Cities for All Ages

As discussed in Chapter 1, the social and economic costs of inadequate urban design, insufficient housing supply that does not accommodate all age groups and failure to integrate people of all ages into labour and consumer markets are far-reaching. To address these challenges, national and local governments around the world are continuously identifying, implementing and adopting innovative policy ideas to address age-related challenges and better serve residents of all ages in three main policy areas: fostering age-inclusive urban design and planning to improve access to key urban services; providing affordable and accessible housing tailored to age-based demand; and engaging young and older people as both consumers and workers (Figure 2.1). Such policies can make it easier for residents of all ages, from young children to students, young adults, parents and older people, to live, work, consume and interact in an urban setting.

Policies explored in this chapter are most often focused on “hardware” solutions relating to urban design, urban development, spatial planning, land use and housing. Cities often hold direct influence and domain over these policy areas, and changes to these realms can often represent “low-hanging fruit” that allow cash-strapped municipalities to make substantial impacts on residents’ lives at relatively low financial or administrative cost. However, “software” solutions relating to public services and human development are also discussed, recognising that hardware and software solutions are often needed in tandem to make a greater impact. By taking stock of best practices, local and national governments can identify policies that could address demographic change in their context. They can seek inspiration for the re-application of good ideas and documented policies according to feasibility and priority. Chapter 3 provides recommendations for local and national governments on how to scale up initiatives within these three areas through a checklist of actions to create inclusive cities for all ages.

Urban design, which can be characterised as the collaborative and multi-disciplinary process of shaping the physical setting for life in cities and towns involving the design of buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes (UDG[1]), along with land-use planning, can determine access to opportunities (e.g. employment, health and education), neighbourhood characteristics (e.g. the quality of services, public space and infrastructure) and the transport connections between a given dwelling and different areas of a city, all of which have impacts on health, safety, the environment, equity and overall well-being (OECD, 2023[2]). For example, research shows that compact urban forms increase sociability and residents’ satisfaction with personal relationships (Mouratidis, 2018[3]). Small and Adler (2019[4]) identify three urban design processes that shape social ties: physical proximity between people; the presence of fixed places that make interaction likely or possible; and accessibility, i.e. the physical barriers and pathways within a neighbourhood. Accessibility to city centres, public transport and mixed land uses are also associated with higher neighbourhood satisfaction (Mouratidis, 2017[5]), while a lack of local access to employment opportunities entails longer commute distances and reinforces car dependence (ITF, 2023[6]). Beyond land-use patterns, urban design solutions at the micro level of a block or street also have a tangible impact on people’s quality of life (Mouratidis, 2021[7]) and capacity to take advantage of mobility opportunities: applying flexible and demand-responsive streets reconfigurations could lead to a 9% increase in transport network performance, i.e. its capacity to efficiently transport people towards activities and amenities (ITF, 2022[8]).

Urban design can play a crucial role in whether cities are liveable and inclusive for residents of all ages. The “universal design” concept, first coined by architect Ronald L. Mace (1990[9]), refers to a people-centred approach to conceiving spaces to accommodate the needs of a wide variety of needs, including at different stages of life and regardless of ability (Persson et al., 2014[10]). The concept is defined by seven principles: equitable use, flexibility in use, simple and intuitive design, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, size and space for approach and use (Connell, 1997[11]). Cities can use universal design of urban infrastructure to help increase the safety of children and ageing residents, improve access to key services and amenities for all age groups, promote intergenerational community ties to reduce loneliness and isolation, and act as a source of fun and inspiration. Beyond universal design, a number of city design concepts, such as the 15-minute city and Slow Streets, embed ambitions to make cities more inclusive (OECD, 2023[2]; NACTO, 2020[12]; Slow Streets, n.d.[13]).

Universal urban design can substantially improve the ability of ageing residents to move freely and safely about their city, enjoy all it may have to offer and create a more welcoming and hospitable environment for children, young people and parents.

As highlighted in Chapter 1, inadequate, inaccessible or poorly adapted transport can reduce well-being and create significant social and economic costs. Expanding access to quality public transport, both in terms of physical accessibility and affordability, ensures that residents of all ages can travel outside of their neighbourhoods, fully participate in city life and overcome challenges such as spatial segregation and social isolation. Public transport can also provide a viable alternative to dependence on private cars where desired. In London, United Kingdom, public transport can be accessed step-free at 92 underground Tube stations (more than a third), more than 60 London Overground stations and all 41 Elizabeth line stations, as well as Docklands Light Railway stations and tram stops, greatly reducing mobility challenges often faced by older adults or parents with pushchairs (Transport for London[14]). Since 2016, the city’s transport authority has reduced additional journey times for those who need accessible routes by 40%, with an ultimate accessibility target of 50% by 2041.

To induce greater use of its public transport network, support environmental goals and reduce car use, Germany has launched Deutschlandticket, a subscription ticket that costs EUR 49 per month and permits unlimited travel on all local public transport across the entire country. It simplifies public transport ticketing by providing one flat rate across and within cities and has already led to a significant increase in public transit use across the country. Such initiatives can make cities more accessible to students and young adults in particular, who face greater budget constraints, and older adults, who often rely on public transport in lieu of driving by enhancing their ability to move around the city via the former (ITF, 2023[6]). At the city level, Lisbon, Portugal, has made public transport free to residents over 65, as well as children and young people under age 23, and in Montpellier, France, all residents can ride the city’s buses or trams free of charge. Such strategies can help ensure that young and older people alike can benefit from quality public transport in cities rather than experience it as another financial burden.

Such investments in the quality and accessibility of public transport can increase connectivity to key parts of city life for residents of all age groups. By promoting sustainable urban density, quality accessible public transport also offers significant environmental and social co-benefits critical for different age groups, such as safer, less congested and less polluted streets, and additional open space (including green space) essential for building community and fostering intergenerational interactions. Provision of quality, accessible public transport is critical when seeking to reduce private car use in cities.

Cities can increase the ability of residents in all phases of life to move safely about the city and tackle social isolation by incorporating a universal design of infrastructure and shifting public space to permit a broader range of uses. Measures such as wider sidewalks, pedestrianised areas and improved cycling infrastructure can facilitate greater uptake of walking, cycling and public transit use by all residents, including older adults and children, offering co-benefits such as healthier active lifestyles, lower air and noise pollution and traffic congestion (ITF, 2023[15]; 2023[6]; OECD/ITF, 2024[16]). Given that traffic congestion costs the European Union (EU) economy over EUR 130 billion annually, or just over 1% of its gross domestic product, these strategies can not only make cities more sustainable but also efficient and attractive, particularly in areas where public space is scarce (Crozet, 2020[17]).

Reallocating street space from cars to people – through congestion pricing, low-emission zones or the conversion of car lanes and parking spots into green or recreational spaces – creates safer, more accessible and more inclusive environments. The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic accelerated this transformation, prompting cities to rethink how urban space is allocated (OECD, 2020[18]). These initiatives benefit older adults who may face challenges navigating car-dominated spaces and children who need safe and walkable neighbourhoods. At the same time, public spaces created through these initiatives also enhance opportunities for more social interactions, reducing isolation among older residents while providing accessible gathering places for all age groups. Barcelona’s Superblock system limits car traffic to the outer perimeter of city block clusters, thereby liberating interior streets for walking, cycling and communal activities. Superblocks have been implemented with the express intention of ensuring all age groups benefit, including children and ageing adults vulnerable to car traffic and social isolation (Muzzini and Torres, 2023[19]). They contribute to the city’s Plan for Play in Public Spaces, aimed at enhancing opportunities for safe play and physical activity through tactical urbanism, and its Protect the Schools programme, designed to minimise motorised transport on streets surrounding schools to ensure safety for children and increase accessibility to schools. Two of the 36 monitoring indicators used to assess the Superblock programme are age-specific, including the amount of children’s play areas created (in square metres) and the ratio of users older than 65 and younger than 14 compared to users aged 15-64.

