Age-Friendly Neighborhoods

Community-engaged design presents significant opportunities to advance equity in aging in the context of neighborhoods. Affordability, mobility, and accessibility present major challenges to aging as the number of rent-burdened older adults continues to increase. The percentage of new housing units designed to universal design standards remains at 1 percent. Parks serving communities of color are half the size of parks in predominantly white areas, and minority neighborhoods often face limited availability of healthy food. This chapter discusses various challenges and opportunities for developing age-friendly neighborhoods, with a particular emphasis on issues of housing, transportation, public spaces, health care, and social inclusion. A case study demonstrates how a metric-based tool, such as the Walk Audit Toolkit, can help local stakeholders come together to identify solutions to community challenges and facilitate the development of more walkable and age-friendly neighborhoods. While the majority of work to promote age-friendly neighborhoods has been based in urban and suburban contexts, this chapter addresses distinct challenges related to rurality and provides insight into how improved transportation and digital technologies can effectively and positively impact livability in rural locations.