INTERGENERATIONAL AGE-FRIENDLY
CITIES AND COMMUNITIES
Ryan Woolrych
Director of the Urban Institute
Professor in Ageing and Urban Studies

HEALTHY AGEING AND URBANISATION
• By 2030 two-thirds of the population will be living in cities. At least a
quarter of those urban populations will be aged 60 plus.
• Urban environments have the potential to be sites to support active
and healthy ageing yet can also create barriers to participation
and engagement.
• Urban penalty vs health dividend.
• Marmot review (2010, 2023) – place matters. Spatial and social
inequalities across urban environments – and in the ageing process.
• A key component of healthy, active and liveable societies for older
people lies in robust intergenerational relationships (Kaplan et al,
2017).

AGE FRIENDLY CITIES AND
COMMUNITIES
• The WHO (2007) Age Friendly Cities
movement/programme recognises cities that
support active ageing by optimizing
opportunities for health, participation and
security in order to enhance quality of life as
people age.
• BUT
• Operationalisation of guidelines at local level
is patchy.
• Understanding what ageing-in-the-right-
place means for older adults across different
social, cultural and welfare contexts needs
attention.

‘PLACE-MAKING WITH OLDER PEOPLE:
TOWARDS AGE FRIENDLY COMMUNITIES’:
PLACEAGE
Three core aims:
(i) to investigate how sense of place is experienced by
older people from different social settings living in
diverse neighbourhoods in the UK, India and Brazil;
(ii) to translate these experiences into designs for age
friendly communities that support sense of place; and
(iii) to better articulate the role of older adults as active
placemakers in the design process by involving the
community at all stages of the research.

THE CITIES
India (Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad)
Brazil (Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Pelotas)
UK (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester)
Total of 27 neighbourhoods – topography, urban development,
income, demography
Phase 1 – Capturing Sense of Place – 292 semi-structured interviews;
181 go along interviews; 94 photo diaries. Age range 51-94. Mean
age 71.
Phase 2 – Mapping Sense of Place. Knowledge cafes and mapping
workshops (n=54) (over 450 older adults/230 professionals)
Phase 3 – Designing for Sense of Place – guidelines and
recommendations for AFC (further policy and practice workshops)

URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS –
INTERGENERATIONAL CITIES AND
COMMUNITIES
• Rapidly changing urban contexts across all countries – more rapid expansion in Indian
and Brazilian cities is challenging older people’s relationship to place.
• Story of eroding communities in many of our UK neighbourhoods particularly social
housing estates e.g. Baguley in Manchester and Easterhouse in Glasgow leaving a lack
of IG supports.
• Narrative of ‘estrangement’ from community for many – loss. Becoming ‘peripheral’ to
the ways in which cities and communities are being shaped. Mastery of the BE.
• Inequalities in urban development – some benefitting and others not. ‘City not for us’.
Being ‘designed out’ but not just an older person issue.
• City growth – the perceived ‘unproductive’ older people not synonymous with city ‘as
economic powerhouse’.
• Opportunities for reinventing a sense of self in old age - ‘reimagining the city as an
intergenerational space’. Rather than one framed as old OR young.

The population of this area is increasing rapidly and everything around is
changing dramatically. We don’t have as much of that public space in the
city any more. The opportunities to come together and just ‘sit’ and ‘be’
are disappearing for all age groups. How can we ensure we have those
spaces to come together? The parks, the benches, the libraries, the street
corners. How can we become part of the changing city? No one is against
change. No one is that far apart in terms of what we want from the city.
We just need the coming together to make it happen. (Male, 78, Belo
Horizonte)
Everyone says that this area has been gentrified. That it’s no longer the
community it once was. I don’t see it that way. There are cafes, social
spaces and art groups for all age groups. Out of the Blue is a great place.
At any one time you can be having a coffee, painting a picture, playing
music… I find it more diverse. Yes, the tram situation annoys me and the
regeneration has always been an issue but I feel more connected. As long
as you have these spaces, then you’re not impacted by the negative things
that are going as much. (Female, 65, Leith, Edinburgh)

NAVIGATING COMMUNITY
• No lack of physical supports in some our communities. Indian communities –
proximity as a measure of AFC/20MN scored well.
• Physical and material environment presented barriers – absence of walkable
communities, wayfinding (for those living with dementia), street furniture.
• Navigating supports were complex – anxiety, stress and worry. (“Is it worth all the
hassle?”). Advanced planning a feature of the experiences of older people.
Intergenerational supports critical here.
• Circuitous routes, temporary road closures, ‘second class’ access.
• Connection across settings e.g. health and social care, rarely thought through.
• Transport picture ‘mixed’ across all cities and communities – lack of ‘A to Z’ and
back again. Intergenerational transport e.g. Tuk tuk in India – support at ‘either
end’ and ‘trust’.

