to the issue of elderly people belonging to a high vulnerability group (Adams, Kaufman, Van Hattum & Moody, 2011; Cohen & Ahearn, 1980; Tierney & Baisden, 1977). Fernandez et al. (2002) further stated that the vulnerability of the elderly includes three aspects. First, mobility of the elderly decreases due to the degeneration of physical function or to the dete-rioration of health. Compared to healthy people, the ability of the elderly to respond to a disaster is much slower. The second aspect focused on the alertness of the elderly when trying to escape a disaster. Because the sensory functions of the elderly decline, they are not able to respond to disasters in time. Third, for elderly people the loss of social capital, social networks, and socioeconomic status cuts down their capability to recover.

Aside from high vulnerability during natural disaster events, FEMA (2012) regarded disaster harm as both physical and mental, and indicated that it could extend after the event in ‘Disaster Stress and Older Adults’. After a disaster, fear of independence rises from disabilities from the disaster, residence loss, the worries of limited finances being insufficient to rebuild a residence, and the sadness from the loss of friends and relatives. All of these traumas increase the difficulty of recovery. More recently, decreasing the financial stability of the elderly has become another altering vulnerability issue in terms of disaster recovery.

As the ageing population increases rapidly in the following decades, along with the severity of climate change, the traditional way of enhancing com-munity socioeconomic preparedness by allocating more rescue and medical resources will be much more difficult financially when the majority in com-munities is defined as being part of high-vulnerable groups. It is important to rethink the role of older individuals and to introduce new approaches to strengthen the disaster resilience of older populations from both individual and community perspectives.

The Need for Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction (CBDRR) to Facilitate Ageing-in-Place

Public participation is a frequently adapted empowerment tool in place-making cases at the community level. It is also well-acknowledged that the


more residents are involved in the public issues of a community, the better are the participatory outcomes of community development. In an ageing community, it is believed that ageing-in-place could be the core concept for sustaining the healthy status and socioeconomic connections of older peo-ple with the outer world (WHO, 2007). Wiles et al. indicated that ageing-in-place is related to a sense of identity both through independence and autonomy and through roles in the places people live (2012). When age-ing in the community they are familiar with, older people feel more secure mentally and physically. In fact, in some East Asian countries, ageing-in-place is a more favorable living choice for older people due to the rooted cultural background of filial piety, and they consider moving into a facility as a sign of exile (Chao & Huang, 2016). Hence, in terms of dealing with disaster risk, there will be a more efficient and emerging trend to develop an integral community-based DRR strategy that could facilitate the concept of ageing-in-place.

According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), DRR refers to a conceptual framework for considering elements that could minimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout a society to avoid or limit the adverse impacts of hazards (UNISDR, 2004). The DRR framework is proposed to compose five fields of action including risk aware-ness, knowledge development, public commitment and institutional frame-works, application of measures including environmental management, land use and urban planning, and early warning systems by ISDR (Figure 9.1). Land use planning and urban planning is one of the mitigation approaches involving a series of analyses and courses of action. In other words, many DRR-related planning policies have been proposed at the national level due to the nature of urban planning as a policy tool.

Past research suggests that DRR at the level of the community is integral to climate resilience, which also acts as an important supplement to the

Figure 9.1 The Disaster Risk Reduction Framework

Source: ISDR, United Nations, 2004.


government-led, top-down risk reduction framework (Mancini & Bowen, 2009). However, communities are the front line in a disaster situation. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has pointed out a crucial fact that, according to past disaster experiences in Japan, only 2% of the survivors in catastrophic disasters were rescued by the government disaster emer-gency system (Shimbun, 2016). In other words, most survivors rely on sup-port from family or community members. Community disaster resilience, hence, becomes more important with population ageing trend and climate change occurring at the same time. Community resilience reflects a commu-nity’s capacity to overcome changes and crises (Cohen et al., 2016). Gold-man et al. pointed out that information exchange and communication are the core elements for enhancing community disaster resilience (Goldman, Finkelstein, Schafer, & Pugh, 2014). Communication tools will depend on how well the communicator understands the community members’ back-grounds, individual characteristics, and socioeconomic statuses. However, there is still a lack of empirical evidence as to how the best local practices, through synthesizing a community’s own knowledge and expertise, can lead to the most effective risk reduction measures. It is unknown how various older people are distributed as to their different vulnerabilities to natural disasters.

Hence, one of the emerging challenges for ageing cities is to acknowledge the mental and physical characteristics of ageing cohorts under the threat of climate change and to conduct the necessary investigations at the com-munity level. While facing the fact that most older people are either unable to move long distances or reluctant to move away from their home during disaster events, it is important to acknowledge that many of them are fully able to take all the necessary measures to prepare for, survive, and recover from a disaster event. Also, some older residents are also actively involved in assisting, in various capacities, to help others in a time of need. There is evidence indicating that some older adults may be more psychologically resilient in disaster events than younger people (Acierno, Ruggerio, Kilpat-rick, Resnick, & Galea, 2006). Therefore, we believe that it is necessary to engage older residents in developing a more feasible CBDRR mechanism, so a resilient community could be established from both social and environ-mental perspectives thereof.

The CBDRR in Ageing Communities—The Key Issues and Local Experiences

Since older people have already been profoundly affected by the impacts of natural hazard events, to develop comprehensive and inclusive age-friendly cities and communities through urban planning processes that could address the well-being needs of ageing populations is highly encouraged. Many studies have also acknowledged the importance of DRR at the local level and grassroots approaches (UNISDR, 2006). A successful CBDRR would


highly depend upon the key elements of effective communication, cross-departmental collaboration, and local synergy. We, however, claim that there is an emerging trend to emphasize the necessity of empowering older residents in developing CBDRR in an ageing community. This chapter will review cases and research projects in several countries and identify the key issues for establishing CBDRR in ageing communities.

The New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) conducted a thorough sur-vey and published an important statement claiming that older people should be considered as problem solvers rather than problems to be solved with the proper empowerment technique (Goldman, Finkelstein, Schafer, & Pugh, 2014). The report also indicated the simple fact that an older population is multifaceted, diverse, and covers at least three decades of age ranges that should not be ignored. After Hurricane Sandy, New York City started to be aware of the need for taking immediate disaster preparation actions in age-ing communities before the next devastating natural or man-made hazard-ous event occurs. Several research findings from the report have supported the city government setting up an empowerment strategy for older people at the local level. First, a stable social network in the community for older individuals is extremely important during and after disasters for stronger mental resilience and better shelter-in-place outcomes. Second, most older people would rather decide to shelter-in-place due to their worries of pos-sible financial loss of evacuation and recovery. Many survivors have stated that it was the right decision not to leave their house during the hurricane because the uncertainty of evacuation would result in more psychological frailty. Third, the communication barrier of older people, especially older non-native speakers during and after disasters, is the key reason that makes older people more vulnerable. Therefore, to understand and differentiate various older people and their possible needs and contributions in the com-munity are essential for CBDRR.

Similarly, Durham University in the United Kingdom has proposed a ‘Built Infrastructure for Older People’s Care in Conditions of Climate Change’ project (BIOPICCC) from 2009 to 2012. The BIOPICCC project aims at establishing a supportive social and health-care infrastructure system for enhancing the disaster resilience of older people by 2050. The project also indicated that older residents and caregivers are equally important in devel-oping a successful CBDRR. Local older people’s perceptions and knowl-edge of disasters should be investigated as the basic dataset for designing a grassroots CBDRR (Oven et al., 2012). This project also echoes the idea of developing a local CBDRR program to facilitate an older people shelter-in-place scheme based on the active-ageing concept.

Responding to one of the goals of the Hyogo Declaration, Japan has been focusing on enhancing the disaster resilience of communities since the early 1990s. Japan is the first country to integrate the function of social infrastructure with disaster prevention strategies and designating elemen-tary schools as disaster shelters in Kobe (Matsuoka, 2012). From 2006, the


disaster prevention community strategy further took a proactive approach by allocating more community care service resources at community centers in order to facilitate a stronger social network between older individuals and public sectors. The initial target group comprised solitary elders who were believed to be the most vulnerable ones during disasters. Afterwards, they realized that in order to assist more elders with a subhealth status and medicine refilling cards, it is necessary to expand and include more pro-fessional welfare institutes in the CBDRR program. Hence, elder welfare institutes were designated by the city government as local disaster shelters for special needs or fragile, mostly older people under the Disaster Mitiga-tion Act. Welfare Evacuation Shelters (WES) refer to welfare facilities and other institutions that have signed agreements with municipal governments in preparation for a possible disaster. About 1,251 institutions have signed agreements to serve as WES since 2008 in Japan, and 61% are older welfare institutes (Yoshida, 2014). Also, because of this new mission for the older welfare institutions, urban planning and land use regulations also require additional disaster risk reviews for the location choice of such institutions. All WES should be located at relatively lower disaster risk areas. However, this policy was criticized as too passive and the institutions that signed WES agreements were not actually well-prepared. The latest 2016 Kumamoto earthquake in Japan revealed the fact that the government was ill-prepared for physically disadvantaged residents, as less than 2% of disabled people were rescued by the government in time under this catastrophic circum-stance (Peckitt, 2016). Many fragile people were disappointed with the WES system and were unable to receive quality care after the earthquake (Shim-bun, 2016). The failure to comprehend the context of fragile people and the weak communication between the communities and the WES could be the main reasons for the failure of the WES system in Japan.

