To remain active in a community, older people rely on various forms of transportation other than private automobiles.
The physical environment in an age-friendly city must facilitate and make the access to facilities easier.
These include public transport, senior transportation services, and walkable neighborhoods (Fitzgerald & Caro, 2014). In addition, might be true that the majority of elderly people may have low mobility and more difficulties to get around. Considering this, the most feasible model of transportation for elderly people is walking. This practice helps not only the access to facilities, but also seniors to maintain healthy manners, which is one of the first aims of urban planners to build age-friendly environments. In Liverpool, the approaches currently applied are keeping the streetscape in order, improving and maintaining the roads and sidewalks in good shape, enhancing the visual appeal of streets and parks, and maintaining the environment clean. In addition, mobility is a critical issue to the well-being of elderly population in developed countries (Liverpool City, 2014). This approaches are well supported by Fitzgerald & Caro (2014) who states that to create livable communities, accessibility and vibrant environments are successful measures to improve elderly’s quality of life. However, the answer is not only about making easy locomotion to elderly people, but also building infrastructure within short distance from communities. More recently, some studies have asserted that facilities must be assured within 500 m of dwelling, by explaining that this is the ideal distance considering the action radius and mobility of elderly (Smets, 2011). This is shifting the age-friendly focus from doing something to create new ways to facilitate access to health care and transportation facilities. For example, in Australia’s national action plan emphasizes that when seniors no longer can drive, its auto-independence is strongly influenced by the mobility options for accessing community services, especially medical service (Australia, 2006). These planning policies have been successfully facilitating senior’s life and handling the rapidly growth of this population. BP 4 Another basis of a friendly built environment is to well housing seniors. …show more content…
The changing age profile, along with lifestyle and work pattern changes, will affect future housing arrangements. According to Fitzgerald and Caro (2014), in 40 years, the population of people aged 60 or older is expected to double. Consequently, to maintain the sustainability of the built environment, actions to develop and improve the way of housing senior are crucial. According to Reschovsky (1982), housing is a durable good, immovable, for the most part, in size and layout. Furthermore, one of aspects cited by many researchers it is the term “ageing-in-place”, which can be explained by allow senior to remain in their house as they age. However, there are opposite approaches being planned by some countries. For example, in Flevoland, a province of the Netherlands there are an initiative of build a ‘senior city’ for 1500 seniors (Smets, 2011). The approach regarding this situation should not isolate seniors of their society, nor placing them in nursery houses. As stated by Smets (2011), seniors wants access to family and services such health care, market and infrastructure. Therefore, measures to allow elderly to stay in their houses in a known place essential for its well-being. For example, accessibility of housing must be a guaranteed for seniors, rules such as width of doors, staircases and rooms, the height of thresholds and pavements and the non-slip texture of floor tiles have a preventative effect on declining health status (Smets, 2011).
The physical environment in an age-friendly city must facilitate and make the access to facilities easier.
These include public transport, senior transportation services, and walkable neighborhoods (Fitzgerald & Caro, 2014). In addition, might be true that the majority of elderly people may have low mobility and more difficulties to get around. Considering this, the most feasible model of transportation for elderly people is walking. This practice helps not only the access to facilities, but also seniors to maintain healthy manners, which is one of the first aims of urban planners to build age-friendly environments. In Liverpool, the approaches currently applied are keeping the streetscape in order, improving and maintaining the roads and sidewalks in good shape, enhancing the visual appeal of streets and parks, and maintaining the environment clean. In addition, mobility is a critical issue to the well-being of elderly population in developed countries (Liverpool City, 2014). This approaches are well supported by Fitzgerald & Caro (2014) who states that to create livable communities, accessibility and vibrant environments are successful measures to improve elderly’s quality of life. However, the answer is not only about making easy locomotion to elderly people, but also building infrastructure within short distance from communities. More recently, some studies have asserted that facilities must be assured within 500 m of dwelling, by explaining that this is the ideal distance considering the action radius and mobility of elderly (Smets, 2011). This is shifting the age-friendly focus from doing something to create new ways to facilitate access to health care and transportation facilities. For example, in Australia’s national action plan emphasizes that when seniors no longer can drive, its auto-independence is strongly influenced by the mobility options for accessing community services, especially medical service (Australia, 2006). These planning policies have been successfully facilitating senior’s life and handling the rapidly growth of this population. BP 4 Another basis of a friendly built environment is to well housing seniors. …show more content…
The changing age profile, along with lifestyle and work pattern changes, will affect future housing arrangements. According to Fitzgerald and Caro (2014), in 40 years, the population of people aged 60 or older is expected to double. Consequently, to maintain the sustainability of the built environment, actions to develop and improve the way of housing senior are crucial. According to Reschovsky (1982), housing is a durable good, immovable, for the most part, in size and layout. Furthermore, one of aspects cited by many researchers it is the term “ageing-in-place”, which can be explained by allow senior to remain in their house as they age. However, there are opposite approaches being planned by some countries. For example, in Flevoland, a province of the Netherlands there are an initiative of build a ‘senior city’ for 1500 seniors (Smets, 2011). The approach regarding this situation should not isolate seniors of their society, nor placing them in nursery houses. As stated by Smets (2011), seniors wants access to family and services such health care, market and infrastructure. Therefore, measures to allow elderly to stay in their houses in a known place essential for its well-being. For example, accessibility of housing must be a guaranteed for seniors, rules such as width of doors, staircases and rooms, the height of thresholds and pavements and the non-slip texture of floor tiles have a preventative effect on declining health status (Smets, 2011).