Targeted urban design interventions such as bulb-outs (expanding curbs and sidewalks into car traffic lanes), daylighting (banning parking spots near crosswalks to increase visibility), extended crossing times and traffic-calming strategies like Slow Streets are particularly beneficial for vulnerable age groups such as older people and children, as they reduce accident risks and encourage active transportation (Safe Roads USA, 2020[20]; Davis, 2023[21]; Transportation Alternatives, 2024[22]). Slow Streets (Figure 2.2), implemented in cities like Brussels, Belgium, and San Francisco, United States, have successfully reduced vehicle speeds and traffic volumes, leading to fewer crashes and a safer environment for pedestrians (NACTO, 2020[12]). San Francisco’s Slow Streets have seen a 48% drop in car crashes compared with just a 14% drop in crashes citywide between 2020 and 2023 with zero fatalities (Box 2.1), while Paris, France, saw increased pedestrian activity after introducing slow zones and a 30 kilometre per hour speed limit on most streets between 2016 and 2019 (Malmo, 2023[23]; Salazar-Miranda et al., 2022[24]).

Designing cities that are compact and well-connected is essential for fostering age inclusiveness. The Compact City is an urban planning approach designed to promote sustainable urban development by concentrating urban functions to optimise the use of urban space and reduce sprawl. The OECD has identified three main characteristics of a Compact City: dense and proximate development patterns; connectivity of urban areas by public transport; and accessibility to local services and jobs (OECD, 2012[27]). In Japan, the Compact City model has been identified as a way to improve the quality of life of older adults and has been implemented in cities across the country since 2014 in response to ageing and an unprecedented decrease in population (Yoon, 2020[28]; Takemura, 2012[29]). The Compact City model, which promotes sustainable urban development by concentrating urban functions, reducing sprawl and enhancing connectivity, is particularly relevant for ageing and shrinking cities, where declining populations can lead to reduced access to essential services like healthcare, shops and banks. By increasing density and improving public transport links, Compact Cities help ensure that ageing residents can access their daily needs without relying on private cars (ITF, 2023[6]). Research shows that compact urban forms support sustainable transport, improve service access and enhance social equity (Ahlfeldt and Pietrostefani, 2017[30]). However, implementing this model requires significant investment and co‑ordination, particularly in suburban areas where access to services is often more limited. In OECD functional urban areas (FUAs), the share of people who can walk to a primary school or childcare facility within 15 minutes is only 36%, and the gap between suburbs and city centres grows wider as the size of the FUA size increases (OECD, 2024[31]).

In addition to improving the ability of residents to move around and enjoy the city, governments can also increase access to key city amenities for residents of all ages by enhancing the quality of and access to public transport and by increasing the proximity between residents and the goods and services they need. One way to accomplish this is by moving away from the monocentric model of cities where culture and commerce are concentrated at the urban core with residential neighbourhoods around the periphery, yielding prohibitively long commutes and urban sprawl that can lead to the social isolation for older adults discussed in Chapter 1.

The concept of the 15-minute city (Figure 2.4) aims to enhance accessibility and move away from the traditional, monocentric city model. Coined by Carlos Moreno in 2016 and developed in several books since then (Moreno, 2016[32]; 2024[33]; 2022[34]), it promotes an urban quality of life allowed by easy access to key activities such as work, day-to-day shopping and socialisation. This, in turn, supports sustainable mobility practices. While this concept gained visibility during the COVID-19 pandemic and following its integration into Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo’s political campaign, it builds on a wide variety of academic concepts promoting urban quality of living and sustainable cities. Clarence Stein’s vision of the neighbourhood unit in the 1920s (1928 [1998][35]) and Jane Jacobs’ work (1961[36]) on the dense city, among others, have guided neighbourhood projects based on small distances for several decades (Cremaschi, 2022[37]).

Initiatives around the 15-minute-city concept as in Paris aim to develop places with key amenities and resources within a manageable walking distance of residents regardless of where they live. The concept can support ageing in place in cities because as shown in Chapter 1, as city residents age, their trips outside become less frequent, shorter in length and shorter in distance (APUR, 2023[39]). Shorter distances between homes and urban amenities are also likely to promote more travelling autonomy for children and make trips outside with children, such as errands or accompanying them to school, more convenient for parents. These initiatives can also support residents’ physical and mental health, especially ageing inhabitants, by creating more walkable neighbourhoods that can boost physical activity, increase the likelihood of social interactions and reduce the distance and time between healthcare services and clients. Indeed, the simpler the commute to services like healthcare in cities, the less likely residents are to rely on cars to access them (ITF, 2023[6]). They can also induce a virtuous cycle at a very local scale with several co-benefits, such as cleaner air and safer streets, given that fewer cars in neighbourhoods can make them easier to navigate for pedestrians. An analysis of the potential impact that the 15-minute city concept could have in Santiago de Chile, Chile, found higher levels of accessibility correspond to better rates of access to certain facilities, especially public services such as green areas, public service offices, public transport or sports centres, as well as various social and cultural recreational spaces (Ulloa-Leon et al., 2023[40]).

As cities promote the use of active modes of transport to address the climate crisis, the 15-minute city model resonates with local governments. Yet, this concept has been criticised for promoting an idealised and exclusive image of city living. As underlined by Cremaschi (2022[37]), residential decisions are shaped by complex constraints, including care responsibilities and financial resources. While the location of one’s workplace strongly influences these decisions, it can be expected that residents will value staying in the same neighbourhood, where their social network is strongest, as they age and retreat from employment. The 15-minute city as a land-use-planning concept finds its limit when confronted with structural inequalities that shape urban living. Indeed, the concept has been criticised for disregarding existing intra‑metropolitan inequalities, further reinforced by the pandemic, which allowed some workers to benefit from remote work to live more locally while others remained forced into long commutes (Veltz, 2021[41]). Analysis of the 15-minute city also flags a risk of gentrification: improved access to key services might drive an increase in housing prices and retail rents, gentrifying previously underserved areas and pricing out longtime residents (Elldér, 2024[42]; Dunning, Calafire and Nurse, 2021[43]). Cities can address this concern by adopting a functional approach to key policies such as housing and transport, which span beyond administrative boundaries and neighbourhood units.

In response to these concerns, alternative models have been discussed. Offner (2020[44]), for instance, advocates for a discussion of the city of “right distances”, accounting for the attraction of the opportunities offered by large metropolises while supporting policies that back inclusive access to amenities. Considering the class and gender constraints inherent in care responsibilities, Bogotá, Colombia, developed the Care Block model (Box 2.2). Care Blocks are designed specifically to reduce the burdens of unpaid care work, overwhelmingly taken on by women, including caring for the ageing and children, to ensure both vulnerable residents and their caregivers have easy and equitable access to the support they need (OECD, 2022[45]).

