The Age of Urban Ageing. An overview of different social and spatial answers to ageing

The world is rapidly ageing: the number of people aged 60 and over as a proportion of the global population will double from 11% in 2006 to 22% by 2050. By then, there will be more elders than children (aged 0-14 years) in the population for the first time in human history. The process of demographic transition had transformed the age structure of population, clearly shown in the changing geometry of demographic “pyramids” towards the form of a “kite”, where older people will represent an increasing portion of the raw population. The shift toward more aged populations is not the result of some inevitable evolutionary development in the human organism but rather a product of a process of societal “modernization”, possessing social, cultural, economic, political and technological dimensions. The process of population ageing has gone hand in hand with that of urbanization and industrialization. Recent publications on ageing produced by the Population Division include the World Population Ageing series, offer many reports over the last decade. Thus we can say that the world is facing the “urban age” but also the “age of urban ageing”. Moving from the recent studies on urban ageing, the intention is to highlight the current spatial answer to demographic change. In particular, this paper tries to go beyond the description of today's “specialized” landscape for senior citizens. These planned territories are often characterized by exclusive design strategies. This paper presents two case studies, the first one is the planned retirement community of Sun City in Arizona and the second is the urbanization of the Costa del Sol in Spain. In both cases the role of elders is central, as actors and as developers, for shaping a new lifestyle and new housing models. From this analysis emerges a new way to “celebrate retirement” with some recurrent topics and devices. Through the comparison of these spaces, both morphological and social, emerges a specific scenario in contrast with the common landscapes where most of the population lives, and so even the elderly.