The Aging Population and the Competitiveness of Cities: Benefits to the Urban Economy

The Aging Population and the Competitiveness of Cities The Aging Population and the Competitiveness of Cities Benefit...

Author: Peter Karl Kresl | Daniele Ietri

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The Aging Population and the Competitiveness of Cities

The Aging Population and the Competitiveness of Cities Benefits to the Urban Economy

Peter Karl Kresl Bucknell University, USA

Daniele Ietri Università e Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Edward Elgar Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© Peter Karl Kresl and Daniele Ietri 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2009941146

ISBN 978 1 84844 212 2

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Printed and bound by MPG Books Group, UK

Contents About the authors Preface 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

vi vii

An aging population – good news for cities? The demographic situation in the US and in the EU The consequences for national and sub-national governments The consequences for urban economies Urban economies in the US Urban economies in the EU (ex Italy) An examination of Italian urban economies A look to the future for policy makers: best practices Final thoughts

References Index

1 12 30 50 71 100 131 163 174 180 187

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About the authors Peter Karl Kresl is Charles P. Vaughan Professor of Economics and Professor of International Relations at Bucknell University (USA) (Emeritus), where he has taught since 1969. His PhD was from the University of Texas (Austin). He has been visiting professor or researcher at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business, Lund University (Sweden), Carleton University (Canada), the University of Vermont and McGill University (Canada), where he was Seagram Visiting International Researcher. His articles have appeared in many journals, including Urban Studies, the Journal of European Integration and the American Review of Canadian Studies. His books include: with Sylvain Gallais, France Encounters Globalization (Edward Elgar); with Earl Fry, The Urban Response to Internationalization (Edward Elgar) and The Urban Economy and Regional Trade Liberalization (Praeger); and he has co-edited, with Gary Gappert, North American Cities and the Global Economy (Sage). He is, with Ni Pengfei, co-founder and currently director of the Urban Competitiveness Project, and they have co-authored The Urban Competitiveness Report (Edward Elgar). The research for this book was largely conducted while he was visiting researcher at the International Center for Economic Research, in Turin, Italy. Daniele Ietri earned his Masters Degree in Economics (2002) and his Doctorate (2005) in Economic Geography from the University of Turin. After the PhD, from 2005 to 2009, he served as research assistant at the Inter-university Department of Territorial Studies and Planning in Turin, and as lecturer in Economic Geography at the Faculty of Economics in Cuneo, Italy. He has been a consultant for local administrations and research institutions in Italy and the European Union. His main research interests are: urban and regional competitiveness (he is a member of the Urban Competitiveness Project), geography of networks, and the policies and integration process of the European Union. He has given presentations on these topics in conferences in Europe and the USA. He is the author of papers, book chapters and teaching material in English and in Italian. This book, in collaboration with Professor Kresl, is his first monographic work.

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Preface The research for this project was done during 2008–2009. Professor Kresl was able to spend some time at the Department of Economic Geography at the University of Turin, Italy, which was made possible with a research fellowship from the International Center for Economic Research, in Turin. For these excellent facilities and support he is deeply grateful to Professor Enrico Colombatto, Director of the International Center, and to Director, Professor Agata Spaziante and the (former) vice-director, Professor Giuseppe Dematteis of the Department of Economic Geography. Daniele Ietri was given generous support from Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Cuneo, with a grant for 2008–2009. During this period he has been working at the Inter-university Department of Territorial Studies and Planning of the University and the Politecnico of Turin, Italy. He is very grateful to all the staff in the Department for this support, in particular to the Director, Agata Spaziante, to Carlo Salone, who took over formal responsibility for the project, and to Elena Gatto and Marcella Guy for their patient administrative assistance. In each of the 40 cities in this study we interviewed individuals from government social and aging offices, and entities such as cultural and educational institutions. Our conversations with them and the access they gave us to documents and to data provided the informational basis on which this research was based. We are grateful to each of them for the gracious cooperation they gave to us. We can only hope that this book will be of interest to them as they and their colleagues in other cities confront the challenges and opportunities that relate to the aging of the population, and that they may gain some insight into best practices in this important area of public policy. The people at Edward Elgar, especially Tara Gorvine, have been most accommodating and congenial to work with, as always.

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1.

An aging population – good news for cities?

The aging of the population can be seen as a “ticking time bomb” which will have enormous financial and other consequences, especially for societies throughout the developed world. The demographic characteristics of almost all of the countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa – the developing world – are such that the aging of the population is not a foreseeable problem for them. But for Japan, North America and Europe the combination of past birth rates, immigration, increasing life expectancies, labor participation rates, and past and present polities to prepare societies for the consequences of an aging population combine to confront these nations with what is arguably their most pressing policy problem for the next half-century. In all of these nations the political systems have been unwilling to prepare for this “specter that haunts the industrialized world” (Tarquini, 2007, p. 9). While expenditures on the retirement and health benefits of the senior cohort of the population will have to be covered by past contributions to the appropriate funds or by taxation of income earners at the time that the expenditures are made, past governments everywhere have curried favor with their electorates by under-taxation during previous decades so the funds in almost all countries are inadequate to meet the demands that will be placed upon them. Therefore, it is clear that the burden on future taxpayers is looming both as an actual fiscal difficulty and as a potential taxpayer rebellion. While each national economy will have its own experience, in general they are all facing the same phenomenon with the same consequences. It is the contention of the authors of this book that while the impacts on national governments will be negative, when we consider the impacts on cities and urban economies the picture is quite different; in fact, we find that there are considerable benefits to urban economies of the aging of the population. In the format of a book length manuscript we will be able to examine the situation in a large number of urban economies in North America and Europe. But first we must set the scene with a review of the nature of the phenomenon of the aging of the population.

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The aging population and the competitiveness of cities

SOME POLICY CONSIDERATIONS OF AN AGING POPULATION The European Union uses three categories to describe seniors: older workers (ages 55–64), elderly people (65–79) and very elderly (80+) (Commission of the European Communities, 2005, p. 3). William H. Frey (2006, p. 11) uses: pre-seniors (55–64), young seniors (65–74) and mature seniors (75+). In this book we use a simpler differentiation between “seniors” and “aged” because we differentiate only between seniors who are active and those who are not. Age does not always capture this differentiation of activity. Aged people are those who have ceased to be actively engaged in society. Their lives are dominated by considerations of health care, by increasing immobility, by diminishing real income, by reliance on others, and often by living in a residential care unit that is dedicated to individuals in their situation. For this cohort of the population there is little contemporary economic contribution to society to offset the demands they are placing on it. It is this group that is the focus of so much analysis of the economic consequences of an aging population. We have placed our focus on the former group – seniors who are aged 50 and older, according to the US American Association for Retired Persons and the Senior Olympics, or 55, if one looks for a period of transition for an individual or couple from home owner with dependent children to a life situation that has fewer constraints and that enables one to redefine one’s living arrangement, lifestyle, and allocation of time and money. This stage in life has also been described as life after the moment when “the kids leave home and the dog dies.” It is this group that has the potential to have a net positive impact on the economy of a city or urban region. Offsetting this potential positive impact, however, are certain realities of the existence of today’s seniors. Principally this entails a lengthening of the period from commencement of retirement to the average year of death. Increasing life expectancy is, of course, a triumph of modern medicine and a more intelligent lifestyle and is to be celebrated. For the OECD, the major culprit in the economic aspects and fiscal consequences of an aging population is the inducements that have been given to workers, throughout the industrialized world, for early retirement. This made sense when it was felt necessary to open access to jobs for a growing “baby boom” generation, but now that the demographic situation is so dramatically different this policy has become one that creates rather than resolves problems. The OECD noted that: “increasing the participation rate of persons aged 55–64 years is one of the main objectives of social policy within the European Union under the Lisbon and Amsterdam Treaties.” The target is 50 percent but the actual employment of 55 and older was