Initiatives like Todos al Parque! (Everyone to the park!) in Barranquilla, Colombia, demonstrate how cities can place residents closer to green spaces, which offer substantial ecological, economic, environmental and socio-cultural benefits, including biodiversity conservation and human well-being (Endalew Terefe and Hou, 2024[48]). Green areas can help address loneliness and other mental health issues common among city residents, especially older adults (Astell-Burt et al., 2022[49]; Burgalassi and Matsumoto, 2024[50]) and provide valuable space for exercise (Public Health England, 2020[51]). However, accessibility and utilisation of these spaces often pose significant challenges and social inequality in urban areas. Todos al Parque! has increased residents’ access to urban green space, satisfying the yearning of children, young people and older adults for nature in cities, while simultaneously addressing issues of crime, pollution and urban neglect. The co-design process undertaken by the city ensured that needs of children, older adults and people with reduced mobility were taken into account in park design, including the location of specific equipment and furniture, access ramps and paths without steps (WRI, 2022[52]). Before Todos al Parque!, more than 60% of neighbourhoods lacked green spaces. Since its implementation, the programme has ensured that 93% of households are now within an 8-minute walk of a green space, created 250 new or upgraded parks and improved social cohesion by making public spaces safer for all (WRI, 2023[53]).

National governments can take tangible action to facilitate the protection and expansion of urban green spaces in support of city residents of all ages as well. The Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) has adopted and amended the Urban Green Space Act, dedicated to addressing the low and limited amounts of green space in the country’s urban areas (MLIT[54]). The act is structured around three main axes: a strategic securing of green space, led by the national government; active conservation and renewal of urban green spaces; and promotion of private investment in urban development in harmony with the natural environment. MLIT establishes basic national policies for urban green space conservation, which supports prefectures and cities in formulating more detailed regional and city-level plans respectively. Special provisions simplify procedures for the implementation of renewal and improvement projects of green spaces in special conservation districts, and urban greenery support organisations are established to purchase green spaces on behalf of local governments. To garner private investment, the national government establishes a certification system with guidelines for projects to secure green spaces by private business operators. Projects with this certification are also supported through loans from the Urban Development Fund.

Finding creative ways to provide children with space for fun and free movement is essential for development (Arup, 2020[55]). In Istanbul, Türkiye, “pop-up playgrounds” are a series of fun activities temporarily organised across the city, focused particularly on neighbourhoods where children have fewer opportunities and spaces to play (Burbano, 2023[56]). Tirana, Albania, has gone from zero children’s parks to 54 in 5 years, ensuring equitable density by installing more than 1 per neighbourhood. In Tokyo, Japan, Toei Subway now features trains with child-friendly areas on all lines. The city also offers child-raising plazas that offer playground equipment, facilitate connections between parents and offer consultations, including some located in metro stations. In Vienna, Austria, kindergarten groups, school classes, youth groups or groups of friends are able to develop their ideas for projects to be funded by the Participatory Children and Youth Million initiative (CEMR, 2024[57]). The resulting projects are voted on line by children and young people, submitted to the city council and implemented by the municipal departments.

Cities like Stockholm in Sweden, New York in the United States, Paris, France, and Montreal, Canada, implement Summer Street programmes in certain areas and for certain periods that not only slow or remove car traffic but replace it with space for children to play and move about autonomously along with equipment for games and recreation. Antwerp, Belgium, has mapped how children go to school, where they play and where they meet up with friends in order to build a “play network” that pedestrianises the routes normally taken by children as well as play areas, youth clubs and schools (Burbano, 2023[56]). Cities can also support healthy activity, family time and autonomy among children by increasing access to public sports facilities and green spaces, for instance by offering more flexible hours and ensuring there is drinking water on site. Indeed, the provision of toilets, drinking water and food options increases the amount of time families spend outdoors (Bernard van Leer Foundation[58]), while keeping parks open for longer can increase access and ensure people from different walks of life can benefit (Endalew Terefe and Hou, 2024[48]). Vienna and other cities are applying the principle of “multiple use” (Mehrfachnutzung) to school sports grounds by opening these free spaces on weekday evenings and on the weekends, allowing a more efficient use of existing infrastructure and creating new offers for young people living in the neighbourhood.

The Rues aux enfants, or “children’s streets”, initiative in Paris has made the home-school route safer for children by pedestrianising more than 299 streets, which surround half of the city’s nursery and primary schools (City of Paris, 2024[59]). Removable barriers and large green spaces are installed where possible. While the passage of emergency vehicles and services such as waste collection is permitted, motorised vehicles are strictly prohibited and pedestrians retain priority.

In addition to providing more space for play and safe movement, cities are finding creative ways to ease the burden of childcare on parents in order to retain them as residents. A simplified childcare shuttle system implemented in Nagareyama, Japan, a city with a growing birth rate that cuts against national trends, has reduced parents’ commute times by allowing them to pick up and drop off their children at major local train stations where they are transported to daycare centres. New York and San Francisco are both using inclusionary zoning and tax incentives to encourage developers in their cities to include childcare facilities in their office conversions and new developments (Larsen, 2023[60]; Hurley, 2023[61]). The expansion of cycling infrastructure in cities like Paris and Bogotá have changed the way people move around cities, particularly younger and able-bodied residents (OECD, 2020[18]). Investing in quality cycling infrastructure that ensures the safety of cyclists could lead to greater autonomy among children: a study conducted in Seoul, Korea, shows that most children live within a 15-minute cycling trip of schools and the academies where after-school lessons are held. Improving the safety of the cycling network could enhance children’s independent mobility, which would, in turn, free up time for parents in cities (ITF, 2023[6]), as well as increase cycling among able-bodied older people (Van Cauwenberg et al., 2019[62]).

Promoting more inclusive urban design that responds to the preferences of young people can also help encourage young people to stay local and prevent their fleeing to the suburbs or megacities. Digital natives living in cities who have grown up in the sharing economy own fewer cars and drive less, happy instead to rely on a mix of teleworking, public transport, ridesharing and online delivery to meet their needs (The Economist, 2023[63]). The share of Americans aged 20-24 without driver’s licenses has grown from 8% in 1983 to 20% in 2023, while the number of driving trips made by working people in big European cities has decreased substantially since peaking in the 1990s. Even before COVID-19, young working people in big European cities like Berlin in Germany, Copenhagen in Denmark, London, Paris and Vienna have had the most significant decline in car use, as well as the largest shift to non-car modes (Wittwer, Gerike and Hubrich, 2019[64]).

Cities can embrace this shift in the preferences of environmentally conscious young people not only as a strategy to attract and retain young working-age residents but also to achieve broader goals of environmental sustainability, demographic diversity and financial stability. Increased dedicated infrastructure for micromobility, such as cycling and scooters, is one way to do so, as well as increasing access to green space and communal “third places”.

Fostering community and social interaction are important roles of urban design and of urban space more generally (Urban Design Lab, 2024[65]; Bansal, Bansal and Sen, 2020[66]; Marcheschi et al., 2022[67]). Local governments can transform certain parts of cities, especially abandoned or underused areas, into assets that foster community and facilitate social interactions, including among and between different age groups, addressing challenges of spatial segregation in cities. While more elaborate urban regeneration projects can recycle brownfield sites into new commercial or residential properties, smaller scale “low-hanging-fruit” efforts to reinvent empty lots or abandoned buildings can produce community assets in the forms of third places, cafés, solidarity centres and parks, with local community stakeholders often taking a role.

Creating “third places”, e.g. public leisure areas with seating and atmosphere where people can engage outside of work and home, can also promote intergenerational interactions and provide a sense of community while potentially stimulating local business through increased foot traffic. The third place created along the Seine River in Paris in 2017 has not only provided outdoor space for small businesses to operate, generated an appealing pedestrian promenade and provided increased leisure space in a dense city, but has also replaced a pollutant highway and reduced dangerous car traffic in the area. Cities can also encourage restaurants and cafes to offer “solidarity” rates for older adults, as well as other vulnerable or low-income groups. Mannheim, Germany, has transformed long-underused spaces into vibrant community hubs that foster intergenerational interactions and cultural activities, including open-air concerts as well as games and third places for both youth and the ageing (OECD, 2024[68]).

