Aging, Neighborhoods, and the Built Environment

A voluminous body of neighborhood research has accumulated over the past two decades demonstrating that the social, economic, demographic, and physical characteristics of neighborhoods are consequential to residents’ physical and mental health status, mobility and physical activity, independence, capacity to perform activities of daily living, and ability to participate in social activities. Older people generally are considered to be especially vulnerable to adverse neighborhood conditions for several reasons. For example, they tend to have greater exposure to these conditions as a result of spending more time in their neighborhoods than younger adults who leave for work, and exposure is long-term for those who age in place. Daily activities also tend to become increasingly concentrated within a contracting spatial area as a result of age-related declines in health and the onset of mobility disabilities, making older persons increasingly dependent upon their immediate residential communities as sources of social integration, services, and amenities. In addition, greater sensitivity to neighborhood conditions has been attributed to decreased physical and cognitive functioning and increased fragility, and features of the built environment can accelerate the disablement process thereby putting the person at increased risk of developing secondary health conditions. However, the positive adaptations that people make to their environments as they grow older are often overlooked and research perspectives that overemphasize detrimental effects of aging have been criticized. Thus, it is of considerable importance to understand the ways in which neighborhoods and older persons interact with the ultimate objective of creating environments that enable people to attain their goals of continuing to live at home for as long as possible.