Reimagining age-friendly cities: Urban ageing and spatial justice

We are lucky to have a team coming from the Manchester Urban Ageing Group who are pioneering in their work on Age Friendly Cities.

Reimagining age-friendly cities: Urban ageing and spatial justice

This presentation draws on the work of the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group (MUARG) and explores the emergence of age-friendly cities and communities as a policy and planning response to the combined challenges of population ageing and urbanisation. It begins with an overview of the WHO’s Global Age-friendly Cities initiative, which established a framework for creating inclusive, accessible environments that promote health, social inclusion, and quality of life for older adults. While recognising key achievements linked to this movement, the presentation critically re-examines the programme’s ambitions in light of structural inequalities and spatial injustices that shape who can age well in urban communities, and under what conditions. Using the concept of ‘spatial justice’, the presentation outlines three core principles of spatial justice – equity, diversity and co-production – as essential to re-imagining age-friendly strategies. Taking examples from MUARG’s research past and present (), it will examine how these principles can be operationalised through local practices, highlighting examples where grassroots organisations, older people, and urban stakeholders work together to co-create more inclusive interventions. Advancing spatial justice in later life, requires not only technical adjustments to urban design or service delivery, but a rethinking of power relations, a redistribution of resources, and a commitment to centring the voices and rights of those most often excluded. Findings from diverse projects support the call for a more radical and justice-oriented agenda for ageing in cities – one that challenges the status quo and enables diverse groups of older people to actively co-create fairer urban futures.

Tine Buffel, Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology, at The University of Manchester, directing the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group. Her work focuses on social and environmental issues related to ageing and age-friendly cities, working with community partnerships to study and address equity and social justice issues. She is an expert member of the WHO Advisory Group on Healthy Ageing and has received numerous awards, including a Leverhulme Trust Research Leader Fellowship.

Patty Doran is a Research Fellow in the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group at The University of Manchester. Using qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods, Patty’s research focuses on healthy ageing, spatial justice, community-led interactions, inequalities and the life course. She is particularly interested in co-production approaches to amplify community voices. Originally from Aotearoa New Zealand, Patty has worked on various projects, including Ageing in Place, Urban Villages, and Growing Up Healthy in Families Across the Globe.

Camilla Lewis is a senior lecturer in architectural studies at the University of Manchester and co-deputy director of the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group (MUARG).

Camilla completed a PhD in social anthropology at the University of Manchester in 2014. Her research centres on the themes of urban change, inequalities, ageing, housing, belonging and community with a strong methodological focus, spanning a variety of ethnographic, sensory as well as longitudinal approaches. Camilla’s publications have provided theoretical analyses on the everyday experiences of inequalities in urban environments and also practical suggestions for how to tackle marginalisation in socially excluded groups. In 2023, Camilla co-authored a book entitled COVID-19, Inequality and Older People: Everyday Life During the Pandemic, which was published by Policy Press.

Linda Naughton is a Research Fellow on the Ageing in Place in Cities project in the Department of Sociology at The University of Manchester. She completed her PhD in Human Geography in 2013. She has published work on social capital, embodied cognition, the impact of COVID-19 on older people and narratives of ageing. Her research interests include geographies of ageing, spatial justice, city development, creative/spatial methodologies, and utopian studies.

Venue: University of Bristol, School of Education, 35 Berkeley Square, BS8 1QA

Room 4:10

We would encourage anyone who is interested in the topic to attend. It is open to all.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with Jen DeKalb-Poyer by emailing [email protected] or phoning 0117 928 1553.

I f you have any access requirements, please let us know.

For more information about Bristol Research Forum on Ageing visit:

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/bristol/our-services/wider-work-in-the-community/research-forum/

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Host or Publisher Bristol Research Forum on Ageing (formerly called the Age UK Bristol & Brunelcare Research Forum)