Paris’ Réinventer Paris (Reinventing Paris) initiative accomplished several goals at once by relieving itself of the management of abandoned spaces under public control, releasing them instead to local associations who participated in open calls for proposals on how to use them. One winner was La Ferme du Rail (The Rail Farm), developed on a lot along Paris’s long-abandoned railroad track (The Rail Farm[69]). It consists of an urban farm and restaurant offering health and affordable meals in a low-income neighbourhood, as well as a 15-unit accommodation and social reintegration centre and a 5-unit student social residence. Other examples include an old train station transformed into a jazz concert hall and a former canal lock operator’s house now serving as a “third place” solidarity café and community art space. Such initiatives reallocate valuable yet unused urban infrastructure for better purposes and also allow young people to put their stamp on their neighbourhoods and develop a sense of home.

The revival of the Kusatsu River in Kusatsu City, Japan, serves as a strong example of how cities can leverage urban space to create a more welcoming and attractive environment for residents. The river, abandoned in 2002 and located near a major train station, has since been redeveloped into a high-quality park with shops and gardens where all age groups can thrive.

Promoting intergenerational living through urban design is crucial to ensuring older adults can engage with younger people and do not feel socially or physically excluded from city life. Cities can induce these mutually beneficial interactions between age groups through design of public places and by providing community spaces that support the needs of dual services such as intergenerational daycare facilities. These hardware solutions can be combined with “software” ones, such as matchmaking services that connect younger people in need of housing with older adults in need of assistance, companion networks where young people accompany older adults to cultural outings and “night mayors”, such as in Mannheim and elsewhere, who help promote responsible nightlife and mitigate conflict between generations.

Intergenerational plazas in Quillota, Chile, are co-designed with various community associations to ensure that the spaces facilitate positive social interactions between different age groups while also serving the needs and preferences of all. The plazas feature universal accessibility design with proper lighting; a children’s play area with a rubber floor; a pergola for protection from the sun as well as benches, chess and picnic tables; drinking fountains; a mobile device charger powered by pedalling; and pavements and green areas with native trees (Jimenez, 2022[70]). Meanwhile, intergenerational day centres in cities like Minneapolis, Seattle and Van Nuys in the United States, Chester and London in the United Kingdom that provide critical dual care for children and older adults have shown an ability to increase the health and well-being of both age groups, reduce social isolation and create cost efficiencies (Norouzi and Angel, 2023[71]). These hybrid, shared-site designs offer more ways for socialisation, community building and knowledge sharing than traditional retirement homes or assisted living complexes, and childcare provided on site in elder care facilities can also support healthcare workers who are parents of small children, which can help make this demanding profession more appealing (Goldberg, 2024[72]).

“Software” solutions, which support the participation of older residents in cultural activities, connect them with younger generations and help mitigate conflicts between generations, can provide well-being benefits across different age groups in cities. The Cultural Companions programme in Cork and other cities in Ireland facilitate group outings both among ageing residents and with younger people, using newsletters and WhatsApp groups to share events and co‑ordinate meeting places (Municipality of Cork, 2024[73]).

As outlined in Chapter 1, cities face various housing challenges across different age groups related to affordability, supply (including of relevant housing size and type) and quality (including energy efficiency and accessibility). Effectively addressing these challenges is essential to meet the diverse housing needs of different age groups, making housing play a crucial element in creating cities for all ages.

Local and national governments can deploy various actions to generate affordable and accessible housing in cities for residents of specific target age groups, including stricter accessibility requirements, land-use tools, developer incentives, publicly owned brownfield assets, rightsizing1 incentivisation schemes, low- or no-interest mortgage loans, and rent subsidies (OECD, 2023[74]). Governments of all levels can combine these actions to respond to the needs of young people in various phases of life, from students to young professionals and young parents, while also ensuring that older residents can age gracefully in place. While certain subsidies and stronger accessibility standards may incur some short-term costs, these should be offset by benefits that come with retaining working-age residents in cities and prolonging autonomy among older adults, including increased economic productivity and long-term savings on healthcare spending.

Integrated housing plans can simultaneously incorporate multiple policy approaches and actions for a more comprehensive impact. For instance, at the national level, Japan has adopted a Housing Safety Net System with several prongs, including: a registration system for rental housing that does not refuse persons in need; financial support for the renovation and occupancy of registered housing; and matching people in need to available units. The Japanese government has also put in place systems and capacities for non‑government entities to support the housing-related needs of vulnerable groups such as the ageing and those living with disabilities, highlighting the importance of engaging a wide array of actors. For instance, it has established “housing support corporations” that provide housing counselling and daily support for vulnerable residents, as well as “housing support councils” that foster co-operation among local governments, real-estate-related organisations and housing support groups (MLIT, 2017[75]).

Local and national governments can leverage a range of policy tools, including developer obligations, brownfield redevelopment and better utilisation of existing housing stock, to meet the diverse housing needs of residents of all ages and increase overall housing supply. These policy approaches can also yield co-benefits such as preventing urban sprawl, not only by prioritising building on already-developed areas and near key resources such as transit but by providing affordable housing closer to city centres that can help reduce the need for residents to relocate just outside the city (OECD, 2023[74]).

Local governments can use developer charges and inclusionary zoning policies to reserve a portion of new affordable housing units for specific population groups. Developers can be incentivised or required to provide affordable housing for certain age groups or to construct units of a certain size in alignment with the needs of certain family sizes through inclusionary zoning that offers density and height bonuses, as well as tax incentives and other forms of regulatory relief (OECD/Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, PKU-Lincoln Institute Center, 2022[76]). However, to benefit from these tools, local governments need the regulatory framework and technical capacity to accurately assess needs, negotiate with developers and extract value from the process. In addition, such land-based finance tools are less effective when the demand for high-density development is low. In such cases, broader efforts of urban regeneration may be necessary to attract investment and development first. It is also crucial for official spatial, land-use, housing and environmental plans to be co-ordinated at all levels of government, and for local governments to have the expertise and capacity to prepare such plans and negotiate with private developers in order to ensure that urban housing development can respond to needs (OECD, 2023[74]).

Cities can identify derelict brownfield sites that can be rehabilitated for housing, including on public property, in order to increase housing supply designed specifically for certain age groups. New Orleans (Louisiana, United States) has repurposed a public courthouse as assisted living for ageing residents, facilitating its retrofitting (Capps, 2023[77]). The renovations feature ageing-friendly design, such as bathrooms with grab bars and floor-level showers with benches and “memory care” units that minimise potentially confusing design or storage space such as kitchenettes or built-in closets. Bologna, Italy, renovated an unused public building in the city centre to provide 45 units of efficient, below-market housing preserved for people under 35 years old. Most services and amenities in the building are shared, much like a hostel, providing a much-needed sense of community for young people (Housing Evolutions Hub[78]). Meanwhile, the strategic location of the building in the city centre provides young people with close proximity to key amenities in an area where they otherwise might not be able to afford housing. The Greek national government aims to relocate civil servants from 177 of its offices in the core of Athens to the surrounding suburbs by 2027 to free up space in the city centre, including for housing (Varvitsioti, 2022[79]).

Other creative modes to boost housing supply include modular housing for the ageing, which is both affordable and low maintenance. One study on how to meet increased demand for senior housing in Australia found that one of the most effective models includes modular-style manufactured housing that uses available vacant land, low-rise medium‑density development and reforms to the private rental sector (AHURI, 2022[80]).

