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Meanings of ‘lifecycle robust neighbourhoods’: constructing versus attaching to places

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2017

SUSAN VAN HEES ,
KLASIEN HORSTMAN ,
MARIA JANSEN  and
DIRK RUWAARD
SUSAN VAN HEES*
Affiliation:
Department of Health Services Research, School for Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI), Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Academic Collaborative Centre for Public Health Limburg, Geleen, The Netherlands.
KLASIEN HORSTMAN
Affiliation:
Department of Health Ethics and Society, School for Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI), Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
MARIA JANSEN
Affiliation:
Department of Health Services Research, School for Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI), Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Academic Collaborative Centre for Public Health Limburg, Geleen, The Netherlands.
DIRK RUWAARD
Affiliation:
Department of Health Services Research, School for Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI), Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
*
Address for correspondence: Susan van Hees, Department of Health Services Research, Postbus 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In Western welfare states, notions of age-friendly communities and ageing-in-place are increasingly important in new health policies. In the Netherlands, care reforms are modifying the former welfare state to be more participatory; local governments are seeking collaborative solutions. Municipalities and housing, care and welfare organisations in the southern part of the country developed the concept of ‘lifecycle robust neighbourhoods’, envisioned as places where older people can age-in-place. Although many scholars have used the concept ageing-in-place in their studies of neighbourhoods, we aim to unravel this concept further by exploring how this particular ageing policy plays out in practice. This paper explores what the development of ‘lifecycle robust neighbourhoods’ means in relation to notions of ageing-in-place and age-friendly communities. We used ethnography (interviews, observations and focus groups) to reveal how, on the one hand, the policy makers, housing, care and welfare directors and representatives of older people, as developers of ‘lifecycle robust neighbourhoods’ and, on the other hand, older people, give meaning to places to age-in-place. It becomes clear that ageing-in-place has a different meaning in policy discourses than in practice. While developers mainly considered place as something construable, older people emotionally attached to place through lived experiences.

Keywords

ageing-in-placeage-friendly neighbourhoodsplace attachmentolder peopleparticipation
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 38 , Issue 6 , June 2018 , pp. 1148 - 1173
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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