The Challenges of Urban Ageing: Making Cities Age-Friendly in Europe

Urban ageing is an emerging domain that deals with the population of older people livingin cities. The ageing of society is a positive yet challenging phenomenon, as population ageing andurbanisation are the culmination of successful human development. One could argue whether the cityenvironment is an ideal place for people to grow old and live at an old age compared to rural areas.This viewpoint article explores and describes the challenges that are encountered when making citiesage-friendly in Europe. Such challenges include the creation of inclusive neighbourhoods and theimplementation of technology for ageing-in-place. Examples from projects in two age-friendly citiesin The Netherlands (The Hague) and Poland (Cracow) are shown to illustrate the potential of makingcities more tuned to the needs of older people and identify important challenges for the next coupleof years. Overall, the global ageing of urban populations calls for more age-friendly approaches to beimplemented in our cities. It is a challenge to prepare for these developments in such a way that bothcurrent and future generations of older people can benefit from age-friendly strategies.