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only 40 percent in 2003. It is also the case that in many countries, various programs such as generous long-term sickness and disability benefits reduce the effective retirement age considerably below the “official” retirement age. Each early retirement shifts the financial burden to the remaining workers and the fiscal consequences create a situation in which the result is that while all workers should have a right to “retire decently and confidently, . . . without action, this right is being eroded” for future retirees (Leibfritz, 2003). Axel Börsch-Supan puts early retirement schemes together with generous disability benefit plans and refers to them as “incentive effects that create an expanded demand for social expenditures toward the elderly.” For him, they are important as a mechanism through which government spending crowds out economic activity (Börsch-Supan, 2006, pp. 26–7). The average official retirement age for 14 industrialized countries is 60 for Korea and France, 67 for Norway and 65 for the others except for Italy where it ranges from 57 to 65. However the average effective retirement age is actually below 60 for Finland, France and Italy, 60.5 for (western) Germany, between 61 and above 65 for Korea, Japan and the US, and between 61 and 65 for the others. As a consequence of longevity and these actual retirement ages, the life expectancy after retirement was in excess of 20 years for men and 25 for women in France and Italy. For men it was 13.0 and 14.1 for Japan and Portugal and ranged between 15.9 and 19.3 for the others; for women it was below 20 for Japan, Portugal, the US and Norway and between 20 and 23.9 for the others (OECD, 2010). Clearly, this situation would not be as grave as it is if OECD economies had been able to generate adequate gains in productivity, such as those called for in the Lisbon Treaty of the EU. As the population ages the potential for crowding out, or diminishing, economic activity highlighted by Börsch-Supan will make the gains in productivity and taxable output that are so necessary for the future economy of the EU even more difficult. In fact, the European Commission expects that due to the demographic changes in the labor force the annual average potential GDP growth will fall from 2.2 percent for 2004–2010, to 1.8 percent for 2011–2030, and to 1.3 percent for 2031–2050 (Economic Policy Committee and the European Commission, 2006, p. 9). In a study for the C. D. Howe Institute, William Robson (2006) concluded that, for Canada, raising growth in output per working-age person (from 1.5 percent) to 1.9 percent annually while holding growth in service intensity to 1.5 percent would make the net national implicit liability calculated here vanish. Program reforms, prudent fiscal policy, and rapid economic growth are three promising avenues to help Canadians deal with the demographic pressures on their public programs.

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We can accept this analysis as having validity in the other economies of the developed or industrialized world. The longer the life expectancy after retirement, the greater the fiscal burden on future taxpayers and the greater the contributions workers should be asked to make for their own future claims. Hence the great interest in reducing life expectancy after retirement through a longer work life. Many observers also argue that it is necessary to bolster the labor force through a variety of measures ranging from better maternity leave and child-care services to more opportunities for part-time employment and, perhaps most importantly, increased support for lifelong learning, on-the-job training and skill-based adult education. These initiatives will both increase labor force participation and enhance the productivity, and employability, of workers as they progress through their working lives. This has become increasingly important as the pace of technological advance and the skill-levels of most jobs have become more rapid and inexorable – and as the workforce ages and its skills become less relevant than in the past. The conclusion is that, at the level of the national economy, policies are required to raise labor participation rates and to increase the trend in productivity growth. Sadly, all of this is beyond the mandate or competence of city governments. But the OECD argues that, in addition, “what is needed now is a policy shift to reduce barriers to employment and work effort to promote more effective lifelong learning and thus increase the resources available to society” (OECD, 2005, p. 3). It is here that urban governments have a contribution to make, since they generally do have a significant role to play when it comes to employment conditions and to training and education. The principal issue for many observers can be summarized under the rubric “intergenerational fiscal transfers.” Taken solely as retirees’ claims on pension funds and seniors’ claims on health and long-term care the account is rather one-sided – those who are employed must pay taxes into government to pay for these expenditures. However, there is more to the issue of intergenerational transfers, although it is difficult to calculate with accuracy.1 There are in most cases substantial intergenerational transfers within families, from parents to children. These take the forms of financial support for professional education, financial help with the mortgage of a house, transfer of title to a family automobile and loans in time of need, as well as in-kind services such as allowing the 30-year-old child to live in the parents’ home and day care for grandchildren. Ultimately, of course, upon death the parents leave a bequest of their accumulated wealth to their children. The fewer the children in the family the more significant for the recipient(s) is the intergenerational


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transfer in this direction. We will not attempt to calculate a net figure for intergenerational transfers because this would be a figure that would mean nothing for the fiscal burdens of aging on government. But the total figure would be substantially smaller than that widely discussed amount.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A SENIOR? As we have seen there are different definitions of people who are above a certain age – older workers, aged, pre-seniors, mature seniors and so forth. But more fundamentally, what does it mean to be a senior?2 There has been a clear evolution in the thinking about aging and what it means to be a senior. Decades ago seniors were defined by what they no longer were, or could no longer do, or as an age-defined “disease.” It was a state to be regretted, to be pitied, or to be treated. It was a stage of life that was defined by incapacities and by dependencies. At some point in life, one was no longer a productive being and was transformed to one who was a drain on society. One could only hope that one’s contribution during one’s working years was sufficient to have prepaid the drain one was about to impose on society. The extent of that drain would also be determined by the age distribution at the time of retirement and by whether some of the contribution made during work had been set aside in a fund that would finance one’s personal claims. Then there was the idea that in spite of the deteriorating outer shell the inner being retained its identity and value and one simply had to cut through the exterior to perceive the ongoing and unchanged interior person. The “ageless self” enabled one to escape from a fixation on the past and to engage with today’s reality. In this narrative, one did not really change in any essential way – the wrinkles, gray hair and weakened muscles camouflaged the continuity of the inner being. This conceptualization of the senior meant for many that the individual would continue life as before; specifically that one would consume as before. Seniors then became just another marketing demographic for sellers of consumer goods, services, travel packages, and so forth. “Later life” did require that one be exposed to advertisements and inducements to buy a different set of products; but this was merely a minor adjustment. The next step was that of realizing that a senior was one who was freed of the obligation to work, of the demands of children in the house and of the necessity of living close to work. It meant that one could be induced to move to a special retirement community that was composed of similar individuals. On the positive side, these individuals gained something of

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value from their interaction with other similar individuals; on the negative side, they were often clustered out of fear of the characteristics of contemporary multicultural and multiracial society and out of a sense of loss of what their society had been during the years they liked to remember most fondly. Communities for retirees, usually in warm, sunny climates of the US south or the Mediterranean, have grown dramatically since the 1970s. In its benign aspect it was simply comforting to people who had become another marketing group and could be clustered in one place for easier access by vendors; more negatively, Sun City and its clones provided seniors with a place to live that was walled off from the rest of society. Their lives were typically filled with a continual stream of activities that would realize the ideal of a fully active and engaged life, but one can also see this as a life that is devoid of moments for quiet reflection and intellectual activity. One researcher found them to be saddened at the thought of their old friends sitting in a rocking chair in the Upper Mid-west (McHugh, 2000). It never occurred to them that that person could be sitting reading a book for a lifelong learning course, an activity that required a bit of down time for quiet reflection. Seniors thus became a valued population for Sun Belt states and cities of the Mediterranean area that understood the consumption possibilities of this group of, to use a term from Copenhagen, “golden grays.” Health care programs and equipment, golf, tennis and swimming-related marketing, group travel and excursions, financial and investment programs, apparel, and residential units all became big business for rather predatory vendors. However, as Robert Hudson (2008, p. 124) has written: “Today’s seniors are about production and contribution, not just consumption and need.” Furthermore, this economic impact was confined to an enclave of the society and did not have positive consequences for the rest of the economy. As we will demonstrate in this book, there is another approach to the economic consequences of aging that does have positive benefits that encompass the whole of the urban economy. The negative side of this consumption-based conceptualization of seniors was that many seniors did not have the financial means to be considered a good marketing demographic. These seniors were often forgotten or, if remembered, discriminated against; they would be stuck in a low income senior ghetto and those who were trying to make the state or city attractive to the “desirable” seniors would wish they would just go away. The result was not only a separation of seniors from younger residents of the state or city but also a separation of one category of seniors from the other. This had consequences for how people viewed their society and its problems and, consequently, for how they voted in elections or on policy initiatives.


