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NEW YORK (AP) America's cities are beginning to grapple with a fact of life:
People are getting old, fast, and they're doing it in communities designed for
the sprightly.
To envision how this silver tsunami will challenge a youth-oriented society,
just consider that seniors soon will outnumber schoolchildren in hip,
fast-paced New York City.
It will take some creative steps to make New York and other cities age-friendly
enough to help the coming crush of older adults stay active and independent in
their own homes.
"It's about changing the way we think about the way we're growing old in our
community," said New York Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs. "The phrase 'end of life'
does not apply anymore."
With initiatives such as using otherwise idle school buses to take seniors
grocery shopping, the World Health Organization recognizes New York as a leader
in this movement.
But it's not alone.
Atlanta is creating what it calls "lifelong communities." Philadelphia is
testing whether living in a truly walkable community really makes older adults
healthier. In Portland, Ore., there's a push to fit senior concerns such as
accessible housing into the city's new planning and zoning policies.
Such work is getting a late start considering how long demographers have warned
that the population is about to get a lot grayer.
"It's shocking how far behind we are, especially when you think about this fact
that if you make something age-friendly, that means it is going to be
friendly for people of all ages, not just older adults," said Margaret Neal of
Portland State University's Institute on Aging.
While this fledgling movement is being driven by nonprofit and government
programs, New York aims to get private businesses to ante up, too.
Last year, East Harlem became the city's first "aging improvement district."
Sixty stores, identified with window signs, agreed to put out folding chairs to
let older customers rest as they do their errands. The stores also try to keep
aisles free of tripping hazards and use larger type so signs are easier to
read. A community pool set aside senior-only hours so older swimmers could get
in their laps without faster kids and teens in the way.
On one long block, accountant Henry Calderon welcomes older passers-by to rest
in his air-conditioned lobby even if they're not customers. They might be, one
day.
"It's good for business but it's good for society," too, he said.
The size of the aging boom is staggering. Every day for the next few decades,
thousands of baby boomers will turn 65. That's in addition to the oldest-old,
the 85- to 90-somethings whose numbers have grown by nearly one-third in the
past decade, with no signs of slowing.
By 2050, 1 in 5 Americans will be seniors. Worldwide, almost 2 billion people
will be 60 or older, 400 million of them over 80.
That's almost always viewed as a health issue, preparing for the coming wave of
Alzheimer's, or as a political liability, meaning how soon will Social Security
go bust?
"We think this is something we should be celebrating," says Dr. John Beard, who
oversees the World Health Organization's Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities.
"They need to live in an environment that allows them to participate."
In East Harlem, a yellow school bus pulls up to a curb and 69-year-old Jenny
Rodriguez climbs off. The bus had already dropped a load of kids at school.
Now, before the afternoon trip home, it is shuttling older adults to a market
where they flock to fresh fruits and vegetables.
Rodriguez usually goes shopping on foot, pulling along a small cart. It can be
a hike. Supermarkets aren't too common in this lower-income part of the city,
and there's less to choose at tiny, pricier corner bodegas.
"You can only buy so much. Some streets, the cracks are so bad, you're pushing
the shopping cart and almost go flying," Rodriguez said, examining sweet
potatoes that she pronounced fresher and cheaper than at her usual store. "This
is so much easier."
More than 200 times, school buses have taken older adults from senior centers
to supermarkets in different neighborhoods. It's just one of a variety of
initiatives begun in 2009 by the New York Academy of Medicine and the city's
government to address the needs of older residents. Already, they're showing
results.
A city report found the number of crashes has dropped at busy intersections in
senior-heavy communities where traffic signals now allow pedestrians a few more
seconds to cross the street.
Benches have been placed in nearly 2,700 bus shelters to give waiting seniors a
place to rest.
The city's aging taxi fleet is scheduled to be replaced by a boxier model
designed to be easier for older riders and people with disabilities to open the
doors and slide in and out.
On the Upper West Side, seniors snapped up a report card of grocery stores
deemed age-friendly because they offer deliveries, have public bathrooms a
rarity in the city and sell single portions of fresh meat, poultry or fish,
important for people who live alone.
Artists volunteer to teach at senior centers in return for space to work on or
display their own creations.
And a "Time Bank" is letting hundreds of people of different ages and with
different skills essentially barter services. A retired English teacher may do
some tutoring, for example, and use the credit she earns to get computer help
from another volunteer.
Aging expert Andrew Scharlach of the University of California, Berkeley, sees a
common thread in these changes and the work of other cities. Combat the social
isolation that too easily sneaks up on older adults and it has a huge impact
not just on how many years they will live, but how well they live them.
Cities and suburbs were designed for younger people, full of stairs and cars,
he explained. As they become increasingly difficult to navigate, older people
gradually retreat.
Revamping a lot of infrastructure may not happen in a tough economy. But some
communities are building age-friendly changes into planned upgrades or
maintenance, such as New York's street crossings, or into requirements for
future development.