Cities are using multiple methods to increase existing housing stock availability. Efforts to increase the use of existing housing supply include: endeavouring to put vacant units and those used for short-term rentals back on the housing market; facilitating multi-generational cohabitation; using loans and grants to encourage renovations for ageing accessibility; preserving and subsidising housing and providing no- or low-interest loans for young people at different stages of life to help them get on their feet in the city.

Solutions used in the Brussels-Capital and Wallonia Regions of Belgium to address the issue of vacant housing units in order to increase the supply of affordable housing could be particularly instructive for handling vacant commercial properties in cities. In Wallonia, vacant dwellings are detected by using electricity and water consumption data, while the Brussels-Capital Region has appointed one person per municipality to explore neighbourhoods, detect vacant dwellings and contact owners. In both regions, owners of vacant dwellings can be accompanied by social rental agencies to renovate them in exchange for a nine-year lease to put them back on the market. Wallonia has also increased taxes on vacant dwellings to incentivise landlords to put them back on the market and, if a dwelling has been vacant for a certain number of years, owners can be court-ordered to put it back on the rental market or sell it (Carolan, 2024[81]).

Cities can use loans and grants to facilitate housing renovation for senior accessibility. For example, Toulouse, France, provides grants for the elderly and people with disabilities to renovate and adapt housing to their specific needs (OECD, 2023[74]). Reykjavik, Iceland, in collaboration with the national government, allocates seed funding to non-profit housing co‑operatives in charge of constructing or renting out apartments on behalf of their members, which includes associations for the elderly as well as for unions, student associations and some private housing co‑operatives. This approach has helped Reykjavik successfully mix social housing into all districts with a focus on affluent areas. One-fourth of new housing units will be managed by non-profit housing associations, and up to 3 000 new rental and residential rights apartments will be built over the next few years in collaboration with rental and residential rights associations.

To address multiple needs at once, some cities have played “matchmaker” by connecting young people in need of housing with older residents in need of social interaction or basic care support who have excess space in their homes. Alicante, Spain, and Turin, Italy, have provided housing to young people this way in exchange for their provision of social and care activities to their elder hosts as part of rental contracts (Burgalassi and Matsumoto, 2024[50]). In Baltimore, Maryland, United States, a non-profit organisation runs a home-sharing programme that provides affordable housing for low-income residents by connecting them to seniors who need help paying rent and moving around the house (Holder, 2023[82]). Strategic partnerships between different parts of a community, such as universities and support associations for the ageing, can also help forge such connections. The University of California Berkeley Retirement Center operates a programme with the senior living non-profit organisation Front Porch called Home Match, in which older people offer a room in their home to students, while New York University (NYU) runs a partnership with the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens’ Home Sharing Program, where adults who are 60 years of age or older living in the city can be matched with an NYU graduate student and offer them a spare room (Goldberg, 2024[72]). Other models of similar matchmaking schemes ensure that young people offer some sort of service to the ageing. In Cambridge, United Kingdom, a project called LinkAges offered students cheaper rent in a retirement complex in exchange for volunteer hours interacting with residents and teaching them digital skills, while a retirement village in the city of Deventer in the Netherlands offers students housing in exchange for them spending 30 hours per month helping their ageing neighbours (Goldberg, 2024[72]).

Because young people typically have lower income and wealth and a greater likelihood of being employed in unstable or informal jobs than older groups, they often lack the capital to buy a home as well as the income to rent a quality home (Cournède and Plouin, 2022[83]). Thus, finding creative ways to deliver affordable housing to young people – both to rent and to own – can help them build wealth and establish a stable quality of life in the city. In Bangkok, Thailand, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is supporting the development of “housing incubators” for new graduates aged 18-25 years and those who are just starting out and entering the first jobber phase to rent at a low price of THB 2 000-3 000 (EUR 50-75) per month for a period of 5 years so that they can establish themselves in the city and begin to save (Sittipunt[84]). Turin has implemented the Youth Solidarity Housing (Coabitazioni Solidali Giovanili) initiative with support from the Compagnia di San Paolo Housing Programme and other non-profits, which provides cohabitation communities for youth between the ages of 18 and 30 (OECD, 2023[74]). These young people live in publicly owned housing and benefit from reduced rents, in exchange for making themselves available for ten hours a week for the benefit of the community. There are currently six such communities spread across six different neighbourhoods.

At the national level, Portugal has multiple programmes to help young people enter the housing market, including a state guarantee to obtain a 100% mortgage for residents 35 years old and younger when buying their first home and the Porta 65 Jovem financial aid programme that supports young people by paying a percentage of their monthly rent (Muncipality of Lisbon[85]; Mourão Carvalho, 2024[86]). The latter aims to boost the market and encourage a more autonomous lifestyle for young people living alone, in a family or in cohabitation. To give young people a chance to live autonomously and invest in their future, Greece has offered residents between 25-39 years old low- or no-interest loans to help them buy property in cities like Athens, where house and rent prices have increased as much as 30% and 50% respectively in the past 7 years (Varvitsioti, 2022[79]).

A wide variety of distinct housing types exist, including supportive housing for seniors, intergenerational housing and neighbourhoods and communal co-housing for young people. An informed diversification of housing supply in cities could ensure that residents in different phases of life have access to the housing they need and can transition from one phase of life to the next within the same city (Burgalassi and Matsumoto, 2024[50]).

Dementia villages are becoming increasingly popular due to their ability to provide supportive housing coupled with onsite professional care (a strong example of combining “hardware” and “software” solutions) for older adults living with dementia, allowing ageing residents to live in dignity with safety and community. The Villaggio Emmanuele in the Bufalotta neighbourhood of Rome, Italy, includes 100 housing units reserved for people living with Alzheimer’s operated by onsite professional caregivers, based on the model of the De Hogeweyk dementia village in Weesp, Netherlands, just outside Amsterdam (Karim, 2024[87]). It provides a safe and stimulating environment suitable for people affected by serious illnesses and aims to replicate residents’ ways of life as much as possible to preserve cognitive abilities. Its design is based on the qualities of a typical European village with common features like streets, squares, gardens, buildings and water.

Intergenerational housing developments in various forms have become an increasingly popular solution to the widespread societal challenges of loneliness and housing affordability over the past decade (Goldberg, 2024[72]). Vienna has invested in the urban development Sonnwendviertel, where multi-generational cohousing projects (Baugruppen) create symbiotic living environments for younger and older people. Baugruppen is a “zero-profit” housing model that has the potential to deliver higher quality, more sustainable homes designed for long-term needs rather than profit and can be supported by local authorities by offering access to cheap land (Thorpe[88]). While such innovative housing projects show signs of elitism that can reproduce socio-spatial inequalities, local authorities can play a central role in upscaling these housing innovations by ensuring a higher level of inclusiveness (Cucca and Friesenecker, 2022[89]). In the United States, retirees increasingly prefer to live closer to city centres than in far-flung car‑dependent areas, allowing them to enjoy the mobility and socialisation advantages of urban life as they age (Goldberg, 2024[72]). More than 70 colleges and universities around the country now offer housing for older adults either on campus or nearby, and the vast majority are non-profit “continuing care” retirement communities that charge an initial entry fee in exchange for access to a wide range of housing types and care levels for residents as they age. These locations facilitate intergenerational exchanges and offer ageing residents access to a vibrant college campus and a chance to continue learning, an opportunity that comes with potential mental health benefits, considering that adults aged 50 to 79 who completed at least 1 year of part-time university study were less likely to experience memory loss or cognitive disorders such as dementia (Goldberg, 2024[72]).