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A NOTE ABOUT THE SENIORS In order for us to discuss the behaviors of seniors it is necessary for us to gain some understanding of the major aspects of their lives, and what they suggest for the future in industrialized countries. For us to proceed with our examination we must have some understanding of the lives of seniors with regard to their: work, income, education, activity, travel and housing. We will present some basic data here with a fuller presentation to follow in Chapter 2. The Census Bureau in the United States has written that the seniors from now on will have “better health, higher income, more wealth and a higher standard of living in retirement” (US Census Bureau, 2006, pp. 1 and 2) than has ever been the case.3 The European Union concurs: “[Seniors] will be more active and in better health . . . and better off, and will have more savings.” They also find that seniors “are increasingly choosing to move to another region or abroad . . . they are consuming more new goods and services and want to participate actively in social life, in particular in the voluntary sector” (Commission of the European Communities, 2005, p. 9). To take just one of their characteristics, data from the 2000 census indicate that in the US of the 65–74 age group 70 percent have completed high school and 17 percent have a university degree. These figures drop to 63 and 14 percent for the 75–84 cohort and to 53 and 13 percent for those who are 85 and older. Since for the total population 25 years and older 80 percent have a high school diploma and over 24 percent have a university degree we should expect tomorrow’s seniors to have higher educational attainment at all three age groups than they do today as the more highly educated cohorts work their way upward through the population age pyramid. The picture is similar in the EU, with 28 percent of 25–34-year-old people in 2003 having a university degree in comparison with only 16 percent for the 55–64-year-old cohort. This will have its impact on expenditures of seniors on learning and culture, as well as their preference for urban living. This is what we will examine throughout this text. As a consequence of this, we should anticipate behavior from this group that will be significantly different from that of their predecessors. Specifically, we argue that in the coming decades we should be able to note distinctive behaviors of the 50 and older population with regard to what they do about their place and conditions of residence, what they choose to do with their discretionary time, and how they choose to spend their income and wealth. We have noted that in many cities many seniors choose to move from a residence in the outlying region of a city or a rural location into the city center; that seniors are disproportionate consumers

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of cultural goods; and that they are also disproportionate consumers of intellectual activity. Cultural activities and learning are typically urban functions (Heilbron, 1992). The exception is the college or university town, which can be described as a city with the non-cultural and non-intellectual activities removed. This set of activities will generate what we will propose are the positive consequences for cities or urban regions of an aging population. This will be developed in greater detail in Chapter 4.

TWO CAVEATS WITH REGARD TO ANTICIPATED BEHAVIOR The expectations with regard to the economic and social behavior of seniors must be moderated by the probable impacts of the current 2008–2010 recession. This recession was not a typical cyclical decline or the response to a typical macroeconomic shock – a decline in exports or investment or a sudden rise in the rate of inflation. These are events that everyone understands will take place every decade or so. The current recession entails the collapse of two sectors of the economy that are central to the financial planning of working people as they look forward to their retirement years. Many seniors have their major financial assets tied up in the value of their residence. When this declines sharply, as it has – up to 50 percent – in most communities, senior plans to retire at a specific age, to sell the residence and move to a retirement community or to the center of a city or to a college/university town, and to maintain a desired standard of living, are given a severe jolt. The other sector that has let them down is the banking and financial industry. Many seniors have invested in bank stocks and had their financial assets invested in what has turned out to be a dodgy scheme. Rosy futures have suddenly become cloudy if not utterly destroyed. Given this systemic shock to their financial reality and to their confidence and sense of self worth, we must appreciate that it is very likely that the actual lives past age 65 of the seniors of the next decade or two may vary substantially from what they had planned. A fundamental question is the degree to which this atypical recession has altered the behavior of individuals from age 50 onwards permanently. Will consumption be reduced in favor of more saving? Will they become more risk averse in their lifestyles and comportment? Will they curtail their mobility in favor of the comfort and familiarity of the residential area in which they have spent their working years? These are all possibilities, and we have all noted the lasting impact of the Great Depression on the behavior and values of the generation of people


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who lived through it. But we must remember that in spite of this cloud in the back of their minds, that generation did recover and participated in the great post-World War II expansion of the US and European economies. So the question of the impact of the 2008–2010 recession on current behavior and the durability of that impact is still an open question. We are of the opinion that pre-recession behavior patterns and aspirations will soon be embraced again, and that the senior behavior patterns that we suggest in this study will indeed be realized. In addition, there is a concern about the willingness of future seniors to continue to participate in civic engagement activities to the degree that has been found in their predecessors. On the one hand, their higher educational attainment, better health and higher income would suggest a disposition on the part of tomorrow’s seniors to engage themselves more actively in voluntary and work activities. On the other hand, there is the literature on social capital that argues that during the past decades we have become less interested in public affairs, more materialistic, less trustful of others and more self-centered (Putnam, 2002). This view would lead one to predict that civic engagement and participation in cultural and intellectual activities that take place in some group or community of like-minded people will decline over the coming decades as this group advances in age. It is certainly too early to declare which of these positions will be verified; our anecdotal evidence from visits to the cities in this study suggests to us that, at least for the present time, withdrawal into one’s self does not appear to be strong enough to preclude the behavior we are suggesting from being a force in the life of the city.

THE APPROACH TAKEN IN THIS STUDY While the issues that attach to the impact of an aging population on urban economies are similar throughout the industrialized world, this world is filled with specific situations and environments that preclude there being just one story to be told. Given the experiences and linguistic competence of the two authors of this study we have limited our analysis to roughly a dozen cities in the US, 15 in the EU and, finally, a set of 12 cities in Italy. Italy was chosen for special treatment, in part because it is in this country that the negative aspects of an aging population will be felt most powerfully, and in part because in this one EU country we have dramatically different regional political and social cultures. Cities were selected either because we had direct knowledge of the situation and policies of that city or because a web search of sites for the city government, including both the mayor’s office and the city council, culture

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and arts organizations and the learning community, indicated that the city would be of interest to us. In many cities, the search generated nothing or very little of interest. This does not, of course, mean that nothing of interest was taking place, but that what was being done was probably not the action of central municipal offices. In some cities the only apparent interest other than in mundane city services was an active posture toward inward investment, policies to promote business development, and advertisement of services afforded to the business community. In other cities it was clear that the seniors attracted were content to be “warehoused” in a warm climate in which the primary interests were golf and the stock market. Neither of these two types of cities was of interest, given the objectives of this project. In the organization of the material gained in our interviews we had two choices. First, we could present the material in Chapters 5, 6 and 7 in sections devoted to each of the three aspects we are studying – relocation of residence, and allocation of time and money to, in turn, education and cultural activities. This allows for a focused comparative analysis of each of the aspects. Second, we could organize each chapter according to the experiences and policies of each city, sequentially. The advantage of this structure is that one can gain an understanding of the approach taken by officials in each city, it presents each aspect in the context of this overall approach, and it makes explicit the relationships among the three aspects. We have opted for the second structure and will offer comments on each of the aspects in a later chapter. In our presentation of materials for cities in the US and in the EU we will not be able to give identical treatment to the two sets of experiences. The data that is available for one set is not reproduced in data sources for the other. In addition to the official statistical and census sources, in the US one has a variety of private sector data sources, with varying degrees of usability, such as the Places Rated Almanac, and research institutions such as the Brookings Institution. In the EU it is sometimes impossible to get data that covers all of the cities using the same definitions, and so on. But then there are the Urban Audits and other similar sources. Equivalent data for US and EU cities is usually not available. Hence, the discussions of cities in the US and the EU will not be a seamless presentation of data but rather two distinct discussions that are determined by the data sources that are at hand. Nonetheless, we will endeavor to present somewhat comparable analyses for cities that find themselves in rather comparable situations. Chapters 2 and 3 will be devoted to exploring the nature of the aging of the population and its impacts on various levels of government. Those who are familiar with this material may wish to move directly to Chapter 4 in


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which we lay out our approach to the impacts of aging on cities or urban economies.

NOTES 1. For an effort to do this see Axel Börsch-Supan et al. (2005, Chapter 4). 2. A source for this section is McHugh (2000). 3. For the original report, see US Census Bureau (2005).

2.

The demographic situation in the US and in the EU

During the coming decades the age distribution of the industrialized economies will become one in which the ratio of seniors to working people will become higher to the point that the ability of the current economic system to remain fiscally viable will be put seriously in jeopardy. The aging of the population is, in fact, one of the most important issues of public policy that confront the industrialized economies for the foreseeable future. The aging of the population is a phenomenon that is found throughout the OECD-industrialized world, while among the developing world, due to higher birth rates and shorter life expectancy, this is a problem that will not be seen for decades. In this chapter we will examine: some of the aspects of aging; the aging that is foreseen for the US and the EU; the consequences of that aging; and, finally, some characteristics of the seniors who make up this cohort of the population.