The WHO's Beard says some changes aren't that costly, noting that seniors
around the world say more benches and access to bathrooms will help them get
out and about.
Among other cities' work:
The Atlanta Regional Commission's Lifelong Communities Initiative is pushing
communities that help people age in place. Efforts are under way in six metro
areas, including work to adapt zoning codes to allow more of a walkable mix of
housing and retail. The Mableton community of suburban Cobb County is planning
that kind of a town square, and has opened a farmers market on a weekday
morning when seniors preferred to shop and intergenerational community
garden. To the east, DeKalb County is building a library near a senior center,
planned senior housing and a bus stop. One town pilot-tested a shuttle for
seniors to supplement bare-bones public transit.
The Atlanta Housing Authority is working with the commission to retrofit
high-rise apartments that house a lot of older residents, with the goal to
improve access to the surrounding community. At one site under construction,
changes include a ramp entrance, safer sidewalk to the bus stop and more time
for pedestrians to cross the street.
The overall move isn't without controversy.
Sometimes younger residents misunderstand and say they don't want to live in a
retirement community, said commission urban planner Laura Keyes.
She said boomers, who are classified as being born from 1946 to 1964, and
millenials, the children of baby boomers who came of age in the new millennium,
ultimately want the same things: access to shopping, green space, more freedom
from the car. The idea is a mix of ages but where older residents don't need to
move if their health fails.
Keyes became interested in age-friendly communities when visiting friends in
nursing homes built in commercial districts and saw that they had nowhere to
take a walk.
Philadelphia is the oldest of the nation's 10 largest cities, with 19 percent
of its residents over age 60 and lots of multi-story rowhouses where seniors
are stuck on one floor. "They become prisoners in their homes," said Kate Clark
of the nonprofit Philadelphia Corporation for Aging.
In redesigning the city's zoning code, proposals are being debated that would
allow seniors to rent out their upper floors, and to require that a certain
amount of new housing be what's called "visitable" with such things as ramp
entrances, wide hallways and at least a half-bathroom on the main floor, she
said.
With funding from the National Institutes of Health, the aging group's Allen
Glicksman is studying if seniors who live in a walkable neighborhood really are
healthier as a result. He has found that social capital think friendly
neighbors, low crime and good sidewalks that encourage getting out is as
important to older residents as access to supermarkets, public transportation
and good housing.
Also, there are calls for age-friendlier parks, with safer steps and places to
walk apart from bikers.
To sustain momentum, Clark created GenPhilly, a network of 20- and
30-somethings interested in shaping the city they'll age in by raising senior
issues in varying professions.
Portland was part of WHO's initial study of what makes a city age-friendly, an
initiative that helped bring about more handicapped-accessible cars for the
city's light-rail system, Neal said.
Now, aging experts are among the advisers as the city develops a master plan
for the next 25 years. One issue, Neal said, is how to develop more accessible
housing when the city's anti-sprawl policy means a lot of narrow, multistory
houses are being squeezed into empty city lots near transportation but still
not age-friendly with all the stairs.
Integrating senior-friendly changes into everyday city policies is less visible
than, say, a new retirement home but it's ultimately the goal, says Scharlach,
the aging expert.
New York also hopes for some economic return.
Consider La Marqueta in East Harlem. Fifty years ago, it was a bustling,
five-block market, a weekly gathering spot for families. But economic downturn
left the city-owned building mostly empty for years. Now, as part of a $1.5
million economic revitalization project, an industrial kitchen in the building
will train low-income women to start their own food businesses. It joins the
fish and butcher shop, a farmer's market, and a high-end food importer and
busing in the seniors once a month boosts the still thin customer traffic.
But it's more than a shopping day. A quick check from a health department nurse
reassured 73-year-old Maria Ilarraza that her blood pressure was OK, and she
sat to catch up with friends over coffee. In another corner, a crowd listened
as a university nutritionist explained how to safely freeze and thaw meat.
Art teacher Piedad Gerena showed off some of the bold landscapes and modern
images her students at a nearby senior center learned to paint, and, to her
delight, sometimes sell for up to $200 apiece. "Many of these people have no
families," Gerena said. "The art makes them feel happy."
___
Online:
World Health Organization's Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities: http://
www.who.int/ageing/age_friendly_cities_network/en/index.html
Portland State University's Institute on Aging: http://www.pdx.edu/ioa
New York City's Aging Improvement Districts: http://www.nyam.org/agefriendlynyc
/initiatives/current/aging-improvement-districts.html
New York Academy of Medicine: http://www.nyam.org/urban-health/healthy-aging
Atlanta Regional Commission's Lifelong Communities Initiative: http://
www.atlantaregional.com/aging-resources/lifelong-communities-llc
Philadelphia Corporation for Aging: http://www.pcacares.org
GenPhilly: http://www.genphilly.org
First in a joint AP-APME project over the coming months looking at the aging
baby boomers.