Thirteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Cities change during a lifetime of their citizens and so do specific needs and requirements of their inhabitants. The social and demographic shifts experienced along the aging trajectory strongly modify functional patterns, a code of everyday operation enabled by public infrastructure and market. Urban communities tend to be highly mixed in age terms, continuously reinvented as incoming households join and later replace previous generations only to experience the same later in life. Cities face a crucial design challenge if they want to contribute to a more satisfying everyday life for their senior citizens, at the same time as they must provide satisfying service also to their active and highly mobile population. Our study is based on a survey conducted among the inhabitants and visitors of a typical Central European high-density neighbourhood in downtown Bratislava, Slovakia, where senior communities and gentrifiers slowly create a unique inter-generation setting, often beyond bare co-existence.