THE STRUCTURE OF AGING We are not demographers, but from the perspective of the economy we believe that an optimally age-distributed population would have a structure similar to that depicted in Figure 2.1. This distribution has the shape of a “flared bell,” with death occurring primarily in the first year of life and, of course, in advanced ages; clearly, we are not artists either. The middle ages should be rather stable. This structure can be continued ad infinitum, disturbed only by events such as war, epidemic, policies designed to reduce population growth, and natural disasters. Departures from this structure will have consequences for the fiscal situation of governments, for the labor force, and for the enhancement or deterioration of economic competitiveness, on which we will comment shortly. Figure 2.2 shows the current population pyramid for one of the largest EU industrial countries, France. It is readily apparent how far this current structure is from the sustainable structure of Figure 2.1. It also identifies the factors that have caused these departures, all a consequence of World Wars I and II. The wars caused birth deficits that were more than offset in 12


Male

Age 100

13

Female

0 Figure 2.1

The optimal age distribution of the population

YEAR OF BIRTH

Age 105 100

1908 MALES

1

1918

80

1938

70

2

4

1948

1908 FEMALES

1

90

1928 3

YEAR OF BIRTH

1918 1928 2

1938 3 4

60

1958 1968

1968

40 5

1978

1948 1958

50

5

30

1978

1988

20

1988

1998

10

1998

2008

0 500 400 300 Population in thousands

200

100

0

2008 0

100

200

300 400 500 Population in thousands

1

Birth deficit due to World War I (depleted cohorts)

3

Birth deficit due to World War II

2

Depleted cohorts reach reproductive age

4

Baby-boom

5

End of baby-boom

Source: Institut national d’études démographiques, www.ined.fr/pop.figures/France/ population_ structure/age pyramid.

Figure 2.2

Population of France (provisional estimate on 1 January 2009)

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The aging population and the competitiveness of cities 2000 Male

5

4

Age 85+ 80–84 75–79 70–74 65–69 60–64 55–59 50–54 45–49 40–44 35–39 30–34 25–29 20–24 15–19 10–14 5–9 0–4

Female

3

2

Figure 2.3

1

0

1

2

3

4

5

2030 Male

5

4

Female

3

2

1

0

1

2

3

4

5

Population pyramids of Pennsylvania (percentage of total population)

the post-war years. The post-World War II baby boom lasted from the late 1940s to the early 1970s and its demographic consequences are the cause of the aging of the population that we are studying here. These consequences have been exacerbated in recent years by decisions by women in industrialized societies to marry later or not at all, and to postpone the year of birth of their first child in large part because of the increasing entry of women into the workforce. Figure 2.3 shows the population pyramids for an industrial state in the United States, Pennsylvania, for the years 2000 and 2030. The relative top-weightedness of 2030 with reference to 2000 is made clearer when the two are imposed on each other (Figure 2.4). The wider clear portions of the middle years of the 2000 pyramid and those of the dark senior years of the 2030 pyramid make clear the magnitude of the aging of the population in this US state, which can be taken as representative of most of the rest of the industrialized world. It must be noted that Thomas Lindh and Urban Lundberg warn us that “even very small variations in the assumptions of demographic projections lead to radically different future population structures.” So these figures should be taken as only projections (Lindh and Lundberg, 2007). This structure is simply not sustainable in the long run. By underproducing the working age, in the middle section of the pyramid, this society is acquiescing in the formulation of its own “ticking time bomb.” While there is much awareness of this situation, effective policy responses have yet to be implemented in almost all of the industrial countries. Elections occur every four or five years and it is difficult to get officials elected with this short-run time horizon to take the somewhat painful

Age

The demographic situation in the US and in the EU 85+ 80–84 75–79 70–74 65–69 60–64 55–59 50–54 45–49 40–44 35–39 30–34 25–29 20–24 15–19 10–14 5–9 0–4

15

2000 2030

5

4

3

2

1

1

2

3

4

5

Percent Male

Note:

Female

*Based on Pennsylvania Control File.

Figure 2.4

Age comparison, 2000–2030*

decisions that are required, no matter how more palatable these actions will be if taken today rather than in 10 or 20 years.

THE POLICY RESPONSE TO INCREASING AGE DEPENDENCY Three developments that could ease the fiscal burden on the next generation are: (1) an increase in the labor participation rate; (2) an increase in the age of retirement; (3) increased immigration of young, energetic workers; and (4) an increase in the birth rate. Each, while effective, has its own difficulties in achievement.1 With regard to labor participation, the rate in Europe was 64.4 percent in 2006, significantly below the 70 percent that was set as the EU target by 2010. In Italy and much of Central Europe the rate was below 60 percent and it was above the target of 70 percent for five countries of Northern Europe. This is to a large degree due to the rigidity of national labor markets with strong unions keeping current workers in jobs, with job growth in many places non-existent or declining, and with little access to employment for younger workers. Among seniors, the rate for the 55+ population in the EU was only 40.2 percent in 2003, far below the

16


European target of 50 percent. For the 65–79 cohort the EU figure was 5.6 percent in comparison with 18.5 percent for the US. In the extreme case of Italy, by 2030 only 31 percent of the population is projected to be working, down from 38 percent today and far below the 43 percent projected for the OECD average. The average Italian male is projected by 2030 to have a working life of 27 years and to be not at work for 52 years, with females having an additional six years of life without work. In Germany, men will work for 34 years and be not employed for 44 years. American men are projected to be employed for 41 years in 2030 and to be not employed for 37 years (OECD, 2000, Annex 2). This is not to say that one country’s approach to work and leisure is better, but one must recognize that that approach has its own specific consequences. The fewer who are working, the greater will be the fiscal burden on those who are employed. In Europe, labor unions are conscious of the fact that the working conditions and benefits they enjoy are the result of a struggle with owners of factories for more than a century, and they do not give them up willingly. Americans and Japanese may be willing to work almost 2000 hours per year and to retire at age 65 or 70, but few Europeans are eager to work more than 1700 hours and to retire later than age 62. With regard to women, social and cultural conventions work to reduce their participation in the labor force, especially in Mediterranean Europe. While the EU target for 2010 is 60 percent, in practice 57.2 percent of women were working in 2006. Of this figure, one-third were employed on a part-time basis; this figure for men was about 15 percent. In 13 of the EU states the 60 percent target has been met, with Denmark and Sweden exceeding 70 percent. One would expect that as the forces of modernity intrude into the south of Europe the participation of women in the workforce would increase. The age of retirement is another issue that is dominated by the understanding on the part of labor that being able to retire after 30 or 35 years on the job or at age 60 has been gained through a long struggle with capital; workers are emotionally and philosophically reluctant to make concessions in this area. Currently, of course, the EU and most governments see the need of lengthening the working years to age 65 or 67. It is simply too expensive to allow workers to be recipients of retirement benefits for a period of years that exceeds the number of years that they have worked, especially when many national retirement plans are funded on a current year basis rather than through a fund that has been built up during the worker’s years of employment. Life expectancy at birth in OECD countries is 76 for men and 82 for women. So continuing to have workers retire at age 55 or 60 or 62, rather than at 65 or 67, can double


17

the contributions that will have to be made for that individual’s pension income. As life expectancy increases with improved medical technology and with increased understanding of the costs and benefits of certain lifestyle choices – such as smoking, diet and exercise, this situation should only become worsened. The policy choice for governments is either or both of incentives to retire later or disincentives to retire early.2 Incentives include allowing monthly retirement benefits to rise with a later retirement rather than having them capped at some level – with the maximum payment allowed being that at, say, age 62. Alternatively, one could increase the age at which the full benefit would be paid. Disincentives to early retirement would be increasing the financial cost in terms of benefits foregone with early retirement. One problem is that the rationality of this is clear and its implementation is relatively easy for researchers and academics who typically are doing work they enjoy and would enjoy doing for a few more years. However, for most other workers in boring jobs lengthening the work life is decidedly unattractive, as it is for manual workers with physically demanding jobs who may not be physically capable of working for an additional five years. The challenge will be to make this option attractive to all participants in the workforce. Nonetheless, some EU governments have moved aggressively on this front. Austria, Finland, Germany and Italy have begun to reduce access to early retirement. Sweden has introduced an incentive to work longer by making retirement income dependent upon the best 15 years of wage income (typically occurring during the final years of work). Several countries have increased the number of years one must contribute to the national retirement fund. Others have simply abolished the right of civil servants to retire before a specific age.3 Finally, one survey on pension reform found that among Italians, increasing the retirement age was the most popular option, with 53.2 percent opting for this (Börsch-Supan, 2006, p. 23). So, in spite of the reluctance of workers to accept a lengthening of the years of work, EU governments are beginning to make changes that will have the desired effect of reducing the tax transfer problem in the future. While in the United States, Sweden and France immigration accounts for at least 10 percent of the population, in Italy and Portugal that figure is, officially at least, less than 3 percent (Table 2.1). Emigrant societies are not set up to be receptive to inflows of people with different languages, religions, customs and lifestyles. Often the immigrants lack skills, capital, connections and familiarity with the host language and culture, so many countries have established free language instruction

18


Table 2.1

Immigrants as a percentage of the population, 2000

Sweden France Netherlands Germany Belgium Ireland United Kingdom Spain Italy Portugal United States Source:

11.2 10.7 9.9 8.9 8.6 8.1 6.8 3.1 2.8 2.3 14.0

Alesina and Giavazzi (2006, p. 57), and US Census Bureau (2006).

