The Greying of American Cities: Evaluating Built Environment Indicators for Ensuring an Age-Friendly City
Student Work
Valerie Joy Coleman
January 2015
The American elderly population is growing at unprecedented rates, six times faster than the rest of the population, and by 2050, cohorts 65 years and older will have doubled. In a few short years, they will account for 24 percent of the population, yet cities have not planned for this silver tsunami. There is an urgent need to ensure the age-friendliness of our cities. In this report, we analyze the results of our literature review focused on the built environment and its interaction with seniors and discuss the initial list of criteria we developed to address the needs of an aging population in the central city.