Colleges in Tempe, Arizona, and Boston, Massachusetts, United States, both feature on‑campus retirement housing complexes where residents have student identification cards that allow them to sit in on classes, use the library and attend events. Other university-based retirement homes include shared amenities and early childhood learning centres that feature intergenerational daycare, house students and ageing residents in the same building, offer students subsidised rent in exchange for four service hours per week with ageing residents. A university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, opened an intergenerational housing community in 2021 that accommodates people over 55 along with the school’s students who are single mothers and ensures the latter can study while supporting their children through an onsite early childhood development facility.

Co-housing for the ageing and women, such as the 17-unit Chamarel Les Barges settlement located just outside Lyon, France, fights loneliness and prolongs the autonomy of ageing residents through shared responsibilities among residents, uses a co-operative property model that keeps housing affordable, and promotes ecological development (Le Cocon Solidaire, 2021[90]). In addition to sharing chores, residents also operate a shared garden and library. While the Les Barges co-operative was entirely the initiative of local residents with a preference for communal living determined to maintain their autonomy into old age and escape the burden of rising rents, cities can study this model and encourage its replication.

As discussed in Chapter 1, older residents can face challenges from living in homes that are difficult to maintain and ill-suited to their needs, while younger residents can face overcrowded living conditions. Rightsizing schemes are policies or programmes that incentivise and facilitate the relocation of “empty nesters” (older adults with adult children who no longer live in the family home) who wish to move to more manageable-sized and mobility-accessible apartments in the same development or city. Rightsizing can not only benefit older adults who are able to move to more accessible housing but also frees up needed larger units for households, including young families. Indeed, in Cork, 20% of social housing units are underoccupied, suggesting that rightsizing could lead to a more efficient allocation of housing (Bohane, 2024[91]). Cork City Council’s voluntary rightsizing scheme is open to people over the age of 60 (both social housing tenants and private homeowners) who find their home too large or unsuitable for their needs and wish to relocate to more senior-friendly housing. A rightsizing guide created by the association Age Friendly Ireland features several case studies of seniors from around the country who rightsized, including to: live closer to family; relocate to a new area more suited to their needs (e.g. near a park or train station); transition into supportive housing; live in a more accessible home with no stairs; access a housing subsidy grant; downsize from a house to an apartment; and finally stay in their home by home sharing (Age Friendly Ireland[92]). This last option is viable for older adults who do not wish to leave their longtime residence, while providing housing options to those in need. Clear communication of alternative options for seniors is also integral to successful rightsizing, beyond incentives and provision of desirable housing types. One survey of ageing residents in two Belgian municipalities asked if they wished to remain in their homes rather than relocate, once before and again after being presented with alternatives. Beforehand, 79% responded that they’d prefer to remain in their homes; after seeing alternative housing options, just 43% answered that they’d still prefer not to move (Halleux, 2024[93]).

Although rightsizing is a low-cost method of ensuring residents of all ages are housed in units that meet their needs, the scheme faces certain limitations that intersect with broader housing issues of affordability, accessibility and supply. For instance, even private owners wishing to sell their home and enter voluntary rightsizing schemes cannot always acquire property that suits their needs because of cost, location or accessibility issues. In Cork County, the availability of smaller dwellings is limited, and those available are either too expensive or not ageing-friendly (Bohane, 2024[91]). One solution could be for governments to construct more social housing units suited to the needs of ageing residents and offer them to those looking to rightsize, helping prevent the seller from relying on the expensive private housing market in cities. However, this solution is intertwined with other challenges, including construction costs and speeds.

The Eucalyptus Hills development’s Happy Cycle System implemented in Sakura City, Japan, is a housing package sold to residents to incentivise “rightsizing” of units for households experiencing a change in size and facilitates their relocation to a new housing unit at favourable rates (Figure 2.6). The property developer offers 100% of the purchase price, does not charge a real estate fee and introduces residents to their next home within the development (Uemura, 2019[94]). The programme has proven popular with families, who elected to use it to relocate within Eucalyptus Hills instead of leaving the development. The developer also refurbishes homes purchased from older adults looking to rightsize and sells them to young families in order to attract younger populations to the area.

Integrating both young and older adults as workers and consumers can enhance economic competitiveness and attractiveness and optimise workforce potential, ensuring that cities remain dynamic and competitive despite demographic shifts. Cities can help ensure that older adults can age gracefully in place, ensuring they have the skills and resources needed to continue working if they so choose and encouraging the development of a local “silver economy”, which provides goods and services to older adults based on their specific needs and preferences. While the combination of increased life expectancy around the world, increasing age-dependency ratios in cities and the strained budgets of many cities present challenges for cities in supporting their ageing population, they can also represent an opportunity to engage older residents as both workers and silver economy consumers. Adults working later in life may experience less loneliness due to social interactions related to work, as well as a more active lifestyle and increased autonomy thanks to a continued income (Burgalassi and Matsumoto, 2024[50]), which can also relieve pressure on governments to provide care services.

However, evidence on this is not unequivocal. A study conducted on 4 521 older workers (50-64 years old) in England, United Kingdom (Bevilacqua et al., 2021[95]), found that exiting the workforce did not lead to an increased feeling of loneliness and that a negative perception of one’s working conditions (perception of a lack of options, high stress, difficulties coping with the physical demands of the job) was associated with stronger feelings of isolation. These findings show that the quality of jobs provided to older workers plays a critical role in their feelings of social isolation. OECD research shows that promoting career mobility over the lifecycle can help older workers avoid the substantial costs associated with job loss, help them work in jobs that better match their caregiving and health needs, as well as help them transition to higher‑quality jobs. Older workers are also less likely to consider early retirement if they had a mid-career job change that better matched their needs (OECD, 2024[96]).

The silver economy is potentially a very lucrative industry that can leverage market forces to meet the needs of older adults as consumers, and alleviate demand on public services as well (Irving, 2018[97]; Rut Sigurjónsdóttir, Stjernberg and Wøien Meijer, 2021[98]). However, the silver economy does not only stand to benefit the ageing. While the goods and services it produces serve the ageing, it could also create jobs for workers across the age spectrum, including young people.

Investing in young people as both workers and consumers, as well as leveraging assets such as urban land and public space, can help cities create jobs and stimulate the local economy as well. Helsinki, Finland, operates one of many universal one-stop guidance centres for youth across Finland called Ohjaamo, which provide face-to-face and free-of-charge wrap-around support to individuals under the age of 30 in search of jobs, housing and services (OECD, 2024[99]). Twenty-two percent of all young people visiting Ohjaamo for whom data were collected transitioned into open labour market jobs, while 32% applied for training and 7% secured a place to live. Promoting cultural activities such as outdoor festivals and responsible nightlife can also make cities more appealing to young people while creating service and hospitality jobs. Leveraging brownfield sites to provide educational and work opportunities can have an impact as well.

As life expectancy continues to increase in cities across the OECD, ensuring that older adults who want to continue work can do so can help them maintain autonomy later into life, facilitate social connections as well as a mentally and physically active lifestyle, and help reduce their reliance on social services, helping to save governments money. To accomplish this, local and national governments can ensure older adults have access to training and upskilling opportunities relevant to the local labour market and that respond to the changing skill requirements, especially green and digital skills (OECD, 2023[100]). Governments can also support “silver entrepreneurship” through micro-loans, grants, training and administrative support for older residents hoping to start a business. Partnerships with community members such as local businesses and universities can help cities identify the skills older adults need, forge intergenerational knowledge exchanges, connect older adults to work opportunities and establish certificates for training completion for skills firms desire (Goldberg, 2024[72]).

