Growing Older in World Cities: Implications for Healthy Aging

Declining birthrates, increasing longevity and growing urbanization have created a new challenge for cities: how to respond to an aging population. The World Cities Project was designed to examine whether the four largest cities among the wealthiest nations of the world - New York, London, Paris and Tokyo - offer a model of what other cities will someday resemble as their populations grow older.

Perhaps the four world cities examined here will always be regarded as special cases; however, they share in common a host of important characteristics. Within them live the largest number of older people in their countries and in some neighborhoods the percent of elders 65 or older far exceeds what the census demographers project for their nations in 2030. Thus, these great cities may serve as laboratories to inquire about the implications of demographic change for health and quality of life, living arrangements and housing, and the provision of long-term care to older adults when they eventually become frail.