Introduction

The background to the development of ‘age-friendly cities and communities’ (AFCCs) was reviewed in Chapter Two. AFCCs were among a number of initiatives taken during the 1990s and early 2000s aimed at developing more cohesive communities (Vanderbeck and Worth, 2015). The impetus to develop AFCCs was also linked with the promotion of ‘ageing in place’ in health and social care, a policy that emphasised the role of community networks in providing support to groups such as older people. But the development of AFCCs and related approaches coincided with new pressures affecting community life, notably those associated with the impact of globalisation and widening inequalities within and between cities (Buffel and Phillipson, 2016a). Thus, the virtue of community – for providing support for vulnerable groups – was being ‘rediscovered’ at a time of increasing social divisions affecting many urban neighbourhoods (Wacquant, 2008).

The purpose of this chapter is to place the debate about AFCCs within a sociological context, exploring links between ‘community’ on the one side, and the idea of ‘age-friendliness’ on the other. Much has been written about the latter, especially following the publication by the World Health Organization (WHO) of a guide to developing age-friendly cities (see Chapter Two), and the founding (in 2010) of the global network of AFCCs. However, much less has been said about the ‘community’ dimension to developing age-friendly activities. Gardner (2011) makes the point that much research examining the issue of ‘ageing in place’ has focused on the desire of older adults to remain in their own homes and the means by which they can best receive support (Wiles et al, 2011). But she argues that: ‘Public places of aging – and in particular neighbourhoods – have received less attention yet represent key locales in the lives (and well-being) of older people ageing in place’ (Gardner, 2011, p 263). Relevant questions here include: what sort of ‘communities’ is the age-friendly movement trying to develop? Are terms such as ‘neighbourhood’ and ‘community’ still meaningful given the divisions and inequalities affecting social life? How or to what extent has the idea of community changed given a context of globalisation and transnational migration?