Age diversity could also benefit firms, considering those with intergenerational workforces tend to see higher productivity than those skewed too heavily toward just one end of the age spectrum (OECD/Generation: You Employed, Inc., 2023[101]). Initiatives like the Greater Manchester (United Kingdom) Local Industrial Strategy and Good Employment Charter, both co-designed with local firms, non-profit organisations and citizens, help establish inclusive plans for good jobs, while the city’s Adult Education Budget has ensured that more than 29 000 residents are equipped with the right skills and knowledge for local jobs (GMCA, n.d.[102]; n.d.[103]; 2019[104]). Cities can go further by embedding an age component in these plans and initiatives, ensuring that older adults living longer lives and willing to work are accounted for.

Promoting education and training to improve the digital capabilities of the ageing is key not only for extending working careers and enhancing their well-being and independence (Rut Sigurjónsdóttir, Stjernberg and Wøien Meijer, 2021[98]) but also for empowering them as consumers. Building digital skills among the ageing population can increase their ability to both support and benefit from local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) offering services via online platforms, such as Letzshop, an online marketplace with over 450 vendors offering half a million products across 17 municipalities, designed to promote digitalisation among SMEs in Luxembourg (Letzshop news, 2024[105]). While tools like Letzshop can help local SMEs in cities survive by expanding their presence on online platforms, cities can also work to develop digital skills among older adults so that they can benefit from such innovations.

The potential of the silver economy, estimated at around USD 15 trillion as of 2020 (Irving, 2018[97]), represents an opportunity for cities to stimulate their local economies by supporting industries that can meet the consumer demands of ageing residents, which can create jobs, generate tax revenue and potentially offload certain ageing-related care services to the private sector.

The demand for assisting older adults with daily activities is set to increase by more than one-third by 2050 (OECD, 2024[106]). Considering the growing demand for healthcare services, national and local governments can work together to incentivise or subsidise the provision of healthcare needs in cities, including digitalised services, from the private or third sectors. For example, telecare and telehealth (e.g. remote delivery of health monitoring and care) can help people live independently for longer and moderate extra costs brought by ageing populations. Supportive housing, long-term care facilities and even social workers who spend time with older adults living on their own could help provide the care that ageing residents need to remain in cities while simultaneously creating jobs for younger people. However, cities may need to work with the private sector to find ways to make care jobs more desirable, considering that the long-term care workforce has stagnated despite increased demand due to ageing (OECD, 2023[107]; 2024[108]; ILO/OECD, 2019[109]). Indeed, to face a growing demand, the share of long-term care workers in total employment will need to increase by over 30% in the next ten years (OECD, 2023[110]).

Making long-term care work more attractive could be mutually beneficial to residents of different ages by providing more quality jobs to working-age adults and higher quality care for the ageing. Key barriers include low wages, high risks of stress, burn-out and depression, as well as physical risks (OECD, 2023[110]). Increasing public financing, directly intervening to raise wages, supporting collective bargaining, bolstering training, promoting social recognition, increasing the use of new technologies, strengthening preventive health policies and promoting the transition of undeclared care workers to formal employment are all policy measures that can help address these barriers (OECD, 2023[110]). At the local level, governments could form advisory boards composed of relevant stakeholders and forge strategic partnerships with hospitals and universities to identify ways to make care work more flexible or simple (e.g. through digital skills and training) or revisit wage structures to better incentivise overtime or specific types of care.

According to the European Union, mobile healthcare (mhealth) could save EUR 99 billion in healthcare costs in the union itself and add EUR 93 billion to EU GDP if its adoption is encouraged (Eatock, 2015[111]). Since COVID-19 accelerated and normalised the option of digital healthcare services in several cities, demonstrating how quickly supply can be developed to match demand under the right circumstances (OECD, 2021[112]; 2020[18]), cities may wish to continue to develop this field, which may present an opportunity to create jobs that engage the skillsets of younger digital natives. For instance, Barcelona has invested in the Barcelona Health Hub, a non-profit association that aims to advance innovation in digital health and its transfer to the health sector (BHH[113]). Other cities, such as Lisbon and Porto, Portugal, are seeking to position themselves as medical tourism destinations for older people by providing various healthcare and wellness services at competitive rates. The affordability of long-term care should also be tackled to improve older adults’ quality of life, as the out-of-pocket cost for these services represents an average of 70% of an older person’s median income across OECD member countries, putting older adults at risk of poverty or inadequate care (OECD, 2024[106]). At the same time, population ageing is putting pressure on governments’ capacity to subsidise long-term care. Efficiency gains are key to improving the financial outlook for the long-term care sector.

The construction and renovation of energy-efficient housing represents another opportunity for cities to create jobs and stimulate the local economy while adapting to rapid ageing and responding to climate change. About 97% of the European Union’s buildings must be upgraded to achieve 2050 decarbonisation goals but only around 1% are renovated each year (Fabbri et al., 2020[114]). Meanwhile, renovating buildings for energy efficiency could create up to 30 jobs per USD 1 million of investment and add 1.1% to global economic growth each year (IEA, 2020[115]). The European Commission Renovation Wave programme is projected to create 160 000 jobs by 2030 (EC, 2020[116]), while green building policies in Vancouver and other Canadian cities are projected to generate about 1 700 local jobs each year between 2019 to 2032 (Building.ca, 2019[117]). Cities can stimulate the building sector in cities by simplifying permitting processes, offering zero-interest loans to renovate the homes of older residents to improve energy efficiency and accessibility, and incentivising developers to construct housing for the ageing or include senior-friendly businesses in new developments.

Home renovations and construction for age-friendly accessibility could stimulate the local economies of cities in the same way. In countries like France, the need for home renovations for accessibility is increasingly being treated with similar urgency to those for energy efficiency, given the rapid ageing of the French population (Cour des comptes, 2023[118]). Indeed, to cope with the impending sharp rise in its population aged over 75, France has initiated a subsidy scheme called MaPrimeAdapt’ for adapting homes to ageing, modelled after a similar subsidy for adapting homes to energy efficiency, MaPrimeRénov’. It comes into force at a time when only around 6% of the private housing stock has been adapted for ageing, demonstrating not only the need for a massive upgrading of housing units, but also the potential for a boon in the construction sector. MaPrimeAdapt’ will combine into a single subsidy three main national subsidies: the Habiter Facile programme run by the French National Housing Agency (ANAH); the “Bien vieillir chez soi” (Ageing well at home) financial support provided by the National Old Age Insurance Fund (CNAV); and the tax credit for adapting primary residences of the elderly.

National and local governments can co-ordinate efforts for such renovations, for example by identifying place-based priorities, deepening incentives by spreading subsidies across different levels of government and facilitating the renovation of social housing stock managed by municipalities.

Cities can deploy a variety of actions to promote local brick-and-mortar commerce nearer the homes of older adults, which could help reduce the need to drive out to suburban malls or embark on long, burdensome journeys for groceries and other services. Methods to induce more commercial activity in city centres and stimulate the silver economy include taxing empty storefronts to discourage landlords from leaving units empty; creating the legal framework for, and co-ordinating with, business improvement districts (BIDs) to beautify given areas, augment service delivery and meet demand for certain services; and creating the legal framework for the purchase and lease or sale of storefronts by municipalities, including for short-term “pop-up” tenants and events.

Extensive vacancy of commercial properties in city centres in particular, known in Japan as “shutter streets” (Carmona, 2021[119]), represent missed opportunities to provide goods, services and a sense of communal vibrancy within walking distance of points of interest, transit arteries and housing. Addressing commercial vacancies could benefit all age groups but perhaps especially older adults who increasingly prefer to retire near city centres due to their mobility and socialising advantages (Goldberg, 2024[72]) and who rely on walking as a mode of transport the most of any age group in cities like Seoul (OECD, 2023[110]). The strategies used in the Brussels-Capital and Wallonia Regions of Belgium (see section on optimising the existing housing stock above) to identify vacant housing units and return them to market could also be explored for commercial spaces.

