Making Cities Elderly-Friendly

The first age-friendly city in the world, New York City is opening a new branch of urban planning: environmental gerontology. The idea is to make cities more accessible to our elders. “The World Health Organisation (WHO), whose initiative the network is, wants the people who run the world’s cities to think more deeply about the needs of ‘silver citizens’. The world’s greatest cities were usually planned by, and for, able-bodied men,” says The Independent. “But society is changing. As people live longer, more and more city-dwellers are negotiating the urban environment while coping with some degree of physical or mental impairment.”