Building UK Age Friendly Cities and Communities from the Ground up: Older People on Intergenerational Perspectives

Judith Sixsmith (University of Dundee)

As older populations increase, cities and communities need to adapt to this demographic shift with urban designs to accommodate changing population needs. Previous research suggests that ageing-in-the-right place by developing age friendly cities and communities can make a positive difference to the health and wellbeing of older people as well as improving the lives of younger people. To achieve this, an intergenerational perspective is required to ensure the concerns, needs and expectations of both younger and older people are integrated into a collaborative development and design process. The current 3 year ESRC funded study on ‘Place-making with Older People: Towards Age Friendly Communities’, uses a multi-method, participatory approach to gather the views of older people and their understanding of and input into age friendly design through interviews, knowledge cafés and community mapping workshops. Interview data analysis highlighted the importance of intergenerational design, and knowledge cafes and workshops delved more deeply into this theme with older people, service providers and policy makers. This paper presents the UK interview, knowledge café and workshop thematic findings on intergenerational age friendly design and development, and discusses attendant expectations and fears of sharing community space alongside methodological implications of the work. The message from older participants was clear: they wanted spaces and places within their communities which bring together old and young in safe, community based environments for mutual purpose and benefit. Theoretical development from the work suggests that ageing-in-the-right-place requires more than co-location in time and space, rather negotiation and co-ownership of intergenerational activities was important and working together with younger people in such ventures would result in an increase in wellbeing for both groups.