Hong Kong became an ageing society in the 1980s, and according to the population projection in 2014, 27.4% of the total population will be aged 65 and over. As a highly urbanized area, Hong Kong started to take action by promoting age-friendly cities and communities since 2011 and has gained great attention and research resources on ageing community–related studies and policies (Woo, 2013). Also identified as a high disaster risk city by the Cambridge World Cities Risk Report 2015–2025, the Jockey Club Institute of Ageing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong has undertaken research incorporating spatial analysis of vulnerability for emergency pre-paredness. The Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) was one of the preliminary outcomes (Chau, Gusmano, Cheng, Cheung, & Woo, 2014). The SVI is an instrument, based on a retrievable dataset, to assess disaster vulnerability across various geographic and population levels. Chau et al. further indi-cate the SVI could identify socially isolated older persons who find hardship in using their neighborhood to meet various needs (2014). Seven domains are proposed to assess the neighborhood levels of vulnerability of the older people, including older population size, institutionalization, living alone,


poverty, communication obstacles, disability, and access to primary care, based on Gusmano et al.’s former research (Gusmano, Rodwin, & Cantor, 2006). An interesting finding of the investigation of the living environment and SVI in the Hong Kong administrative districts is lifestyle factors hav-ing direct effects on older people’s healthy and mortality conditions (Chau, Wong, & Woo, 2013). Hence, socioeconomically disadvantaged older peo-ple will encounter greater threats under natural hazards and man-made disasters. From a planning policy perspective, currently Hong Kong DRR practices stay at the ‘top-level design’ and lack community level knowledge and action integration. Also, according to the Hong Kong Planning Stand-ards and Guidelines, only several location factors, namely lower floors, easy accessibility to public transport, and lift availability, are regulated for welfare-related facilities (HKPD, 2014). There is no disaster risk considera-tion required for location choice of such facilities at the planning level so far in Hong Kong.

In summary, the preceding cases confirm the need for a more sophisticated CBDRR and point out several issues in programming CBDRR in ageing communities. How to possess older adults’ personal abilities, commitment, and unparalleled knowledge of their communities accurately would be a key task. Hence, from planning perspective, two immediate changes should be undertaken. First, there is a need for a more integral regulatory support for planning a disaster resilient ageing community. Regulations and design guidelines for welfare-related facility locations should integrate disaster risk information at community the scale instead of individual building scale. Second, the participatory planning approach has to start with investigating the perception of local elders towards disasters and DRR approaches and to identify further the knowledge gaps between the stakeholders indicated by Gaillard and Mercer at the risk assessment, communication, and action stages (Gaillard & Mercer, 2012). To deliver an effective CBDRR facilitat-ing shelter-in-place for older people, it is important to acknowledge that older people could actively support their communities before, during, and after disaster events if the right approach is adopted. It is our belief that a grassroots approach is extremely essential for CBDRR in ageing communi-ties, and without older people’s involvement, the CBDRR will be in vain after all.

Case Study: How to Enhance Disaster Resilience by Lowering the Social Vulnerability of Ageing Communities

CBDRR Policy Background in Taiwan

In Taiwan, the Disaster Prevention and Relief Basic Plan (DPRBP) also fol-lows the four aspects of the disaster management cycle: prevention and miti-gation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Top-down correlating reviews and changes of land use planning and infrastructure developments have


been made accordingly. Such a disaster prevention and mitigation program has been proven effective, since Taiwan as a whole has indeed become more resilient in the past decade. Nevertheless, at the local level from 1999, Taiwan started to establish a disaster-prevention community program by following the eight-step operation1 by the National Center for Disaster Prevention and Rescue (NCDR). A comprehensive framework was laid out, as displayed in Figure 9.2. After 17 years of promotion, and according to the latest data, only 6% of the communities in Taiwan have successfully promoted disaster-prevention community programs, and the amount began decreasing in 2015 (Figure 9.3). Research has pointed out the main obstacles of lacking in-depth participatory planning and underestimating the importance of local cultural and social characteristics (Liu & Chen, 2015). It is obvious that a top-down approach to delivering disaster-prevention community programs and introducing outside expert teams to assist the community might create more gaps between knowledge, actions, and communication, resulting in the failure of local DRR promotion (Gaillard & Mercer, 2012).

Due to the rapid ageing phenomenon in Taiwan, frequent disasters fur-ther pose significant challenges to older adults. Damages caused during and following disasters, including the disruption of medical services, trans-portation services, health care, social support services, and so forth, upon which older people rely most have serious impacts on older adults’ daily life. Hence, the DPRBP in Taiwan formally regards the elderly as a dis-advantaged group and considers them as the priority cohort when giving assistance during and after a disaster event. The plan also indicates the Min-istry of Interior, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and local governments should promote preparedness for disadvantaged groups, offering hospitals, various social welfare institutions, and other places to shelter the elderly as a disaster contingency plan. However, according to past disaster experiences,

Figure 9.2 The Partnership of CBDRM Implementation

Source: NCDRTaiwan, http://ncdr.nat.gov.tw/Promotion_Content.aspx?WebSiteID=873f5b27- b86d-4d5c-a356-c369768bffe9&id=190&subid=207&ltemID=10

http://ncdr.nat.gov.tw/Promotion_Content.aspx?WebSiteID=873f5b27-b86d-4d5c-a356-c369768bffe9&id=190&subid=207&ltemID=10

http://ncdr.nat.gov.tw/Promotion_Content.aspx?WebSiteID=873f5b27-b86d-4d5c-a356-c369768bffe9&id=190&subid=207&ltemID=10


rescue forces usually could not reach most rural communities soon after a disaster occurred due to disconnected communication and destroyed routes. Clearly, actions and efforts to increase individual preparedness among older people through the expert-oriented program and the stockpiling of supplies have been repeatedly undertaken but have not improved the overall out-comes for older people following subsequent disasters. As Shaw et al. have indicated, government involvement may somehow reduce the resilience of certain groups and create the illusion of security (Shaw, Scully, & Hart, 2014).

Field Survey Method

Thus, the real issue should not be the disaster preparedness of the public sector for the elderly but of the possible victims themselves. Duggan et al.

Figure 9.3 Spatial Distribution of Disaster Prevention Community Program


conducted interviews with older people from different older groups in Sri Lanka and the United States regarding their perceptions of disaster pre-paredness (2010). Survey results indicate that cultural background and disaster experience will influence older people’s perception towards differ-ent phases of a disaster event. A recent study in South Korea assessing the disaster preparedness of older people, through focus group interviews in both urban and rural settings, identified the urgent need for disaster pre-paredness enhancement for older people. They also found that although older people may have weaker physical abilities, they are stronger mentally in a disaster than younger people (Yoo, Lee, & Tullmann, 2015). Both of the preceding studies used qualitative methods, and with small samples of no more than 20 older participants, they could only provide some limited information regarding the disaster perception of older people. Hence, from 2015–2016, the NCKU ageing and disaster research team took on a series of studies to explore the possible factors of older people’s disaster prepared-ness from social vulnerability and social resilience perspectives. We assumed that before we can include seniors in CBDRR, as Sendai Framework stated,2 we have to know the context of the local seniors, which would vary from community to community. Adopting a similar theoretical perspective as Shaw et al. (2014), we conducted questionnaire survey in communities fac-ing both challenges of multi-disasters and population ageing in Taiwan. We mapped the disaster risk and older population distribution in Taiwan. One rural super-aged community, Pao-Li village in Ping-Tung County (23% of population aged over 65 years), and one urban aged community (18% of population aged over 65 years), Chien-Kuo community at Tainan City, were selected as survey study areas (Figure 9.4). Pao-Li village is under the threat of earthquakes, typhoons, and flooding. Jianguo community is located in Yung-Kang District, the most populated district in Tainan City, and it faces the major threats of earthquakes, land liquefaction, and flooding. The latest earthquake occurred on February 6, 2016, and caused the deaths of over 150 people in Yung-Kang District.

The design of the survey aims to explore how the risk perception and self-perception of older people influence their social vulnerability and resilience. Our data collection originated in 8 weeks focusing on local residents aged over 65 years. In total, 200 respondents contributed to the survey, 100 from each community.3 Survey participants were identified through a snowball method (Heckathorn, 2007). Over 65% of the respondents were long-term residents of their community. As previous studies mentioned, our survey expected to confirm that older people were not a homogenous group with a singular description, and that individual and environmental factors could be influential to the disaster resilience of older individuals (Hakim, 1987; Shaw et al., 2014). In the case of an ageing society, social vulnerability and social resilience could form a complicated interactive relationship. Our question-naire was designed in three parts: disaster experience and risk information, self-need perception and disaster preparedness perception, and expectations

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for future CBDRR strategies. Personal information includes factors of age, educational level, cultural groups, and occupation, in accordance with lit-erature reviews.