Encouraging the production and/or use of transport modes such as electric bikes (e-bikes), driverless cars and wheelchairs, including through the development of dedicated infrastructure, could also support the silver economy in cities. Indeed, between 2011 and 2015, European annual e-bike sales almost doubled from 1 234 500 to 2 318 000 (Van Cauwenberg et al., 2019[62]). In the Netherlands, older adults represent 65% of all e-bike owners and in Flanders, Belgium, 25% of older adults’ bike trips were via e‑bikes, compared to 7% of the general population. However, despite positive trends concerning the uptake of cycling among older adults, safety in the form of flat surfaces and separation from car traffic remain instrumental to convincing ageing residents to cycle in cities (Van Cauwenberg et al., 2019[62]).

Investing in education, industry, culture or infrastructure anchors can attract and retain young residents while buoying the local economy at all levels and generating tax revenue to support public services needed by older adults (OECD, 2022[120]). Developer incentives, land adjustment, brownfield development and other land-use tools as well as public-private partnerships and public subsidies can be deployed to attract or develop quality universities, start-up incubators and enterprises. Cities can also form partnerships and pipelines between schools, universities, enterprises and civil society to ensure that the skills being taught correspond to the local labour market and provide in-kind support to young people wishing to launch local start-ups (OECD, 2023[121]). Such collaborations may be particularly crucial for small and mid-sized cities that may attract students seeking higher education, only to lose them to bigger cities offering better jobs afterward. Alignment between cities, universities, and local industries can connect young people to internships and facilitate entrepreneurial start-up endeavours that not only retain young talent but contribute to the city.

National and local governments can work together to attract universities and cutting-edge industries that can help attract and retain working-age residents and create quality jobs for young people in cities. Across the OECD, universities are increasingly assuming roles of innovators that contribute to regional and national growth and have become more “entrepreneurial”, adapting teaching and research activities but also increasingly engaging with external partners to transfer knowledge and support entrepreneurs (OECD/IDB, 2022[122]). A study of Nordic region scale-up firms found that firms headquartered in a given area were more likely to remain if the city had a sizeable skilled labour pool, solid infrastructure such as public transport and information and communication technology (ICT), access to office space and operational needs, and close collaboration with industry peers as well as the public sector; conversely, firms relocated for reasons such as an insufficiently skilled local labour force, poor public transport and ICT infrastructure, difficulty accessing additional space to accommodate growth and a poor working relationship with peers and the public sector (OECD, 2023[121]). In addition to investments in infrastructure and brownfield sites, cities could enhance their attractiveness to universities, firms, and thus working-age people by assembling an advisory board of stakeholders to identify incentives and providing seed money to cover upfront costs.

In 1994, Kusatsu City, Japan, attracted Ritsumeikan University to the city, bolstering its ability to retain young people and contributing to the city’s larger knowledge sharing and labour market. Together these respective initiatives have created an environment amenable to residents of all ages. The park is used as a safe and comfortable space for all age groups and for walking, events, socialising and other activities that are integrated into everyday life, while younger working-age residents in their 30s and 40s (many with young children) continue to move to the city, now composing the largest share of the population. The university has helped Kusatsu stay young compared to most Japanese cities facing rapid ageing.

Urban brownfield sites abandoned from deindustrialisation can be transformed to create anchor institutions that offer benefits to multiple generations at once, including quality education and job training for students, digital skills training for the ageing and increased intergenerational exchanges and foot traffic for local businesses thanks to attracting young people to rapidly ageing neighbourhoods. For instance, a former tomato sauce packaging factory in Naples, Italy, that sat empty for 30 years has been transformed by the University of Naples Federico II in co‑ordination with the region of Campania into the San Giovanni Tech Hub, a technology and innovation campus. The development of the site created 300 jobs, and the tech hub now provides training and courses to students across a wide variety of cutting-edge sectors through high-tech laboratories and classrooms, and partners with several major firms that have opened offices in the region, such as aerospace firm Leonardo, Deloitte, Apple and others, to place students in local high‑skill jobs. The 200 000-square-metre site also serves as the centrepiece of an urban regeneration project for the larger area as well, with a park open to the public that has become a central meeting place for locals (Fascione, 2020[123]). Following the investment, the neighbourhood has also benefitted from improvements to public transport connecting the campus to the city centre, and the restaurants and stores in the surrounding area have benefitted from the increased foot traffic.

Tsukuba (Japan) Science City, a planned village dedicated to scientific research and development founded in 1980, is an example of a small city committing to a given industry and creating a niche for itself that attracts workers and further investment. By merging several smaller cities into one administrative unit and continuing to invest in science, research and development, Tsukuba has enjoyed a growing population of skilled working-age residents despite broad trends of urban shrinking in Japan, which includes a large number of foreign-born residents for a Japanese city. Tsukuba has managed to attract and retain these foreign residents by investing in quality schools and offering extensive Japanese language classes, making the city more attractive for both working-age parents and their children. The Tsukuba Express rail line has also attracted investment in housing and urban development along its route, as well as subsidies for social welfare, schooling and daycare programmes.

Cultural institutions can also serve as anchor institutions that attract and stimulate the tourism, hospitality and service industries, providing cities with a makeover and an identity that can entice younger visitors and residents (OECD, 2022[120]). For instance, the Guggenheim Museum, developed on a moribund industrial brownfield site in the centre of Bilbao, Spain, has now become the iconic monument of its waterfront, surrounded by a promenade, a park and modern office and residential buildings. Urban regeneration projects like the waterfront promenade and the Zorrotzaurre Urban Technology Park have not only marked Bilbao’s transition from an industrial hub to a tourist and cultural destination but have also stimulated economic activity in the surrounding areas (OECD, 2022[124]).

Unleashing the potential of the lucrative nightlife sector and leveraging urban assets such as public space can also enhance the attractiveness of cities for younger people and stimulate the local economy. An increasing number of cities are beginning to experiment with later operating hours for nightlife, including Berlin, and Montreal, Canada, which are aiming to introduce a designated 24-hour zone for nightlife along with late-night transit options. “Night mayors” can also help bring out the best in the nightlife sector while mitigating challenges and conflicts that may arise. Night mayor positions in cities of all sizes from Mannheim to New York and London are designed to not only promote nightlife and stimulate the nightlife economy geared toward young people, but also mitigate conflicts related to sound, noise, litter and other such externalities so that the city is a peaceful place for all ages (Reia, 2023[125]).

Outdoor urban space in the forms of parks, public squares and parking lots can be leveraged by cities to host festivals and entertainment, infusing art and culture into public spaces, attracting people to certain areas of the city and supporting economic development, social capital and urban vibrancy (Foster, 2022[126]). Festivals are linked to multiple economic development outcomes including enhanced city branding, boosting the night‐time economy, increased tourism, job creation and urban regeneration. They can help bolster local art and cultural industries as well as spur local collaboration, innovation and networking. Co-creation and collaborative partnerships between private business interests, municipal governments, and community artists can create synergies between different stakeholders to promote inclusive urban development and stimulate the local economy. Bristol, United Kingdom, Brussels, Montreal, Rome and nearly 100 other cities have all produced their own versions of Nuit Blanche, late-night light festivals that promote local culture and have shown their effectiveness as part of an economic development strategy. Festivals, such as Pride Parades celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, can also increase the feeling of inclusion of certain communities in cities and provide opportunities for cultures to celebrate their heritage, creativity and sense of community (Urban Design Lab, 2023[127]).

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