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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Ageing cities

Looking at how cities around the world are adapting to ageing populations and what can be done to improve cities for older generations

19 November 2022

  • Illustration of a couple take pictures in front of cherry blossoms in Tokyo; the Sugamo neighbourhood of the city, which is popular with older people; apartment complexes in the South Korean capital. Seoul.

    ‘I’m afraid to have children’: fear of an older future in Japan and South Korea

    As birth and fertility rates fall, there is official concern about the economic impact of a declining and ageing population

1 November 2019

  • Torsten Bell

    Middle-aged people are the new swing voters

    Torsten Bell
    Increasingly, age has taken the place that class, says Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation thinktank

11 June 2019

  • An elderly man walks home at the Atago public housing complex after getting off the bus.

    How Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old

    They have no lifts, shops or medical services – yet they are home to mostly poor, elderly people. We investigate Tokyo’s massive ‘homes for solitary death’

10 November 2018

  • Dora Grazzini, 83, and Maria Urbani, 26, in the apartment they share in Milan.

    Student loans company: Milan's age-defying solution to high rents

    The Adopt a Student cohabitation programme brings young and older people together in Italy’s most expensive city

10 October 2018

  • Respect for the Aged Day in Tokyo. According to UN figures, the number of over 60s worldwide is set to double by 2050, rising to 2.1bn.

    What would an age-friendly city look like?

    As the world’s population grows older and more urban, cities around the world must decide how to adapt

14 June 2018

  • A woman leaves a coming of age ceremony, which are currently held when people reach the age of 20

    Credit cards, but no sake: Japan lowers age of adulthood from 20 to 18

    The age change means 18-year-olds will be able to marry and apply for loans, but will still have to wait until 20 to drink or gamble

24 April 2018

  • Elderly woman collects and carries cardboards and plastics<br>SHAM SHUI PO, HONG KONG, KOWLOON - 2014/02/04: Elderly woman collects and carries cardboards and plastics to recycle and support herself. Hong Kong has the highest levels of income disparity in the developed world. In recent years, the situation among the poor has gotten worse, resulting in an increasing number of unemployed young adults and single elderly. (Photo by Miguel Candela/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

    Hong Kong's 'cardboard grannies': the elderly box collectors living in poverty

    Inadequate support for Hong Kong’s ageing population means for some older citizens, scavenging and selling boxes and scrap is the only way to scrape by

14 November 2017

  • A still from Hinter den Wolken (Behind the Clouds), screened at the European Film Festival of Generations

    Silver screen: the film festival putting older people at the heart of the plot

    Across the arts, old age is either portrayed as a bleak struggle or ignored altogether. An event in Frankfurt and Stuttgart aims to rewrite the script

13 November 2017

  • Senior citizens sitting in the Plaza Victoria, Valparaiso, Chile<br>F0YMCH Senior citizens sitting in the Plaza Victoria, Valparaiso, Chile

    Sí, seniors: the Chilean city with grand plans to be the best place to grow old

    Promising supervised flats, nursing homes and levelled streets, Valdivia’s Gerontological Hub project is tackling Chile’s ageing crisis head-on. Can it offset the country’s shockingly low privatised pensions?

12 July 2017

  • Tilburg app

    The slow lane: Dutch app allows elderly to 'hack' traffic lights

    With sensors and smartphones to make roads more flexible, Tilburg is addressing the question: how can a city become safer for less able residents?

2 February 2017

  • Purley town centre

    Forget-me-nots in Purley: how the town became 'dementia friendly'

    The Croydon suburb has been named a safe space for people with dementia, an idea born in the cities of Japan. Campaigners now want London to become the world’s first dementia-friendly capital – but what would that mean?

6 December 2016

  • Kuan Ying.

    Singapore's 'silver tsunami': how the city-state depends on its elderly workforce

    In Singapore, where life expectancy is soaring, the elderly are encouraged to exchange retirement for arduous jobs that often pay badly – yet many of its citizens, including Wong Kuan Ying, are only too keen to oblige

16 November 2016

  • Elena portrait, humans of london

    'Being alive is just fantastic': how ageing Londoners view their city – and life

    Inspired by Humans of New York, photographer Cathy Teesdale records the stories of strangers and friends across London to understand humanity in the capital city. Here she shares some powerful thoughts from its older generation

14 November 2016

  • Man rollerblading

    The fall-less city and other innovations for a healthier old age

    Sarah Harper
    Rapid urbanisation and ageing populations mean that cities must become better for older people to live in. We have the technology to make this happen

29 April 2016

  • 84-year-old Zady Jones walks across a rope step bridge at the senior playground at Carbide Park

    Never too old to play: playgrounds for the elderly – in pictures

    Cities around the world have been designing outdoor gyms and play areas for older generations to improve fitness and wellbeing. Even non-specialist playgrounds are getting multi-generational. Play’s not just for kids...

28 April 2016

  • Four elderly women on a day trip to the seaside, sitting on a bench on summer afternoon. Image shot 2009. Exact date unknown.<br>BDC53D Four elderly women on a day trip to the seaside, sitting on a bench on summer afternoon. Image shot 2009. Exact date unknown.

    'Teach young people we are not going to move over': stories of ageing in cities

    From tackling isolation in Leicester to better footpaths in Dhaka, you shared your experiences of how cities could be improved for older generations

27 April 2016

  • Elderly people work out in Tokyo in2010 to celebrate Japan’s Respect-for-the-Aged-Day.

    Which cities have the oldest residents?

    By 2020, the global population of people over 60 will outnumber children under five for the first time. How will our ageing communities affect urban life – and where is the phenomenon most noticeable?

26 April 2016

  • Harry Leslie Smith - a 91 year old man who's written about growing up before the welfare state, seeing what a change it made to peoples lives and how the coalition is eroding that. Photo by Sarah Lee For G2 cover story

    London without old people is just a factory floor, with no past and no future

    Harry Leslie Smith
    The capital is a cruel city for the elderly if they are not in the moneyed 1%. Old age has separated me from much of the city that once gave me happiness – but it doesn’t need to be this way

25 April 2016

  • An elderly woman walks in Stockport town centre.

    Improving with age? How city design is adapting to older populations

    As cities experience a demographic shift, the need for age-friendly design is becoming ever more critical. From almshouses to driverless cars, the future of urban housing and mobility may just be shaped for and by the elderly

7 April 2016

  • London athlete's village, Olympics.

    What's the world's loneliest city?

    In Tokyo, you can rent a cuddle. Loneliness is a health issue in Manchester. And perhaps nobody is as isolated as a migrant worker in Shenzhen. But can we really know what makes a city lonely?
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