Survey Findings

The influence of ageing is very significant on household types in both study communities. Over 50% of respondents are single households or are living with a spouse only. It indicates a drastic change from the traditional three-generation household type in Taiwan. This also reveals the worry over the lack of young labor forces in ageing communities during everyday life or disaster events. The survey findings can be summarized into three sections: negative disaster resilience and low risk awareness, strong self-resilience and hidden social vulnerability, and policy perception gap.

Negative Disaster Resilience and Low Risk Awareness

In general, the majority of respondents gained their knowledge from past disaster experiences instead of government information pamphlet. Although under at least three types of disaster risk threats and some even encountered actual disaster events in the past, 15% of respond-ents stated never having encountered a disaster event. For Jianguo community, even with the fresh memory of the devastating Kaohsiung earthquake in 2016, still over 50% of respondents admitted to never or seldom paying attention to disaster risk information. The common tendency discovered by the survey was that the majority of older adults tend to normalize disasters and consider property or crop damages from natural disasters as an inevitable routine. Both communities have practiced disaster-prevention programs with clear, well-established local evacuation plans and designated community shelters. However, over 73% of respondents report that they do not know the shelters exist.

Moreover, whether urban or rural, most elderly respondents in both target communities not only have very little knowledge of disaster risk reduction but they also lack the interest to learn such information (Chao & Wong, 2016). Clearly, respondents from both communities share similar low disaster risk awareness. High disaster frequency might be the explanation for this, which results in very low awareness to the possible consequences. Older people tend to pay less attention to disaster risk information and emphasize that they have seen it all. This negligent attitude could pose an even greater danger to them during future disasters.

Strong Self-Resilience and Hidden Social Vulnerability

From the survey results, most of the respondents (80%) consider their health condition as above average. So, we adopted the Barthel ADL Index


in the survey to further examine the respondents’ actual physical functions (Mahoney & Barthel, 1965). The results confirmed their self-reported health condition, and over 77% of respondents in both communities (p-value = 0.996; > 0.05) scored very high. It represents the actual poten-tial of older people’s active role in a disaster event. In the meantime, they are also aware of the shortage of young people and the main manpower resources in their communities will be the elderly in the future. Also, over 65% of respondents of both communities stated that they do not need any help during disaster events, and only 35% of Pao-Li respondents expressed the need for help during disasters. Thus, both communities pre-sent a good form of self-resilience.

However, there are also some hidden social vulnerabilities within each community. For instance, personal background information, such as educational level and occupation, were confirmed in this survey as significant factors for disaster self-resilience. Since 49% of respondents in Pao-Li village are illiterate, any written disaster risk information or forecast is useless for them. Hence, older adults are not interested in attending any DRR training courses because such courses will remind them of their inability and lower their self-esteem. This could be the explanation for 35% of subhealthy older respondents still thinking they will need help even with good physical functions. Moreover, 72% of Pao-Li respondents and 92% of Jianguo respondents stated they are retirees. Most retired respondents from Pao-Li village still work on their family farms, while none of the retired respondents of Jianguo community maintained any working status. For most residents in Jian-guo community, secondary and service industries are usually their main occupations. Without a daily working habit, older retirees in urban communities could encounter quicker degradation in physical and men-tal conditions. Also, due to their differing occupations, older people in different communities could suffer from a variety of chronic diseases. Survey results confirm that over 60% of Pao-Li respondents are suf-fering from arthritis, while over 40% Jianguo residents have diabetes and hypertension. Due to the limitation of our research method, this survey could only investigate subhealthy older people and could not reach institutionalized older residents. Hence, the distinctive health conditions of all older residents in the community would contribute to the hidden social vulnerability under disaster circumstances. Even with limited respondents, over 27% of respondents emphasized the need for shelter-in-place. This is also the strong evidence for the need of a tailor-made CBDRR at the local level.

Policy Perception Gap

It is not surprising to find out that older respondents prefer to be reliant on the government under a disaster circumstance. It is quite ironic that


although the majority of respondents pay very little attention to exist-ing DRR programs and disaster risk information, they still express their belief in the government’s ability during a disaster rescue. Aside from some worries of medical resource shortages from Pao-Li respondents, due to the nature of remote villages, most respondents are convinced that the government will be their rescuer if needed.

As study communities have been practicing disaster-prevention com-munity programs for over 10 years with continuous disaster preven-tion training at the local level, both Pao-Li and Jianguo communities are considered to have better disaster preparedness from public sectors. Disaster preparedness in this part would include government means adopted before and during disaster events. According to the survey results, a similar finding in both communities is around 87%–93% of respondents do not know anything about disaster-prevention commu-nity programs initiated by the public sector in the past decade. This confirms the huge gap between the policy makers and recipients. There is also a policy perception gap between communities with and without disaster experiences. In Jianguo community, 56% of respondents state the urgent need for CBDRR despite the existence of a disaster-preven-tion program. On the contrary, over 72% of respondents from Pao-Li village, where they have not encountered serious disasters before, con-sider there is no need for CBDRR. Moreover, only 4% of respondents in Jianguo community have purchased disaster insurance, and none of the people in Pao-Li village have purchased any kind of disaster insurance. It can be said that older residents more easily underestimate the neces-sity of disaster countermeasures. Community older adults do not find the existing disaster-prevention program connecting with them since they were never consulted. Accordingly, genuine community engage-ment for CBDRR is difficult to achieve, since the existing policy frame-work is highly reliant on agencies, instead of involving the older people themselves to deliver what is good for an age-friendly neighborhood. We also found that respondents would rather shelter-in-place at their own homes than evacuate to appointed shelters in communities.

To conclude, based on our three major survey findings, we have further extended the Turner (2010) and Shaw (2014) research results of integrating social vulnerability and resilience as the context of ageing disaster resilience. Social vulnerability and social resilience are two sides of one coin. Especially in the ageing society, in our context, negative resilience could occur when illusions of good disaster preparedness exist within both individual and government perspectives. Older adults could overstate their own resilience based on their self-rated health status and past disaster experience. Local government could be overconfident with their sophisticated, well-planned disaster-prevention programs, which is exactly the key reason for the failure of the disaster-prevention community program in Taiwan. The older cohort


was never part of the plan at any stage. Hence, we strongly advise that older people should be considered as the soul of a successful CBRDD. Their role should range from involvement to empowerment. The Figure 9.5 illustrates the ideal CBDRR for any, and especially an ageing community.

An Effective CBDRR Approach for an Ageing Population: Paradigm Shift From Passive to Active Disaster Perception

In the previous parts of this chapter, we have pointed out issues that arise when applying a CBDRR framework in ageing communities, and we explored the insights of failure from the current disaster-prevention community program in Taiwan. As Figure 9.5 illustrates, stakeholders which only include the public sector, professional teams, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local leaders would not be enough in an ageing society.

Hence, we propose the need for a paradigm shift in disaster risk reduc-tion from two perspectives: the CBDRR planning stage and active stake-holders. First of all, at the planning stage, to make CBDRR more effective, planners should undertake a more comprehensive analysis of community assets first and then take older people’s physical limitations into account. By integrating a multiple-nuclei concept with environmental gerontology dur-ing CBDRR planning, the design of multiple DRR nodes should be based on older people’s actual mobility (Harris & Ullman, 1945). Instead of only designating one shelter for evacuation, active CBDRR should utilize all care resources, including welfare facilities, and cooperate with older people’s life-styles and social networks to designate numerous shelters to meet the needs of shelter-in-place.

Second, we propose that the priority for effective CBDRR is to re-emphasize the role of older people in the CBDRR framework. Due to their deterio-rating memory, older adults would be more likely to remember a CBDRR

Figure 9.5 CBDRR Framework for Ageing Communities


strategy if they were deeply involved at every stage. Hence, we emphasize that the majority of older people should be involved from the very beginning of disaster management. CBDRR should be part of their daily life, not just some government announcements once in a while. The participatory disas-ter risk assessment (PDRA) aims to increase older people’s understanding of their vulnerabilities and capacities in order to develop positive approaches to improve their situation by themselves. Also, it is important to integrate active ageing with CBDRR. Based on their physical, mental and socioeco-nomic status, older people in the community could play different proactive roles at different stages of CBDRR. Thus, a ‘Three-E’ model is proposed to deliver active-CBDRR in ageing communities:

▪ Enhance the involvement of seniors in disaster management: According to the World Disaster Reduction Campaign 2006-2007, the first essen-tial steps of community-based disaster risk reduction include awareness of potential causal factors of disasters (UN, 2006). Through increasing older people’s disaster risk awareness of both themselves and environ-mental hazard risks, we could transform potential social vulnerability to resilience.

