Is the Role of Urban Planning in Promoting Active Ageing Fully Understood? A Comparative Review of International Initiatives to Develop Age-Friendly Urban Environments

Abstract

After reviewing the related literature on age-friendly urban environments, the theoretical backgrounds about the relationship between ageing and built environment and the age-friendly urban planning theories, and analysing the six main international initiatives to promote age-friendly environments through the qualitative document analysis (QDA) method, the article argues that urban planning remains at the margins of the inter-disciplinary discourse on ageing and environment. There is, however, a broad consensus on the usefulness of certain age-friendly urban planning features: compactness, density, and diversity. The origins of these general criteria are multiple. At the theoretical level, they are the result of the on-going development of the ‘ageing in place’ concept but they also come from urban planning theory itself, in particular, from multigenerational planning, which is based on smart growth premises. Beyond these general urban planning criteria, some specific planning instruments can decisively contribute to develop a more comprehensive age-friendly urban planning approach such as inclusionary zoning or Transit-Oriented Development. Nonetheless, there is a notable gap between theoretical framework and its implementation. Urban planning plays a minor role in many of the international initiatives to promote age-friendly environments. It could be concluded that there is neither a comprehensive approach to the potential of urban planning nor any development or in-depth analysis of an age-friendly urban planning model in the most relevant international programmes.