for immigrants. However, expenditures of social funds on their housing, schooling and health are quite another thing. Less formally, the social structures of the host societies do not accommodate themselves to the needs of the immigrants – families and individuals have filled their lives with long-time friends and they have no space or time available for newcomers. This results in outright hostility to Roma, Africans, Central Europeans and Asians most of whom naturally seek employment in economies that are subjected to the employment stresses of de-industrialization, global restructuring, import surges and declining exports. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi has just stated that Milan looks more and more like Africa to him. The classic confrontation between job holders and job-seeking immigrants plays itself out again and again. The current recession and high unemployment that characterized the economies of industrial nations exacerbates this confrontation, as is shown by the strength in several EU countries of the ultra-nationalist parties of the far right in the elections to the European Parliament in June, 2009. This makes immigration reform or opening an extremely hot issue in domestic and local politics, and the option of increasing the flow of immigrants so as to provide tax-paying workers in the future is a very hard sell. The 2003 meeting of the European Council in Thessaloniki stated that immigrants should be integrated into EU societies with the objective of responding to the demographic and economic challenges that must be confronted. Time will tell whether local cultures and societies are malleable enough to accommodate themselves to this policy prescription, or whether they will subject themselves to an increasing tax transfer


19

problem. The Commission of the European Communities (2005, p. 27) has written that: “Without migration our total population would have already started to decline. To the extent that migrants have higher fertility rates than the indigenous population, migration may boost the natural increase.” An increase in the birth rate is the last of the factors that could work to ease the fiscal burden on future workers. The birth rate has fallen significantly during the post-World War II period as women have adopted changes in their family and work lives. Women have entered the workforce in many societies and have chosen to continue to contribute to their family income. They have flocked to universities and other institutions of higher learning and skill development and have then pursued professional careers. Marriage rates have fallen and marriage has occurred at a later stage of their lives. All of these factors have caused them to delay the birth of children, to have fewer children, and in many cases simply not to have children. Governments have adopted policies to provide inducements to increasing the birth rate: more access to day-care centers, maternity leave, laws that facilitate re-entry into the labor force, even in the mother’s old position, various fiscal schemes such as “baby bonuses” and tax incentives. These have had some impact, but any heavy-handed pressure from government to alter the life choices of women would be strongly resisted and perhaps counterproductive. John Bongaarts has calculated the change needed in each of these policy options to accomplish a 10 percent reduction in pension expenditures for the G7 economies. He concludes that this objective could be achieved by: (1) a 1.8 increase in net migrants per 1000 population; (2) an increase in the mean age at retirement of 1.6 years; (3) an increase in the employment ratio of 9 percent; or (4) an increase of 0.27 births per woman, or some combination of the four (Bongaarts, 2004, pp. 18–19). Movement on any of these fronts has little support amongst the European population, although some progress is being made. The alternative to resort to these measures is a reduction in the amount of public pension benefits. Hence, the financial burden on the next generation of taxpayers will be formidable, as will be the challenge to political leaders and their bureaucratic staffs to introduce the necessary initiatives. This conundrum simply must be dealt with, and the question of what is to be done will have the potential of becoming more pressing and confrontational as the years go by. Unfortunately, the time to begin to fashion policy responses was several years ago; every year of postponement will only exacerbate the financial challenge. Bongaarts concluded that: “Today’s workers will have to save more, work longer, retire later, receive

20


less generous benefits, and perhaps pay more taxes. The modest ongoing reforms are a step in the right direction but they are far from adequate” (p. 21).

SOME ASPECTS OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE IN THE US AND THE EU As should be expected, the demographic futures of the US and the EU are quite different. The two societies have distinct histories and cultures with regard to migration, family planning, family relationships, personal mobility, government social programs, reliance on market-based decision making, tolerance of income inequality and social exclusion, among other things, that combine to suggest that the expectations and behavior of their seniors will not be the same. However, it is also true that in an increasingly open and globalized international economy one should anticipate a certain degree of convergence. One way to present this demographic “time bomb” is through age dependency ratios, of which there are three: (1) the young age dependency, (2) the old age dependency and (3) the total age dependency. Each relates a dependent age cohort either to the working age population or to the labor force and depicts the burden that is borne by the latter. The young age dependency does show one burden on workers – composed of their needs for health and educational support – but at least this population cohort will soon become workers themselves and, if sufficiently large, will contribute government tax revenues that will reduce the tax transfer problem. Since we are interested solely in the relation of seniors to the economy we will focus exclusively on the age dependency ratio. As is shown in Table 2.2, Continental Europe is projected to have a more serious problem with age dependency than are the three historically immigrant societies, Australia, Canada and the US; by 2030 the historically emigrant societies are projected to have ratios of 1.5:1 or 1:1. Italy stands out as the most threatened of all of these countries. Each worker there will be obligated, ceteris paribus, to pay for his/her own family’s daily needs and, in addition, the health and retirement costs of one retired person. Of course, in most instances there will be some contribution from private sector or government programs of accumulated funds, if not at this moment certainly before the year 2030. The age dependency figures are given a fuller treatment in Tables 2.3 and 2.4. The striking figure is the substantial increase in the number of people below the age of 14 years in the US. As was stated above, while this represents a burden in 2050, this will generate an increase in the number


Table 2.2 1:2.5 1:2

21

Projected old age dependency ratios, 2030* Australia, Iceland, Norway and United States Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and United Kingdom Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Luxemburg, Spain and Sweden Italy

1:1.5 1:1

Note: *65 and older citizens/working population aged 16–64. Source:

OECD (2000, Chapter 10).

Table 2.3

Selected population age data for the US, 2010 and 2050

Age 0–13 14–64 65+ Young age dependency ratio (1) Old age dependency ratio (2) Total age dependency ratio (3) Note: Source:

2010

2050

58 223 211 781 40 229 27.5 19.0 46.5

78 845 271 618 88 547 29.0 32.6 61.6

Figures in thousands or as ratio. US Census Bureau (2008).

Table 2.4

Selected population age data for the EU, 2008 and 2050

Age

2008

0–14 15–64 65+ Young age dependency ratio (1) Old age dependency ratio (2) Total age dependency ratio (3)

77 544 333 249 84 602 23.27 25.39 48.66

2050 72 414 294 442 148 448 24.59 50.42 75.01

Notes: (1) = 0–14/15–64; (2) = 65+/15–64; (3) = {0–14 + (65+)}/15–64. Figures in thousands or as ratio. Source:

Giannakouris (2008, pp. 6–9).

22


of taxpayers from 2060–2065 on. The old age dependency rises during this period by 71.6 percent, but the total age dependency increases by only 32.5 percent. The countries of the EU are in a far less favorable position. The under 15 cohort actually declines by 7 percent while the 65+ group increases by 75 percent, so the old age dependency doubles and the total age dependency increases by 54 percent. Comparison of the figures for the US and the EU is illuminating. The young age dependency of the US is about 20 percent higher than is that for the EU for both periods, which bodes well for the US in decades to come. The old age dependency is higher in the EU for the two periods, and the total age dependency, while roughly the same in 2010, is projected to exceed that of the US by 21 percent in 2050. Both of these comparisons show a situation that is far more troublesome for the EU, as a whole, than it is for the US, with far less promise of relief of the tax transfer burden in the years following 2050. The cause of the EU demographic problem is clearly the 75 percent increase in the number of residents who are 65 and older, and the consequent doubling of the old age dependency ratio. The Central European countries all have old age and total age dependency ratios that are near the top but, of Western European countries, Germany, Greece, Spain and Italy are all significantly above those of the others. That is to say, the aging problem is relatively less an issue for Sweden, the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland, although in an absolute sense their dependency figures are dramatically higher in 2050 than they are today. Demographic Change in the US The US population is forecast to increase by over 130 million inhabitants by 2060. This increase is roughly divided into natural change and net migration, as shown in Table 2.5. The two are linked as immigrant populations typically have higher birth rates than do the native born in industrialized countries, at least for the first generation or two. If the US had closed its borders decades ago the cumulative birth figure would be substantially lower than it is. This will be important as the society and government implement policies to deal with the intergenerational fiscal transfers that come with aging. As the population ages, the composition of seniors will shift toward the 85 and older, and the number of centenarians will become far more significant. In the US there are nine states in which the population of 65+ is projected to grow by between 140 and 264 percent between 2000 and 2030: Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming,


Table 2.5

Selected US demographic changes, 2010–2060

Cumulative births Cumulative deaths Natural change (births − deaths) Cumulative net migration Total population change Note: Source:

23

201 773 138 257 63 514 68 283 131 796

Figures in thousands. US Census Bureau (2008).