▪ Empower seniors to further understand their ability: According to the population projection and survey findings, it is important to acknowl-edge that even with different health statuses, older people can be more disaster-resilient mentally and, sometimes, physically. Empowering sen-iors to understand their ability and take active actions for disaster pre-paredness will be the most effective disaster risk reduction approach.

▪ Enable seniors to extend their social networks: As solitary ageing households are increasing, older people’s social networks would form a very crucial supportive role for mental resilience. Under disaster cir-cumstances, older people would reply on their strong social networks to help each other and enhance their survival chances.

Conclusion: An Inside-Out CBDRR Model

This chapter reviewed the double challenge human settlements facing in the 21st century—climate change and population ageing—and it explored the immediate need for the innovative actions of CBDRR. Clearly, as ageing is an inevitable trend, traditional disaster-prevention community programs would fall far short in responding to an older cohort’s characteristics and vulnerability. We believe vulnerability and resilience constitute different but overlapping concepts, especially for an ageing society. Older people in our society have a diverse range of lifestyles. They are a group of people with an age range of 40 years and differing health conditions, education levels, and socioeconomic statuses. After a series of case studies and questionnaire surveys, we have confirmed that older people usually have distinct disas-ter perceptions; and due to the ageing process and physical degradation,


they have limited mobility and consider shelter-in-place as the best surviv-ing option. Hence, we suggest to integrate the active-ageing concept with CBDRR pomotion in ageing communities. The components of CBDRR should include three-dimensional preparedness, as Figure 9.6 illustrates. A grassroots approach is necessary due to the fundamental difference of older people from community to community. Professional planners and designers need to see the changing ageing structure as an opportunity to develop a more inclusive and socially resilient CBDRR, rather than viewing it as an obstacle. Acting as facilitator and coordinator rather than director in the planning process, experts can help older people bounding with each other and bridging to further establish inside-out CBDRR in ageing com-munities. Only when older residents’ involvement has become enhanced, empowered, and enabled will a CBDRR program be effective in reality. To this end, our efforts in disaster prevention planning must enable our seniors to lead fulfilling and resilient lives in a safe environment in the future.

Notes1 The eight steps of disaster prevention includes preparation, environmental risk

investigation, issues and strategies discussion, establishment of community organ-ization, community disaster prevention action plan, community communication, responsive practice, and execution.

2 The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. Guiding Princi-ple 36(a)(iv) of the Framework underlined the importance of the involvement of seniors in disaster management: ‘Older persons have years of knowledge, skills

Figure 9.6 Three-Dimensional Preparedness of CBDRR in Ageing Society


and wisdom, which are invaluable assets to reduce disaster risk, and they should be included in the design of policies, plans and mechanisms, including for early warning’.

3 According to the population census, by 2015, 330 older people aged over 65 reside in Pao-Li Village and 344 reside in Jianguo Community.

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Yoo, M., Lee, M., & Tullmann, D. (2015). Perceptions of disaster preparedness among older people in South Korea. International Journal of Older People Nurs-ing, 11(1), 18–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/opn.12084

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Tzu-Yuan Stessa ChaoTowards the Silver 21st Century

10 Towards the Silver 21st CenturyA Conclusion

This book is a series of discussions on how modern planning and design principles can act as a positive force for the future urban challenges in the ageing world in the 21st century. The core mission of this book is very sim-ple: to extend the existing dialogues between human well-being and urban planning and propose the possible integral planning and design thinking in the need of cross-departmental collaboration highly emphasized in recent city and community well-being studies (Barton, 2016). As mentioned in the chapters of this book, planning and design for modern cities will encounter increasing challenges that have rarely or never been faced before in theory or practice. What is even more challenging is that such challenges are like puz-zles having chain reactions with one other. Climate change would increase the possibility of disaster occurrence and have severe impacts on urban infrastructures as well as living quality of older urban dwellers, for instance. Nevertheless, while modern planning tools have been more concerned with finding the balance between the natural environment and market-oriented urban developments, the potential impacts of drastic demographic structure change occurring at the same time and how should built environment inter-act with the ageing population are easily underestimated.

As an echo to the need for urban planning professions to get back to the basic and essential elements of urban life, people, and place, the structure of the book follows the path of how planners and designers used to work on delivering city of well-being from place-making perspective at different time period and further focus on exploring the retro yet new perspective for mak-ing an age-friendly environment. It is our belief that in the world of the age-ing population as the majority group, there are changes and issues inevitably surging very quickly beyond our knowledge gained from rules of thumb. Planners will be planning for a group that was never considered as the main user in the history of planning, and planning literature review confirmed that we know very little about the spatial demands of older adults except at micro scale design-oriented domains. Some instruments and tools used to work for place-making in the past will not be applicable accordingly. We as urban planners will need to seek for answers and new approaches to ensure the livability of cities under this ageing trend. One thing for sure, population

Towards the Silver 21st Century 165

ageing is a demographic phenomenon and it will have very different inter-pretations in different urban and societal contexts. The great divide of how society considers older adults in the East and West is also worth taking into account. Hence, in this book we also point out in pursuing the creation of a so-called ‘friendly’ places for older people to actively age and live; urban planning and design researchers and practitioners have to understand them first and take other considerations into account, namely equality between generations, economic prosperity, and resilient communities. Therefore, how to act more proactively and search for a win-win planning approach for both place-making and people-making for all human beings who age simultane-ously at the same pace.

Recapitulation

In this book, we started with revisiting the origin of urban planning and design professionals and discussed why this origin should be re-emphasized right now. We approached the age-friendly city concept from the most fre-quently discussed planning topics including urban forms, urban infrastruc-tures, urban cultural norms, land use control, housing, mobility, walkability, public empowerment, and disaster risk reductions. Each chapter obtains related theoretical ground of urban planning and extended discussions of the possible issues in an ageing society. International cases and local empiri-cal studies in East Asia mostly Taiwan are adopted in each chapter to further insightful discovery in the specific planning topics and give a broader view of how similar things are elaborated in the different cities. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are applied in the empirical studies. In addition, a total of 10 chapters included in the book can be divided into two parts. The first part addresses the global issues of ageing and associations between urban planning and well-being with consideration of factors such as time and scale to place-making, which are mostly underestimated in the current AFC projects. The second part of the book approaches the AFC issues of domains emphasized by the WHO from planners’ perspective first and further inte-grates knowledge from other disciplines including environmental gerontol-ogy, psychology, and behaviour studies to explore the possible interrelations between older individuals and built environment. As mentioned earlier, we planners, usually at a young age, have very little knowledge or imagination of older adults and their life; therefore, cross-disciplinary collaborations are very necessary to obtain critical knowledge. It can be considered as the new approach of making places by understanding people within first.

Chapter 1 lays the foundation for the book by reviewing the trend of population ageing and the movement of Age-Friendly Cities (AFC). Also, in this chapter, we have advocated the necessity of the need for urban plan-ners’ and designers’ greater recognition in order to make the AFC move-ment work as the supportive environmental settings should be delivered under a systematic approach.

166 Towards the Silver 21st Century

In Chapter 2, we identify current and perspective obstacles for assist-ing the ageing population living actively in the modern cities. The three most relevant components of urban planning—urban form and land use, urban infrastructures, and cultural norms—are discussed to start a dialogue between traditional planning and the possible needed changes in the ageing society. Also, we expected to raise the awareness of the ‘time’ factor that could have essential influences on both people and built environment and further have impacts on the spatial distribution of older dwellers in a city. Spatial Autocorrelation Analysis (SAA) was adopted in the empirical study of Tainan to confirm that older people do have strong attachments with older parts of the city. By proposing four types of combinations of the age of the city and population ageing speed, we suggest more sophisticated AFC urban strategies should be applied accordingly.

Chapter 3 focuses on observing the transformation of the major target demographic group of urban planning through time. Although there are still disputes over to what extent and in what way the physical environment actually impacts on urban dwellers, the undeniable benefits of good place-making for people’s well-being remains. Hence, by collecting and reviewing latest research, this chapter provides an overarching foundation for future research developments. In the second part of the chapter, we consider it important to discuss the delivery of AFC from the urban governance per-spective according to spatial scales. Starting from the national policy mak-ing stage, we compared national urban policies in different countries and each country may react to demographic ageing patterns differently accord-ing to its status. At the regional level, according to experiences of Canada and many geographically expended countries, regional planning shall be responsible for identifying issues for older people’s living in rural areas and acting on that. As for the city level, urban planning should follow the instructions of urban policies at a higher level and deliver ageing-well places by amending existing urban planning techniques. At the micro-level of the community plan, according to our empirical studies, considering the limited budget at the local level, urban design tools can be more efficient applied if we can help to prioritize the implementations according to local older dwell-ers’ physical abilities based on investigation results of the gerontological evaluation index. Lastly, we urge the need for preventive urban planning in an ageing society.