We only get clean running water for 3 hours a day and
electricity goes on and off. In the morning, we head down to
the water stations to collect water. There would always be a
number of us and we’d all meet there and have a chat… about
whatever really, family and such like. It’s about 30 minutes
walk each way. It’s getting more difficult for me now, because
of coming back with the water. The girl some has been
helping out and so we can walk together and I can help walk
back. So it keeps me doing what I’ve always been doing. It
means I can still go, still see people. (Female, 71, Delhi)

I wouldn’t get out otherwise. Srinkanth has been coming to me for
years. Ever since I struggled when I lost my husband. I’ve always had
problems walking. There is no reliable buses around here and even if
there was, you just can’t get to the bus stop safely. So shopping, going
to see the doctor, seeing friends. This is door to door service. Srikanth
helps me get out of the house, takes more where I need to go and also
takes me back. I trust him and feel comfortable with him. Older people
don’t have those supports anymore. Things are changing. Sons and
daughters who would do this for us. Like I would look after my mum.
That is not happening any more. My daughter moved to Hyderabad a
long time ago. We still stay in contact and have telephones but doesn’t
help with these kind of things. (Female, 67, Kolkata)

AGEING AND SOCIAL PARTICIPATION
• Social isolation – cut across all our communities regardless of income.
• Religion and social participation common in India – linked to social supports/coping
mechanisms/wellbeing in old age. Intergenerational connections via places of worship.
• Social participation linked to material means to access supports e.g. high income areas.
IG engagement often ‘beyond’ the neighbourhood.
• Heterogeneity of ageing afforded little consideration.
• Information and communication problematic. Older people in India feeling ‘reliant’ on
younger people to navigate information.
• ‘Forced’ intergenerational supports not received well – language can be stigmatising.
• Linked to respect and feeling valued – assuming active roles/two ways reciprocal
support/ not ‘someone just doing for me’.

It’s my worst nightmare to end up sitting with a bunch of people
with no interest in each other just because we’re all the same age.
Why would you do that to people, just because they’re old? (Female,
(Female, 68, Manchester)
They don’t really have any activities there. It’s all ‘you’re older this so
you need this. They look at you like you’re something different. It’s
what ‘we can do for you’ rather than asking me about the skills and
experience I can bring to help others. (Female, 79, Brasilia)

INTERGENERATIONAL PLACES
• Those where people see the purpose of being there together. Coproducing
spaces/ community development.
• Non-threatening, promote a sense of security and safety, and lifelong learning.
• Familiarity and belonging – lot can come from aspects of the built environment
but also organisation and how it’s run.
• Place affordances and belonging: Churches; Schools; Cafes; Parks; Shops. Not just
‘one off’ events but how IG is ‘part and parcel of everyday living’.
• Feelings of ‘being there’ - I use the parks all the time… I walk through here with my
grandchildren… there is always activities going on here. (Female, 90, Didsbury)
…the street life is very busy. I’m in the older age group now, I love to see young people.
(Female, 71, Leith)

I still interact with people of a different age… replicate the real world,
the microcosm of the inner city. That’s what I want from my
community. We don’t have to be in and out of others pockets but the
feeling of being in the community together. All ages. (Male, 64,
Partick)
And through that Pilmeny Resource Centre, I’ve become part of, well,
I’m on the committee for Leith Community Cinema, which is set up
in Pilrig Church which is literally just over the road. […] But it’s only
been going two or three years, so I was there almost from the start,
and again it’s intergenerational. There are people younger than me.
There’s some people older. But its part of doing something and
coproducting something together…” (Female, 66, Leith)

AGEING, WORK AND VOLUNTEERING
• India - ‘Multiple jobs’. Retirement ‘not an option’ for many/ ‘not expected or wanted’ for
others – linked to sense of purpose and engagement.
• Informal economy often a source of [in]security for older people – gendered dimensions
and spatial differences here.
• Home ‘as a place of work’ common in India and Brazil. Making goods/social enterprises.
Strong source of intergenerational connectivity through ‘home as work’ spaces.
• Volunteering diverse. Yet significant number of others who ‘did not know’ how to volunteer
or could not access volunteering opportunities e.g. those with mobility challenges.
• Older people caring for others to fill the gaps in formal care provision – v.common across
all case study cities and rewarding but also challenging/ burn out.

HOUSING AND HOME
• Emotional, psychological and social connection to home important… IG part of
this.
• Ageing in the right place important – housing options, surrounded by the social
and community supports to age well, where people of different ages share time
and skills.
• Formal housing supports available in UK – varying quality and not in location of
choice (‘rightsizing’). Distinction between ‘housing for the old and young’.
• Family living much more common in India – as was family care. Yet this is
increasingly being challenged.
• Building IG spaces into housing interventions e.g. shared indoor and outdoor
spaces ‘live, work, play’.

INFLUENCING CHANGE
• Given difficulties in accessing, occupying and using the city many a
right to participate in urban planning & governance including the
right to take an important role in decisions regarding the
production of urban spaces.
• Bringing together rights based agendas across generations – e.g.
age-friendly and child-friendly.
BUT felt
• Less likely to be heard.
• Powerless in design/decisions re urban spaces via tokenistic
consultations.
• Nothing outside the formal structures of engagement.
• Collective power required to realise rights.
• Little opportunity for certain groups to participate e.g. ethnic

CONCLUDING REMARKS
• Complexities of ageing across diverse urban, social and cultural contexts –
consideration needed of how we build IG supports.
• Physical and material aspects of the built environment are important in
delivering IG supports – multi-functional and flexible spaces.
• Bringing together voices of older and younger people. Willingness as advocates
and champions. Child friendly agenda is an age-friendly agenda and vice versa.
• Collaborative dialogue and knowledge exchange essential - shift in thinking to a
more inclusive and user centred approach to urban planning and decision-
making around IG.

THANK YOU
• Website https://wp.ufpel.edu.br/placeageproject/en/index-2/
• Contact: Ryan Woolrych r.d.woolrych@hw.ac.uk