Georgia and Utah (from high to low) – all in the south or west. Eleven states are projected to have growth in this population of less than 70 percent: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kansas and Connecticut (from low to high), and the District of Columbia should have a decline of 16.7 percent – these are all concentrated in the Northeast and the Midwest. Some of the rapidly aging states begin from very low levels – Alaska (5.7), Utah (8.5), Georgia (9.6), Texas (9.9) – while many of the slower aging states begin with much higher levels – Pennsylvania (15.6), Iowa (14.9), North Dakota (14.7), Ohio (13.3). Not surprisingly, Florida begins and ends with the highest senior component of its population, 17.6 in 2000 and 27.1 in 2030. Nonetheless by 2030 the share of the non-working cohorts – under 16 and over 65 – should cluster closely around the average for the US (43.3) at 40–46 percent of the population. So in the US with reference to some criteria regions of the country differ dramatically, while in others these differences are less pronounced. Demographic Change in the EU Data for demographic change in the EU show a startling picture (Table 2.6). During the period 2008–2060 cumulative births minus cumulative deaths are projected, in the context of the EU convergence scenario, to generate a net natural population decline of 47 903 000. Net migration is projected to be 58 227 000, so total population will rise by just over 10 million. Over half of the net migration will occur in Italy, Spain and Germany, and the negative net migration for Spain and Italy, individually, will exceed the increase in total EU population, as will the total population change for Germany. The population of the UK is roughly that of Italy and three-fourths that of Germany, but it offers a clear illustration of what the situation could be if the birth rate of the UK were duplicated in the rest

24


Table 2.6

Selected EU demographic changes, 2008–2060 EU27

Cumulative births 250 897 Cumulative deaths 290 800 Natural change −47 903 Cumulative net migration 58 227 Total population change 10 325 Note: Source:

Germany

Spain

Italy

UK

32 206 51 693 −19 487 8 067 −11 420

23 164 28 060 −4 896 11 526 6 629

25 453 37 412 −11 959 11 820 −139

42 359 34 660 7 699 7 708 15 406

Figures in thousands. Giannakouris (2008, p. 5).

of the EU. The countries that are losing population are conforming to the model of “new” depopulation in which deaths exceed net migration; in the “old” model net migration exceeds natural change (Bucher and Mai, 2005). Within Europe, excluding Central and Eastern Europe, there are three demographic futures foreseen with regard to age dependency (Kupiszewski et al., 2005, pp. 17–20). In the Northern European countries, population is projected to grow from 88 million to 100 million between 2005 and 2050, the old age dependency rate will rise from 24 percent to 40 percent, with the very old rate rising from 7 to 15 percent. The young age dependency is projected to be constant throughout the period at 27 percent. This results in a manageable increase in the total dependency rate from 51 to 67 percent. In Western Europe total population will be stationary, the old age dependency rate will rise from 26 to 48 percent, and the very old rate will grow from 7 to 20 percent. The total age dependency rate will rise a bit more than in the north, from 51 percent to 75 percent. In both Northern and Western Europe, the old age and total dependency rates are projected to cease to increase after 2035. The most difficult part of Europe is Southern Europe, which the authors of one study refer to as the “leader of ageing” in Europe (Kupiszewski et al., 2005). Here population is projected to decline from 124 to 117 million during 2005–2050, the youth dependency rate will rise from 21 to 24 percent, old age dependency from 27 to 65 percent, and the very old dependency rate will grow strikingly from 7 to 25 percent. The result should be a virtual explosion in the total dependency rate from 48 to 91 percent. The ratio of working age to dependents will fall from 2:1 to 1:1. Southern Europe has been a society of emigration for the past 150 years and if the fiscal burden on working age people rises accordingly, one should anticipate another outward migration of


25

young workers. In the past this flow was largely composed of rural and minimally skilled workers, but in the coming decades it will most likely be those who are educated and skilled who will move and will deprive these economies of the individuals on whom their economic futures are so dependent. The comparison between the EU and the US data is compelling. In the US births exceed deaths by over 63 million; conversely, in the EU deaths are in excess of births and by almost 48 million. US net international migration also exceeds that of the EU. As a consequence, population is forecast to grow in the US by almost 132 million while that of the EU will increase by only 10.3 million. The non-working part of the population differs significantly among countries of the EU, while the US states are much more uniform in this regard.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN AGING POPULATION This dynamic demographic structure is fraught with difficulties for the countries that experience it. As was demonstrated in Chapter 1, many national governments, research institutes, and multinational organizations have highlighted these difficulties. The European Community has issued studies on the impacts of aging on various elements in public expenditures.4 The OECD has raised the issue of reforms that aging requires (OECD, 2000, 2005), and the US Census Bureau (2005, p. 3) has warned of “possible modifications to Social Security, Medicare, and disability and retirement benefits, among other issues.” Furthermore, they note that with evolving marital and familial relations we may not see the continuation of traditional family support relations. This generates a set of consequences of aging that work to the detriment of the performance of each national economy. First, we will consider the fiscal consequences. The working cohort of the population is roughly 16–64, although this will vary according to national practices with regard to both education and retirement. This working cohort must earn enough to support itself, provide for those too young to work and in need of sustenance, education and health care as well as contributing to the health and retirement expenses of those who no longer work due to advanced age. If this working cohort is reduced as a share of the population the fiscal burden on individual workers will grow and may become unsustainable. Second, the workforce consequences are easily discernable; economic activity requires increases in productivity as well as an adequate supply of workers. Italy is one of many countries that are now suffering from shortages of young labor with the necessary skills

26


and abilities. In the United States, the popularity of low taxes and recurring tax cuts has resulted in education systems in some states that produce workers who are barely literate and numerate and these states have lost production activities to other states or countries in which education is more highly regarded. Mobile production activities have always migrated to other economies in which adequate labor is plentiful and there is no reason to doubt that this will continue to be the case. Third, the fiscal and workforce consequences combine to generate the competitiveness consequences of demographic change. An increasing fiscal dependency of the young and the old and an unsupportable tax burden on workers, who in many instances are as mobile as are capital and production activity, can only lead to increases in costs that are not offset by gains in productivity, as well as to deteriorating amenities, government services, infrastructure, and so forth. This will combine to diminish the competitiveness of the economy in question. Hence it is of utmost importance that policy makers understand the nature of the consequences of demographic change and that they adopt policies that will ameliorate its negative impacts. We argue that in addition to these negative consequences of aging, there are some positive aspects that have been overlooked. In Chapters 5, 6 and 7 we will show how powerfully they can work to offset the widely discussed negative consequences.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT SENIORS? In Chapter 1 we noted that the seniors of today and the coming decades should be expected to behave in ways that are different from those of their predecessors – more in accordance with their relatively better economic, health, educational and mobility characteristics. We are keenly aware that only a minority of all seniors fits into the profile that characterizes the subject group of our study. In the United States, in 2003 only 22.9 percent of 65 and older men had a college education, 28.1 percent had not graduated from high school; for women the figures were 13.1 and 29.1 percent. Americans with a university degree rose from 3.4 to 17.4 percent of the population between 1950 and 2003 and this figure is expected to rise to more than 25 percent by 2030. In 2003 the percentage of the population with at least a university degree rose steadily from 15.4 for those 75 and older to 29.4 for those 25–64. The Bureau links higher levels of education to the better health, wealth and mobility seniors will experience. These characteristics will continue to increase among the 65 or older population. It should be noted that the poverty rate among Americans aged 65 and