Chapter 4 extends the theoretical discussions of spatial scales in Chap-ter 3 and provides a series of international comparative case studies to dem-onstrate recent AFC movements in selected cases and how urban planning practices react on ageing issues at different spatial levels. Case cities include New York City in the US, Canberra in Australia, Seoul in South Korea, and Newcastle upon Tyne in England. City vision plans and detailed plans are all reviewed. The result of case studies confirms three points. First, in terms of delivering a successful AFC project, the city-level comprehensive master plan plays a crucial role. Second, strategic citywide plans play the


leading role in determining a city’s desired future development path from a broader sense, while they also serve as reference or guidance for smaller-scale detailed plans at lower administrative levels. Third, it is important for planners to acknowledge that successful cases cannot be copied. They have to be based on the unique characteristics of the locality, especially in an age-ing society.

Chapter 5 provides another interesting case in Hong Kong and approaches older people’s urban living issues from a bottom-up perspective. As an echo of the previous chapters, Sun et al. support the importance of acknowledg-ing older people’s real experience in urban living. A place audit approach is conducted in one administrative district in Hong Kong, Tai Po. The mixed-method research methodology includes a questionnaire survey, in-person interviews, and focus group interviews involving 283 local older residents. The survey results indicate that older dwellers are generally more satisfied with the quality of the physical environment, mostly public infrastructures, but less happy with the soft environments such as civic participation and community support and health services. This is highly related to the passive role that older Hong Kongers used to play as in other East Asia countries. Hence, for future urban policy and AFC strategies in Hong Kong, emphasis on people-making will be rather more important than place-making.

Chapter 6 explores one of the most concerning topic for older adults to live an active life: mobility. The first part of the chapter reviews the cur-rent literature from transport planning and older travelers’ behaviour study aspects. One important finding is we realized there has been a tendency to overspend on highway construction in most countries, while older adults would use such transport mode less when they get older. Public sectors have a responsibility to manage budgets in an appropriate and efficient man-ner in order to avoid misleading the transport system that prioritized the automobile over other modes. For AFC transport planning, planners are responsible for lowering the physical barriers of all travel modes as well as providing sufficient mobility options. The second part of the chapter focuses on AFC public transportation planning; a national research was conducted for 1,600 respondents aged 55+ to apprehend the demand and satisfaction with the public transport system in Taiwan. A multiple regression analy-sis and Box-Cox transformation were adopted as analytical methods. The survey results suggest that both service and physical design of the public transit system are important to respondents, but the efforts to improve the public transportation system will not gain much appreciation or more rider-ship since scooters are the main transport modes for the majority of older adults in Taiwan. Hence, future planning should pay more attention to the improvement of scooter riders’ safety and convenience.

Chapter 7 continues the discussion in Chapter 6, mobility of older adults, and further focuses on the walkability issues to respond to the widely rec-ognitions of great benefits of walking for older adults’ physical conditions and the fact that walkability has been long underestimated in the urban


planning practices. The reason that the importance of walkability is even more emphasized in an ageing society is it is the key indicator to evaluate the friendliness of a city or a community and it is the frontline of active-ageing living. In this chapter, aside from discussing good walkability planning and design tools, we further argue that local older adults’ walking behaviour needs more investigations before deciding where and how to improve physi-cal environment to make sure that older people can take the walk. Differ-ent urban form and older dwellers’ personal characteristics can result in various walking behaviours among different communities. A local survey conducted with 335 older adults in two communities in Tainan with the dif-ferent urban form to explore the possible differences on walking behaviour, walking frequency, and satisfactory level towards environmental attributes. Some results confirm with research findings in Osaka, Japan, and England indicating older people’s walking behaviour has a significant association with the community contexts including urban form and cultural norms. Also, in order to simulate older people to walk more, it is important to consider allocating their destinations such as park or community center at an appropriate periphery.

Chapter 8 connects with Chapter 5 and further explores how to make the AFC projects more socially sustainable. Higher involvement of older peo-ple in AFC projects is strongly advocated by the WHO. Building up from the Arnstein’s empowerment theory, we argue that it is not enough to just ‘know’ older adults’ demands towards eight domains of AFC framework and respond to them. We need to have older adults play a more active role in leading the whole project by themselves with various professional help. For older people to take the leading role, it requires the mutual understand-ing within the society as well as individual awareness and self-recognition of older adults. Hence, cultural distinctions between the East and the West have never been so obvious on this matter. We undertook literature reviews of empowerment theory and identified the possible gaps to implement real empowerments in the social context of East Asia. An empirical survey study was conducted to examine the empowerment level of an award-winning ageing community in Taiwan famous for its well-functioning self-led com-munity development experiences. Nine hundred sixty-eight respondents, almost 95% of the total ageing population in the community, participated in the survey and were interviewed. The survey result indicates that in this case, older dwellers are better team players than leaders. The community leader, who happened to be aged over 65, is usually the sole decision-maker and older dwellers executed his decision based on trust and community synergy, not personal demands. Having said that, as they have successfully accomplished many tasks together, such power structure and decision-making process in the community will face the risk once the community leader no longer serves the community in the future.

Chapter 9 steps into the turf of another emerging global challenge, cli-mate change, and its possible impacts on the ageing population. With the


increased chances for large-scale disasters, it is no doubt that older adults will have the higher vulnerability to the disastrous events. Through litera-ture and cases review, we have confirmed that it will double the challenge for emergency services when disasters meet an ageing society. In terms of planning for disaster mitigation, it will be the most effective at the com-munity level where is usually at the frontline of rescue actions. Hence, we support the need for community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) ini-tiated by the United Nation by 2004 and further undertook local research in Taiwan and Hong Kong to gain a better understanding of how can it work in an ageing society. As far as individual vulnerability is concerned, it is our awareness that ageing communities will have greater social vulner-ability due to lower education level or socioeconomic status as well as lower alerts to the disaster information. A local survey with 200 survey respond-ents aged over 65 was conducted in two super-aged community located at higher natural disaster risk areas with at least three types of disaster risks, one in an urban area and one in the rural area. The survey explores how the risk perception and self-perception of older people influence their social vulnerability and resilience ability. The survey result confirmed respond-ents from both communities share similar low disaster risk awareness but both in good form of self-resilience. However, older adults in rural com-munities may have more disadvantages towards establishing much-needed CBDRR due to their individual characteristics such as illiteracy. Hence, we suggest that in terms of the establishment of CBDRR, ageing communi-ties will require more sophisticated plan and greater involvements of older adults from the beginning that could better assist them to shelter-in-place that could increase their survival rate efficiently.

The Need for More Integral Research Methodology

As urban planning has been considered as a comprehensive social science requiring knowledge of different disciplines from time to time, it is still lim-ited when it comes to research method applications. Especially at the time of this new millennium, urban planning is expected to take a more evidence-based ground in making spatial and institutional plan and design to tackle new challenges. For decades, planning has expended its studies and practice to intertwine with engineering and design roots and incorporate the nature of social science to seek the most convincing explanations of certain issues and the most accurate predictions to the future development tendency. Still, just as Webster argued, in the search for more accurate research methods, many planning research methods have been under the dominance of social science paradigm (i.e., economic theories) and seek for answers for greater common good, and ignore the importance of methodological individualism (Webster, 2015).

Thus, urban planning right now stands at a turning point in the history of planning that many new urban challenges may take place beyond our


scientific analysis and projections. When the whole context of the built envi-ronment has faced drastic transformations resulting from ever-increasing density, speedy urbanization, different land use typology, an environmental challenges due to climate change and of course population ageing trend, contemporary urban planners will not have the luxury as forerunning plan-ners (i.e., Ebenezer Howard), taking the idealism path to make the utopia that might never work in reality. Also, over a century of planning practice, urban tasks are much more complicated and polarized in scale than before, and the need to adjust the way we used to plan and design is urgent. To this end, adopting new methods from other individual-oriented research disci-pline would be a more timely approach.

During the journey of putting this monograph together and reviewing related field studies, the fact that most urban planners and designers lack understandings of how well urban dwellers have been living their life in the built environment we created has occurred contently and posed a serious sign to me. Without obtaining supporting evidence from behav-ioural studies or demand investigations, planners will have difficulties to know if a plan is good for well-being or not and further revise the plan properly. It is also the catalyst for the recent advocacies of healthy cities movement as well as age-friendly cities. In contrast to the healthy cities movement, AFC tends to focus more on the special population cohort. In this case, the planning academia has to take the responsibility to fill the knowledge deficits of such target groups and explore interlinkages between the spatial configuration and people activities. Efforts have been made and started to have valuable research findings. For instance, in 2013, planning scholars at Cardiff University in England have devel-oped a comprehensive evaluation model sDNA (spatial Design Network Analysis) to measure the long debatable issue of how environmental fac-tors actually have the influence on health outcomes (Sarkar, Webster, & Gallacher, 2014). Such a model has begun to involve health factors with environmental factors in the index. Another example of integrating spa-tial analysis methods to identify locational factors in transferable diseases studies has a long history and recently evolved to further studying social economic factors. In addition, in the second part of this book, we intend to approach the multidimension issues involving older people’s physi-cal conditions and behaviour psychology by applying research methods of geriatrics or behaviour studies in our empirical studies. As expected, although the research methods adopted may need to be sophisticated, research results actually provide us solid information from users’ per-spective objectively. It also gives us more options when practicing par-ticipatory planning. To sum up, we believe that in future place-making studies and practice in an ageing society, the adoption of integral methods and the sharable database will play a key role to enhance the effectiveness of planning and design professionals.


