Involving Older Residents in Age-Friendly Developments: From Information to Coproduction Mechanisms

ABSTRACT

Promoting social connectedness within urban environments raises a number of challenging issues. Despite being important sites for building social networks, cities can also trigger marginalization and social exclusion. As cities are becoming increasingly complex, ensuring the inclusion and participation of older residents in age-friendly developments will be key in achieving age-friendliness. This article discusses various ways of achieving this goal. This theme is developed by (1) exploring some of the opportunities and constraints associated with urban aging; (2) reviewing how social inclusion has been addressed in the age-friendly literature; and (3), presenting different mechanisms through which public engagement can be achieved.

KEYWORDS:

• Social inclusion
• Social exclusion
• Age-friendly cities
• Urban environments
• Participatory approaches
• Coproduction

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship within the Seventh European Community Framework Programme (Grant No: 330354); and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under the Future Research Leaders scheme (Grant No: ES/N002180/1).