27

over has dropped since 1980 by about 40 percent, from almost 16 percent to 10.2 percent in 2003; this poverty rate for 1965 was 35 percent (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2006). Social Security is the big factor in this reduction, accounting today for about 40 percent of seniors’ income. In addition to those who lived in poverty, 16.9 had an income that was less than 125 percent of the poverty threshold. Nearly 60 percent of men (57.7) and 70.5 percent of women over 65 had some limitation on activity, such as lifting, climbing and walking (the higher figure for women is in part due to their longer life expectancy) (US Bureau of the Census, 2005, chs 3 and 4). The situation of this larger segment of the senior population is an issue of public policy that, however important, we will leave to others. A recent survey indicated that of the 60–69-year-old population in the US, 53 percent want to travel, 43 percent want to exercise more, 39 percent want to do voluntary work, 29 percent want to acquire new skills and 20 percent would like to take classes to go back to school. Seniors are roughly the same as the 41–59-year-old group with regard to exercise and new skills; slightly ahead when it comes to volunteering, but the desire for more education is 30 percent for those aged 40–49 and 25 percent for the 50–59 year group (Harris Interactive Inc., 2005). This is most likely related to the higher educational attainment of the younger group and we will probably see them maintain this desire for intellectual activity as they age. Seniors are increasingly more mobile than in the past, both in the US and in the EU. For this study the central question is: do seniors actually move into the city center, as we have suggested, so there is a positive consequence of aging? We can gain an understanding of this, for the US, from a study done by William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution (2006, esp. Part II). The first thing to note is that aging in place dwarfs the migration of seniors. Only 5 percent of seniors move their residence each year in comparison with 30 percent of young people, and less than 2 percent of 55 and older individuals migrate across state lines in comparison with 4–5 percent for the young cohort. Second, migrants to the city counties do tend to have more education and higher incomes – college graduates earning more than $50,000 per year – than do non-movers or those who move to the suburbs. Third, while the numbers of migrants to city counties may not be large, as we will see in the next chapter, the population of the city center of a city with a population of a million or more is, at best, in the tens of thousands. So a city does not need massive flows of seniors to sustain the rejuvenation of the residential stock of the city center, to enrich the culture and arts life of the city center, and to make its lifelong learning programs popular and vital. A few thousand over several years will do just fine. In the EU data is harder to obtain. Eurostat has stated that:

28

The aging population and the competitiveness of cities Migration can be extremely difficult to measure. A variety of different data sources and definitions are used in the Member States, with the result that direct comparisons between national statistics can be difficult or misleading. The net migration figures here are not directly calculated from immigration and emigration flow figures. As many EU Member States do not have complete and comparable figures for immigration and emigration flows, net migration is estimated here as the difference between the total population change and the “natural increase” over the year. In effect, net migration equals all changes in total population that cannot be attributed to births and deaths (Eurostat, 2008, p. 23).

So we do not have comparable data for suburb to urban center migration in the EU that is comparable to that for the US. US data also tells us that 25 percent of the 65–74-year-old men are still in the labor force, but one survey found that fewer than 30 percent of them worked for financial reasons alone (Kaskie et al., 2008, p. 369). We also know that 56 percent of seniors were married, that only 6 percent of the 75–84 cohort lived in “group quarters” (senior residences) and that only for the 85 and older group did the group quarters figure rise above 20 percent (21.9). Income for the 65–74 male cohort was 88 percent of that of all workers, 16 and older, and for the two older groups (75 and older) it stabilized at 71 percent – the income figures for women were about 70 percent those of the men. These figures are all from the 2000 census and the forecast of the Census Bureau suggests how they should evolve in the 2010 and subsequent census reports. Improvements in health care have extended life expectancy and this is especially true for individuals at age 65. In Euro zone countries, those aged 65 should expect to have between 18 and 21 years of life remaining; in the US males had a life expectancy in 2000 at age 65 of 14.5 years and females were expected to live another 17.4 years. Eurostat and the World Health Organization have calculated the “healthy life” expectancy for those aged 65. This captures the years one should, on average, have of living with without any severe or moderate health problems or acquired disabilities (Eurostat, 2009, p. 190). For countries in Northern Europe the healthy life expectance is between 11 and 14 years, for the United States it is about 10 years, while for the rest of Western European countries it is between 6 and 10 years. So if seniors are taken to be 55 years and older, this “healthy, wealthy, well educated and mobile” population should have between 16 and 24 years, on average, of active living. This makes it a significant demographic and economic population. Many cities are basing their future on their ability to attract the young professionals of the creative class. But whatever the population experience will be for an individual city, its ability to gain revenues, jobs, taxes, and


29

so forth, will be strongly determined by its stock of urban assets that will be attractive to the senior population. This in turn will be determined by the characteristics of that population that will generate the demands they will place on urban centers and will govern their choice of residence and short-term visits. In the US and other countries public policy and discussion have categorized individuals into groups that can be differentiated from all others. We have seen this with regard to race and gender, youth, working parents, single mothers, and the aged. Each of these groups has either claimed or been seen as being deserving of some special treatment. Equal treatment, affirmative action, employment schemes, access to quality education, health care, day care, long-term care and special residential options have all received attention from government. One of the groups that seems to have disappeared from this panoply of policy concern is the healthy, educated, well-off seniors who are the subject of this book. It is true that the vast majority of them are not in need of the kind of attention and subsidy that the other categories of citizens are given. But they do have aspects of behavior, lifestyle and income that are worthy of examination. They are in transition from a situation in which they are relatively independent from government intervention and the years in which they will be increasingly dependent upon outside assistance, not all of which will require subsidization from government. As we argue in this book, much of that behavior can be of considerable benefit to the economy of a city.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4.

Much of the data for this section is taken from Eurostat (2009). For a discussion of this, see OECD (2000, pp. 16–24). For a fuller discussion of these policy initiatives, see Kotowska (2005). Among others, see Economic Policy Committee (2003) and Economic Policy Committee and the European Commission (2006).

3.

The consequences for national and sub-national governments

The impact of aging on government revenues and expenditures is a composite of several individual items, some of which will improve the net fiscal position of governments while others will make it worse. The situation is made more complex due to the different sharing of program responsibilities in each country between the national and sub-national level of government, and by the different roles played by private sector institutions in each country. First, we will specify the individual elements in the calculation of the impact; in the second and third sections, we will examine the organization of sub-national government levels in the EU and the US and how the aging of the population is anticipated to have impact on the fiscal burden; finally, we will examine the role that can be played by the private sector.

THE GENERAL IMPACTS OF AGING ON NATIONAL GOVERNMENT FINANCES The life cycle of individuals suggests that in our early years we will cause a drain on social resources because while we make no contribution to output we make claims for health care and education. In our middle years we are productive and make few demands on social resources, except for things such as national defense, highways and so forth. For some individuals there is a need to make claims for unemployment compensation and for short-term and long-term health care. In our post-employment years until death we make claims, sooner or later, for retirement income, health care and long-term care. This life-cycle model will be discussed further in Chapter 4. Each of these expenditures will vary significantly from individual to individual and while we then must consider them in the aggregate, there is also room for them to be reduced through measures that reduce the need of each individual to make claims. This can be accomplished through a variety of public policy reforms and through measures relating to health and behavior of individuals. These will be discussed when we look at the situation in the two geographic areas we are studying – the US and the 30


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EU. One study has found that there was no crowding out of expenditures on young people as a consequence of expenditures on seniors, at least for the period 1990–2003. This does not, however, mean that there will not be this impact when age dependency rates are higher in the coming decades (Börsch-Supan, 2006, p. 12). Finally, there are some expenditures that seniors demand that benefit the society as a whole and should not properly be considered to be negative impacts of aging – these include things such as safer streets, pedestrian ways, parks and green areas, lively streets, livable communities, and so forth. The four primary fiscal consequences for government of an aging population that are usually highlighted are: (1) pension or retirement income expenses, (2) health care, (3) long-term care, and (4) education. Pension or Retirement Income This expenditure is typically needed for 20–40 years, between the final day of employment and death. The initial date is not fixed for many individuals as it is becoming increasingly common for seniors to work on an occasional basis for their former or some other employer, or to work as part-time consultants, and because the mandatory retirement age varies among countries and is under revision in many of them. The burden of this expenditure is also highly dependent upon the specific nature of the pension scheme of the individual country. Contributions to private plans allow governments to be less generous with their own plans, thus reducing public sector expenditures and many counties – specifically Sweden and several countries in Central Europe – are increasing the role of private sector providers. Usually this is done as an adjunct to participation in the public pension plan and the degree of voluntary or mandatory participation varies among countries and for new versus older workers. Some of these require participation by one’s employer in a formal independent retirement account, while others are funded entirely by the individual who has the choice of low-risk annuities and bonds or higher-risk equities. Government plans can be defined-contribution or defined-benefit. In the former, one’s contribution to a fund is set and upon retirement a calculation is made that takes into account the total amount of the contribution and the beneficiary’s life expectancy so as to determine the monthly income; an increase in life expectancy will reduce the monthly income of the beneficiary, with the demographic risk being more rationally shared. Some beneficiaries live longer than expected and others live shorter; the two average out so that a longer-lived individual receives the benefit until death with no burden on taxpayers. With defined-benefit plans an increase