Make Greying Cities Into Silver Cities—From Urban Planning to Urban Governance

As Ng urged, there is an immediate need for urban planners to retrofit our cities to embrace people-making and place-making urbanism. In the era of ageing societies, people-making seems to be even more importance (2016). As far as people-making is concerned, if we take a broader view of this pop-ulation ageing trend in the forthcoming decades, it could be an era for us to redefine our life cycle and ask how urban dwellers can make the best of their lives in the city. Surely there will be many worrisome concerns regarding the potential shortfall of the young labor force, as we still need our city to be the driving machine of the economy. However, with the ever-extending life expectancy worldwide, the emerging options for the possibility of lifelong working and the silver economy for the retiree to restart their career after age 65 is actually under discussion in many super-aged societies. Further-more, with the progress of other emerging innovative planning topics such as smart city and big data planning becoming mature in the near future, a more convenient and accessible urban living, real world, or cyberspace, for older adults to continue contributing to the economic prosperity if they are willing to be expectable. To this end, making a place to support older people carry on their active lifestyle, working or not, will be the most rational task for planners in the next generation.

In an era of the ageing world, it is indeed the best of times and it is also the worst of times for urban planners to rethinking our professional purpose and make it become the age of wisdom to tackle the challenges smartly. It is delightful to see the world’s very first Wellbeing for Future Generation (Wales) Act 2015 enacted as a formal announcement to stop the degra-dations of our living environment and to react on making the sustainable future for people and communities officially (Welsh Government, 2016). In the future, old can be so new and grey can turn into silver only if we know how to make things work. To this end, there are still a lot of research agenda requiring future efforts from both planning and other disciplines academics to explore the unknown knowledge gaps between the physical environment and older people from micro to macro level. For instance, the triad relation-ships between place quality, place attachments, and older people’s personal perceptions will be one of the agendas to explore at the micro level. The dif-ferences between young old and old old in terms of what constitute good life and influential factors for it is another interesting but much-needed study topic to conduct research in the future at the individual level. Also, to sur-vey what is the healthiest scale of living space for older people in terms of designing housing in an ageing society will allow planners and public health policy makers to work together in making a compact but healthy city at the macro level. According to the United Nations (UN) recent publication Inter-national Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning, urban planning is


going to be more than a technique tool but an integrative and participatory decision-making process that addresses competing interests and linkage to a shared vision for the future (2015). The shared vision for the future will be delivering well-being in an ageing world.

Finally, we would like to urge that in an ageing society, planners should not only bring people back to the heart of planning but also start to have more compassion for people, especially older people, instead of only seeking knowledge through mathematical models. Knowledge without care or love would be dangerous, and urban life we create without love is meaningless. This book acts as the first book, discussing ageing challanges from an urban planning and design perspective and provides a different perspective for my respected fellow planners to rethink what the future urban areas should offer to their main dwellers and how we get to make it happen.

References


Ng, M. K. (2016). The right to healthy place-making and well-being. Planning The-ory & Practice, 17(1), 3–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2016.1139227

Sarkar, C., Webster, C., & Gallacher, J. (2014). Healthy cities—public health through urban planning. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

UN-Habitat. (2015). International guidelines on urban and territorial planning. Geneva: UN-Habitat.

Webster, C. (2015). Refutation and the knowledge base of urban planning. In E. Silva, P. Healey, N. Harris, & P. Van den Broeck (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of planning research methods. New York: Routledge.

Welsh Government. (2016). A guide to the Wellbeing for Future Generations Act. Welsh Government.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2016.1139227

Index

2017 Annual Plan 59, 622030 Seoul Plan 54, 62 – 63

AAI (Active Ageing Index) 130AARP (American Association of

Retired Persons) 87n3action plans: Canberra, Australia 52;

Cycle of WHO Global Network of AFC 46; New York City 50; Newcastle upon Tyne, England 57; Seoul, South Korea 54; Walker Riverside Area 66 – 67

‘active ageing’ 5, 74 – 75, 130Active Design Guidelines 40 – 41active disaster perception 158 – 159, 158ADL (activities of daily living) 41AFCC (Age-Friendly Cities and

Communities) 3, 30 – 31, 31, 34, 144, 165; ‘active ageing’ 5; ageing population in Hong Kong 73 – 74; Canberra, Australia 50 – 53, 51, 52; checklist items 48; city-level governance, planning issues 37 – 39, 38; community-level governance, planning issues 39 – 42, 40; core indicators 4; Cycle of WHO Global Network of AFC 46 – 47, 47; domains 6, 38; HiAP 32 – 33; in Hong Kong 75 – 76; national-level governance, planning issues 33 – 35, 34; New York City 49 – 50, 50; Newcastle upon Tyne, England 54 – 58; participation, managing 42; planning for 6 – 7; promoting 5, 6 – 7; regional-level governance, planning issues 36 – 37; Seoul, South Korea 53 – 54; transport domain 92 – 93

‘age-friendly city’ 15‘Age-Friendly New York City’ 49

Age-Friendly Rural and Remote Communities: A Guide 36

age-friendly strategies: transport indicators 92 – 93; and urban planning 46 – 47

ageing: AFC movement 30 – 31, 31; planning and design for 17 – 18; planning for 42 – 43; trend by country and historical city 18; Type I cities 23; Type II cities 23; Type III cities 24; Type IV cities 24

ageing empowerment 129, 132 – 133Ageing in Cities report (OECD) 22‘Ageing Service Design’ 65 – 66ageing-in-place 39; CBDRR 145 – 147,

146; planning theories for walkability 111 – 113; telephone survey for investigating older people’s mobility expectations 99 – 103, 101, 102, 103; see also mobility

Alzheimer’s disease 118automobile-based transport planning

90 – 91, 90

‘balanced development’ 77barrier-free design 116; public spaces

48; public transport 93 – 94Barthel ADL Index 155 – 156Baumgart, S. 14 – 15behaviour: cultural norms 16 – 17; travel

behaviour 92Belconnen Community 64 – 65benefits of empowerment 131Beverly Foundation study on transport

use 94BIOPICCC (Built Infrastructure for

Older People’s Care in Conditions of Climate Change) project 148

blueprint plans 2

174 Index

Book of Changes 12‘bottom up’ approach to place

auditing 74Box-Cox transformation, telephone

survey for investigating older people’s mobility expectations 100 – 101, 101

Brasilia Declaration of 1996 128budgeting for transport planning

90 – 91, 90building codes 15built environment, relationship to

health outcomes 112 – 113

Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies 143Canada: AFC experience in 37;

Age-Friendly Rural and Remote Communities: A Guide 36

Canberra, Australia 50 – 53, 51, 52; action plans 52; Belconnen Community 64 – 65; vision plan 62; Y Plan 51 – 52

captive public transport user 106n1cars, age-friendly transport planning in

Taiwan 97 – 99, 98case studies 166; age-friendly transport

planning in Taiwan 98; ageing cities vs. ageing population in Tainan 18 – 22, 18, 20, 21; Canberra, Australia 50 – 53, 51, 52; enhancing disaster resilience 150 – 158, 151, 152, 154; Jinhwa community case study 134 – 137; New York City 49 – 50, 50; Newcastle upon Tyne, England 54 – 58; urban form, influence on older people’s walking behaviour 120 – 123, 121

CBDRR (community-based disaster risk reduction) 146, 169; active disaster perception 158 – 159, 158; in ageing communities 147 – 150; climate change 164; enhancing disaster resilience, case study 150 – 158, 151, 152, 154; Hong Kong 149 – 150; inside-out model 159 – 160, 160; need for 145 – 147; ‘Three-E’ model 159; WES 149

China: ageing empowerment 132 – 133; Book of Changes 12; East Asian societies, cultural characteristics 129 – 130; walkable environments 114

cities: AFC movement 30 – 31, 31; Canberra, vision plans 62; new urbanism 112; New York City, vision plans 59 – 62, 60 – 61; Newcastle

upon Tyne, vision plan 63; Seoul, vision plans 62 – 63; Type I 23; walkability 30, 113 – 116; see also AFCC (Age-Friendly Cities and Communities)

City Beautiful Movement 17‘A City for all Ages’ proposal 49city-level governance, planning issues in

an ageing society 37 – 39, 38civic participation: age-friendly

strategies 31; qualitative findings of Tai Po place audit 82

climate change 164, 168 – 169; planning for 143 – 144

collectivism 133 – 134Community Development Project 55community resilience 147community support, qualitative findings

of Tai Po place audit 82 – 83community-level governance, planning

issues: Belconnen Community 64 – 65; empowerment, importance of in planning age-friendly communities 139 – 140; Tapgol Park 65 – 66; Walker Riverside Area 66 – 67; see also Jinhwa community case study

community-level governance, planning issues in an ageing society 39 – 42, 40

Compact Cities 90comparative studies of East-West

culture 129 – 130composition of older people in Jinhwa

community 136Confucianism 129continual improvement cycle 40convenience stores, influence on

walking behaviour 117 – 118core indicators, AFC 4Covenant on Demographic

Change—Towards an Age-Friendly Europe 34

cultural characteristics of East Asian societies 129; collectivism 133 – 134

cultural norms 12, 16 – 17Cycle of WHO Global Network of AFC

46 – 47, 47Cycling and Walking Map, Belconnen

Community 65

data collection, telephone survey for investigating older people’s mobility expectations 99 – 100

demographic projections 3developing tools 39

Index 175

disaster mitigation plans 5; active disaster perception 158 – 159, 158; ageing society and disaster vulnerability 144 – 145; CBDRR, need for 145 – 147, 146; climate change 143 – 144; community resilience 147; DRR 144; eight steps of disaster prevention 160n1; and geriatric conditions 118 – 119; inside-out CBDRR model 159 – 160, 160; World Cities Risk report 143

domains of empowerment 131DPRBP (Disaster Prevention and Relief

Basic Plan) 150 – 151, 151driving cessation, impact on elderly 92DRR (disaster risk reduction) 144;

CBDRR (community based disaster risk reduction) 145 – 147, 146, 147 – 150; community resilience 147; inside-out CBDRR model 159 – 160, 160; vulnerability of ageing society to disaster 144 – 145

DRTS (Demand Responsive Transit Services) 98

East Asian societies, cultural characteristics 129; collectivism 133 – 134; power distance 134; universalism 134

Eastern cities: gender influence on walking behaviour 117; walkability 114

economic-oriented urban planning 29EG (Environmental Gerontology)

144 – 145eight domains (AFC) 38 – 39, 38eight steps of disaster prevention 160n1Eisenhower, Dwight 6elderly: CBDRR framework for ageing

communities 158 – 159, 158; disaster mitigation plan proposals 118 – 119; driving cessation, impact on 92; passive role of in Hong Kong’s community life 85; supportive environment for walking, creating 118 – 119; telephone survey for investigating mobility expectations 99 – 103, 101, 102, 103; urban form, influence on walking behaviour 120 – 123, 121; vulnerability of ageing society to disaster 144 – 145; walkability, influential factors of 120

employment opportunities, qualitative findings of Tai Po place audit 82

empowerment 130 – 131, 168; ageing empowerment 129, 132 – 133; benefits of 131; community level 138 – 139; comparative studies of East-West culture 129 – 130; importance of in planning age-friendly communities 139 – 140; individual level 138; Jinhwa community case study 134 – 137; NYAM survey 148

engagement in AFC, managing 42enhancing disaster resilience, case study

150 – 158, 151, 152, 154; field survey method 152 – 155, 154; findings 155 – 158

EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency), smart growth 35

eudaemonic well-being 17evaluation tools for walkability 115

factor analysis, telephone survey for investigating older people’s mobility expectations 100

Federal Capital Competition 50field survey method, enhancing disaster

resilience case study 152 – 155, 154findings for enhancing disaster

resilience case study 155 – 158First and Second National Economic

Plans 53functional perspective on ageing well 5

‘Garden City’ concept 12, 13, 48; Canberra, Australia 50 – 53, 51, 52

gender, influence on walking behaviour 117

geriatric conditions, impact on disaster mitigation plans 118 – 119

GI (green infrastructure) 16GIS (Geographic Information

System) 19Global Age-Friendly Cities—A Guide

(WHO, 2007) 3, 11, 128 – 129, 132Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities

47, 75, 128Global Walkability Index 110‘glocal’ solutions 5goals of Healthy Cities Programme 1Going for Growth 55‘good places’ 5 – 6governance: ageing issues at different

spatial scales 33 – 42, 34, 38, 40; at city level, planning issues 37 – 39, 38; at community/street level, planning issues 39 – 42, 40; HiAP 32 – 33; at

176 Index

national level, planning issues 33 – 35, 34; at regional/rural level, planning issues 36 – 37; urban governance 33

Great Streets (Jacobs, 1995) 116green space 4 – 5; GI 16; and

self-reported health 16Griffin, Walter Burley 50GWI (global walkability index)

114 – 116, 115

Habitat III conference 114Hakka people 77hard planning 46 – 47HC (healthy cities) movement 1, 10 – 11,

30 – 31; HiAP 32 – 33; Phase VI 11‘Health for All’ program 1health map for local human habitat 117health outcomes 31 – 32; and built

environment 112 – 113hedonic well-being 17HelpAge International 132HiAP (Health in All Policies) 32 – 33historical cities, ageing trend in 18history: of urban planning 10 – 11; of

well-being 11 – 13HKCSS (Hong Kong Council of Social

Service) 75Hong Kong 167; CBDRR 149 – 150;

elderly, passive role of in community life 85; housing 86; introduction of AFC 75 – 76; life expectancy in 4 – 5; NAWA 87n4; Policy Address 2016 73; population ageing in 73 – 74; social services, provisioning 85; Tai Po, urban characteristics 76 – 77, 76; see also Tai Po

Hong Kong Jockey Club 75 – 76, 86housing 48; age-friendly strategies

31; Newcastle upon Tyne, England 55 – 56; in Tai Po 86

Housing Delivery Plan 67Howard, Ebenezer 12, 13, 42Hurricane Katrina 143Hurricane Sandy 148hygiene 11Hyogo Declaration 148 – 149

IADL (instrumental activities of daily living) 41

importance of empowerment in planning age-friendly communities 139 – 140

inclusive design principles 116 – 117individualism 133 – 134industrial revolution 12

influential factors of older people’s walkability 120

infrastructures 12, 15 – 16inside-out CBDRR model

159 – 160, 160integral research methodology, need for

169 – 170integrated-oriented planning 9 – 10International Guidelines on Urban and

Territorial Planning 171 – 172IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change) 143

Japan: Hyogo Declaration 148 – 149; walkable environments 113 – 114

Jinhwa community case study: background 134 – 135; composition of older people in community 136; methodology 135 – 137, 135; older people’s cognition of community empowerment 136 – 137; partnership between community leaders and members 137 – 138

Joseon dynasty 53

Kaohsiung earthquake 155key issues of CBDRR 147 – 150KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olin) measure of

sampling adequacy 100Kobe Centre 3

land use control 13 – 15, 14; economic-oriented urban planning 29; smart growth 35

Land Use Resolution of New York City 49

Le Corbusier 14LIDT (low impact development

tools) 16life expectancy in major cities 4livable neighborhood 112local experiences of CBDRR 147 – 150Localism Bill 35

managing AFC participation 42marriage, influence on walking

behaviour 117 – 118measuring walkability 110,

114 – 116, 115mental health, and physical activity 119methodology, Jinhwa community case

study 135 – 137, 135mobility 89, 167; age-friendly transport

planning in Taiwan 97 – 99, 98; planning theories for walkability

Index 177

111 – 113; socioeconomic factors in public transport 94 – 97, 95, 96; supportive environment for walking, creating 118 – 119; telephone survey for investigating older people’s mobility expectations 99 – 103, 101, 102, 103; transport planning 89 – 92, 90; urban form, influence on older people’s walking behaviour 121; walking 110

modern health issues 1 – 2

national-level governance, planning issues in an ageing society 33 – 35, 34

natural disasters see disaster mitigation plans

NAWA (Network of Ageing Well for All) 87n4

NCDR (National Center for Disaster Prevention and Rescue) 151

NeDeCC (Neighbourhood Design Characteristics Checklist) 116 – 117

neighborhood planning: Belconnen Community 64 – 65; older neighborhoods, walkability 113; Tapgol Park 65 – 66; Walker Riverside Area 66 – 67

neighborhood unit 48New City Charter 49New Urban Agenda 2, 114new urbanism 112New York City: action plans 50; Active

Design Guidelines 40 – 41; AFC experience in 37; ‘Age-Friendly New York City’ initiative 49; ‘A City for all Ages’ proposal 49; Hurricane Sandy 148; New City Charter 49; vision plans 59 – 62, 60 – 61; Zoning Resolution 49

Newcastle an Age Friendly City—Older People’s Housing Delivery Plan 2013 – 2018 56

Newcastle upon Tyne, England 54 – 58; action plans 57; Community Development Project 55; Going for Growth 55; housing 55 – 56; Our Wellbeing for Life Strategy 2013 – 2016 55 – 56; Planning for Future—Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan for Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne 2010 – 2030 55; transportation 56; vision plan 63; Walker Riverside Area 66 – 67; well-being 55 – 56

NGOs, provisioning of social services in Hong Kong 85

NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) 35

NU (Neighborhood Unit) 13 – 14, 14NYAM (New York Academy of

Medicine) survey 148

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries 9; Ageing in Cities report 22

old age dependency ratio 87n1Our Wellbeing for Life Strategy

2013 – 2016 55 – 56

PA (physical activity) 110; GWI 114 – 116, 115; and mental health 119; pedestrian planning design principles 116 – 117; walking 117 – 119

participation: in AFC, managing 42; Jinhwa community case study 134 – 137, 135; partnerships 138

particularism 134partnerships 138Pathfinder Housing Market Renewal

Programme 66Paumier, C. 116 – 117PDRA (participatory disaster risk

assessment) 159‘pedestrian cities,’ ‘Road Diet

Project’ 66pedestrian planning, design principles

116 – 117Perry, Clarence Arthur 13 – 14, 14Phase VI of HC movement 11physical environment: Canberra, action

plans 52; New York City, action plans 50; Newcastle upon Tyne, action plans 57

place audit of Tai Po: ‘bottom up’ approach 74; qualitative findings 80 – 83, 81; quantitative findings 79 – 80, 80; research methods 78 – 79

Planning for Future—Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan for Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne 2010 – 2030 55

planning research 2 – 3planning theories for walkability

111 – 113planning tools 39; continual

improvement cycle 40policies: ‘active ageing’ 74 – 75; HiAP

32 – 33; national-level governance,

178 Index

planning issues in an ageing society 33 – 35, 34; transport planning 89 – 92, 90; ‘Wellbeing and Health’ policy 55

Policy Address 2016 73population: ageing in Hong Kong

73 – 74; Seoul, South Korea 54; Type I cities 23; Type II cities 23; Type III cities 24; Type IV cities 24; urban areas, defining 17 – 18; Y Plan 51 – 52

power distance 134proactive design principles 116 – 117promoting AFC 5, 6 – 7provisioning of social services in Hong

Kong 85public health: age-friendly strategies 31;

HiAP 32 – 33; modern health issues 1 – 2

public transport 91; age-friendly transport planning in Taiwan 98; barrier-free 93 – 94; captive public transport user 106n1; scooter ownership, impact on public transport satisfaction 104; and socioeconomic factors 94 – 97, 95, 96; telephone survey for investigating older people’s mobility expectations 99 – 103, 101, 102, 103

Qing-Li-Fa system 134qualitative findings of Tai Po place

audit 80 – 83, 81quantitative findings of Tai Po place

audit 79 – 80, 80

Radburn-type traffic system 14regional-level governance, planning

issues in an ageing society 36 – 37regulating tools 39research methods: need for more

integral research methodology 169 – 170; place audit of Tai Po 78 – 79

restructuring tools 39‘Road Diet Project’ 66road networks, walkability 111RTPI (Royal Town Planning

Institute) 10rural areas, regional plans 37

SAA (Spatial Autocorrelation Analysis) 19, 166

Scheff Post Hoc analysis 122scooters 95; age-friendly transport

planning in Taiwan 97 – 99, 98;

ownership, impact on public transport satisfaction 104; transport planning 91

sDNA (spatial Design Network Analysis) 170

segregated-oriented planning 9 – 10Seoul, South Korea 53 – 54; action plans

54; Tapgol Park 65 – 66; vision plan 62 – 63

SFDRR (Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction) 143, 160n2

shaping tools 39smart growth 35; walkability 112social services: age-friendly strategies

31; provisioning of in Hong Kong 85

socioeconomic factors in public transport 94 – 97, 95, 96

spatial determinates of health outcomes 31 – 32

Sturm, G. 12subjective perspective on ageing well 5suburbanization 12SUP (Strategic Urban Planning) 32‘superblock’ 14supportive environment for walking,

creating 118 – 119survey findings, telephone survey for

investigating older people’s mobility expectations 101 – 103, 102, 103

Tai Po: housing 86; qualitative findings of place audit 80 – 83, 81; quantitative findings of place audit 79 – 80, 80; research methods of place audit 78 – 79; urban characteristics 76 – 77, 76

Tainan, ageing cities vs. ageing population case study 18 – 22, 18, 20, 21

Taiwan: age-friendly transport planning 97 – 99, 98; empowerment 129 – 130; enhancing disaster resilience, case study 150 – 158, 151, 152, 154; Jinhwa community case study 134 – 137, 135; Urban Planning Law 17 – 18

Tapgol Park 65 – 66telephone survey for investigating

older people’s mobility expectations 99 – 103, 101, 102, 103; Box-Cox transformation 100 – 101, 101; data collection 99 – 100; factor analysis 100; survey findings 101 – 103, 102, 103

Index 179

‘The Situation of Elderly People in Turkey and the National Plan of Action on Ageing’ 35

‘Three-E’ model 159TOD (Transit-Orient Development)

90, 105Tokyo, life expectancy in 4 – 5traffic, Radburn-type traffic system 14transport planning 89 – 92, 90;

age-friendly transport indicators 92 – 93; age-friendly transport planning in Taiwan 97 – 99, 98; barrier-free public transport 93 – 94; captive public transport user 106n1; driving cessation, impact on elderly 92; public transport 91; road networks 111; scooters 91; socioeconomic factors in public transport 94 – 97, 95, 96; see also walkability

transportation 48; age-friendly strategies 31; in Newcastle upon Tyne 56; qualitative findings of Tai Po place audit 82; see also mobility; transport planning

Type I cities 23Type II cities 23Type III cities 24Type IV cities 24

UDP (Unitary Development Plan) 55UN (United Nations): International

Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning 171 – 172; New Urban Agenda 114

UNECE (European Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) 130

UN-HABITAT 3 2; SUP 32United Kingdom, Localism Bill 35United Nations, Year of Older

People 74universalism 134urban characteristics of Tai Po

76 – 77, 76Urban Core 63urban form 12 – 15, 14; influence on

older people’s walking behaviour 120 – 123, 121; walkability 111

urban governance 33; at city level, planning issues 37 – 39, 38; at community/street level 39 – 42, 40; at national level, planning issues 33 – 35, 34; at regional/rural level 36 – 37; transport planning 90 – 91, 90

urban infrastructures 15 – 16urban planning 9; AFC, promoting

5; ‘balanced development’ 77; blueprint plans 2; cultural norms 16 – 17; demographic projections 3; economic-oriented 29; ‘Garden City’ concept 13, 48; of Greek towns 11 – 12; hard planning 46 – 47; ‘health niche-based model’ 38; history of 10 – 11; hygiene 11; inclusive design principles 116 – 117; infrastructures 15 – 16; integrated-oriented planning 9 – 10; neighborhood unit 48; NU 13 – 14, 14; planning research 2 – 3; planning tools 39; Radburn-type traffic system 14; segregated-oriented planning 9 – 10; SUP 32; ‘superblock’ 14; transport planning 89 – 92, 90; urban form, influence on older people’s walking behaviour 120 – 123, 121; walkability 111 – 113; Y Plan 51 – 52

Urban Planning Law 17 – 18urban sprawl 12urbanization 2; new urbanism 112;

planning and design for 17 – 18; urban areas, defining 17 – 18

vision plans: Canberra, Australia 62; New York City 59 – 62, 60 – 61; Newcastle upon Tyne, England 63; Seoul, South Korea 62 – 63

vulnerability of ageing society to disaster 144 – 145

Wales, Wellbeing for Future Generation Act 171

walkability 167 – 168; in China 114; Global Walkability Index 110; GWI 114 – 116, 115; in Japan 113 – 114; measuring 110, 114 – 116, 115; of older neighborhoods 113; pedestrian planning design principles 116 – 117; planning theories 111 – 113; and road networks 111; smart growth 112; urban form 111

Walker Riverside Area 66 – 67walking 110; convenience stores,

influence on walking behaviour 117 – 118; gender influence on walking behaviour 117; marriage, influence on walking behaviour 117 – 118; and mental health 119; supportive environment for, creating 118 – 119; urban form, influence on

180 Index

older people’s walking behaviour 120 – 123, 121

well-being: HC movement 30 – 31, 31; HiAP 32 – 33; history of 11 – 13; Newcastle upon Tyne, England 55 – 56; self-reported health, correlation with green space 16

‘Wellbeing and Health’ policy 55Wellbeing for Future Generation

Act 171WES (Welfare Evacuation Shelters) 149Western cities, walkability 114Western societies, cultural

characteristics 129; individualism 133 – 134; particularism 134; power distance 134

WHO (World Health Organization): ‘active ageing’ 130; AFC 30 – 31, 31,

34; Brasilia Declaration of 1996 128; Cycle of WHO Global Network of AFC 46 – 47, 47; Global Age-Friendly Cities—A Guide 3, 11, 128 – 129; Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities 75, 128; ‘Health for All’ program 1; Kobe Centre 3; modern health issues 1 – 2

World Cities Risk report 143World Urbanization Prospects

143 – 144

Y Plan 51 – 52Year of Older People 74

zoning ordinances 13 – 15, 14; goal of 29

Zoning Resolution 49