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in life expectancy will increase lifetime disbursements that will have to be paid for by higher taxes at the time of payment. In many countries there is a minimum pension payment without regard to income or contributions, and payments may also be means-tested. So in many countries there is some control over the magnitude of pension disbursements over time. In addition to retirement pensions based on age, most states also offer pensions in recognition of disability, and of surviving a wage earner. These are usually offered with a payment that is lower than is that of a normal age-related pension. In the EU, current pension expenditures range from 4.7 percent of GDP in Ireland to 14.2 percent in Italy.1 The anticipated pension expenditures for EU10 countries will rise only from 10.9 to 11.1 percent of GDP between 2004 and 2050, or 0.3 percent, but for larger groupings, such as the EU25, it should rise from 10.6 to 12.8, or 2.2 percent, during this same period. For Spain and Portugal this increase is expected to be from 8.6 and 11.1 to 15.7 and 20.8 percent, respectively. But both Italy and Sweden will have small yearly increases since their schemes are defined-contribution. These estimates will be increased if there is an increase in life expectancy, reduced employment by working age individuals or seniors, or an increase in labor productivity that is below the assumed rate of 0.25 percent per year. Nine of the EU25 countries will see pension expenditures peak at 15 percent of GDP or higher, but most of the countries of Central Europe will peak at less than 10 percent. The dates of peaking cluster from 2039 to 2050, with the exception of five of the Central European countries. The United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden and the Netherlands are the only countries with private statutory pension plans, with the payments to recipients peaking in 2040 at 9 percent of GDP for the Netherlands, and at 2.9 percent for Sweden; estimations for other countries were not available. Combining public and private pensions means that expenditures will peak for the Netherlands and for Sweden in 2040 at 20.3 and 14.5 percent respectively. The fiscal crisis for some EU countries is shown by the fact that in the EU10 countries only 78 percent of public pensions are being covered by social security contributions. For France and some of the countries of Central Europe coverage is 100 percent, but for Germany, Hungary and Ireland coverage is less than 70 percent. The gap will have to be met by the creation of other funds that will be supported by tax revenues. In the US, the public pension system is in relatively good shape. While European public pension systems provide benefits of up to 70–80 percent of preretirement wages, in the US this averages about 40 percent. Then Americans tend to retire at a later age, their fertility is 50 percent higher than is that of Europeans, and US life expectancy is a couple of years


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less. Each of these factors works to reduce the fiscal burden on the public pension system relative to that of Europe. Social Security payments are currently about 4.4 percent of GDP and are projected to peak in 2035 at about 6.1 percent, and then to stabilize at about 5.9 percent through 2080. Social Security consists of two separate programs – Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance; together they are OASDI. OASDI is projected to have payments in excess of income excluding interest in 2016. In 2024, payments are projected to exceed income including interest and the trust funds would begin to be depleted. This could continue until 2037 when the funds would have been completely used up and interest income would only be sufficient to cover up to 76 percent of payments to beneficiaries into the 2080s (Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees, 2009). In fact while it is widely argued in the US that the Social Security system is near collapse and that workers today will get little if anything from it when they retire, the Social Security “crisis” could be resolved and the system could be made financially sound with an increase of the payroll tax by 2.6 points, from 12.4 to 15.0 percent (Lee, 2000, p. 138). Again, these projections are subject to, in places controversial, assumptions made with regard to life expectancy, fertility, net immigration and mortality and the required increase of the payroll tax could be 2.6 percentage points above or below the recommended increase of 2.6. In light of the uncertainties of the primary variables, an expert in the field stated that: “No policy should stand or fall on its ability to strike any particular point in this range of uncertainty. We need policies that can adapt to a variety of possible futures and that are robust to the uncertainty of the future as it unfolds, either in the demographic or in the economic domain” (ibid., p. 142). This, of course, stands for all similar policy issues. Health Care This is an extremely difficult expenditure item to estimate. Total expenditure on health care is determined by several factors that are in flux and difficult to forecast with any precision. On the one hand, life expectancy should rise with improvements in the knowledge and technology of health care; individuals may to some extent opt for healthier lifestyles as income rises; even without healthier lifestyles there are uncertainties that attach to the income elasticity of demand for health care; social practices with regard to resort to health care professionals may give priority to less costly general practitioners rather than to high cost emergency rooms; and cost sharing and higher deductibles for public and private health care may

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lead to reduced demand and, perhaps, total expenditures. On the other hand, some researchers have found that there is little impact of aging on the growth of health care spending; that “the age distribution of a country is not associated with the level of health spending per capita.”2 Hartwig (2006, p. 1) found that “health care expenditure is driven by wage increases in excess of productivity growth,” and Chernichovsky and Markowitz (2004) use data from Israel to examine the contribution of education, income, gender, and access to health insurance “to the lack of correlation between aging and health spending.” While the literature is somewhat mixed in its conclusion about the relationship between aging and health costs, this in itself causes one to be less certain abut the increasing cost of senior health care and its impact on government budgets. In the US, one of the important factors, being a nation of immigrants, is the difference in health experiences of different racial and ethnic communities. From 2000 to 2030 the 65+ population of racial minority groups is expected to rise from 11.3 to 16.5 percent, and of Hispanics from 5.6 to 10.9 percent. A recent study indicated that 39 percent of Caucasians 65 and older reported they were in very good or excellent health, whereas this was true for only 29 percent of African-Americans and 24 percent of Hispanics. The primary causes of poor health were smoking, poor diet and physical inactivity; in 2000 they were the causes of 35 percent of US deaths. One study concluded that: “preventive health measures, including intervention on modifiable risk factors, have the potential to offset increases in disabling morbidity as well as the concomitant burden of care resulting from greater longevity among today’s aging populations” (Hubert et al., 2002). So behavioral and lifestyle changes can have a powerful impact on the health of seniors and on the health care costs of their society; they are subject to control by all societies. In the US, national health expenditures currently (2006) amount to 16.5 percent of GDP, and this will rise to 20.0 in 2015. On a per capita basis, this expenditure will rise from $7110 to $12 320, or by 73 percent in just nine years. Health care costs in all societies are affected both by demographic changes and by the adoption of new technologies that may be very, and perhaps increasingly, costly to develop and apply. The use of new technology may be more or less costly depending on issues such as the ownership of expensive medical devices, the decisions of physicians to resort to them, and the reluctance of insurance companies to pay for this treatment. It could be possible for seniors to be steadily healthier and in less need of health care but for the cost to society to be increasing. This calls for some monitoring by some impartial agent or agency.


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Data for 1997 showed that health care costs to industrialized societies for the 65+ population vary widely, from $3600 per year, in the UK to $6800 in Canada, and to $12 100 in the US. For the whole population the health care cost on a per capita basis was $5711 in the US; less than $2500 in Finland, Ireland, Italy and the UK; and between $2500 and $3000 in Switzerland, Belgium, France, Iceland, Luxemburg and Norway. Thus, the US really is a considerable outlier in this regard. In the US the public health care system funds just under 50 percent of total health care expenditures. It is composed of three programs: Medicare, which provides assistance to those over 65; Medicaid, that assists those under a specific income level; and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is shared with the individual states. The fiscal difficulties with Medicare make the Social Security “crisis” look pale in comparison. Partly, this is due to the fact that health care costs per capita are rising so much faster than retirement benefits. Medicare annual costs are projected to rise from 3.2 percent of GDP in 2008, to surpass Social Security expenditures in 2028, at 6.0 percent of GDP, to rise to 11.4 percent in 2083 and to continue to rise thereafter. Medicare out payments exceeded income including interest in 2008, at which point the trust fund began to be depleted, and the trust fund will be fully depleted in 2017. Projected expenditures for Social Security recipients are projected to decline from 81 percent in 2017 to 50 percent in 2035 and 30 percent in 2080 (Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees, 2009) – unless revenue-enhancing reforms are introduced. This picture is significantly more dire than was that of Social Security given in the section above. The Medicare fund could be made actuarially balanced through an increase in the payroll tax of 134 percent, from 2.9 to 6.78 percent, or by an immediate 53 percent reduction of payments. Given the political difficulties these measures would generate, it should be no surprise to learn that the major effort of the federal and state governments is now on measures to reform health care that would bring cost reduction. Much of the poor health performance of the US population is due to lifestyle choices – smoking, eating fast foods, lack of exercise, excessive consumption of salt and sugar. The result is a population in which diabetes, lung cancer, high blood pressure, to name just the major ones, are rampant. These illnesses put a major drain on the health care system, but these are not particularly illnesses of seniors. Hence the earlier reference to the fact that societies’ health costs are not convincingly linked to the aging of the population. Without these lifestyle choices, the young and middleaged population would be healthier and seniors would then appear more prominently in the high and increasing cost of health care.

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Long-term Care In contrast to health care, long-term care clearly is an expenditure item that is intuitively linked to aging of the population. One would think it is most closely tied to the number of individuals who are in need of it and this need is almost always during the final three years of one’s life, so increasing life expectancy has only the effect of delaying this period of need. However, Stephanie Jacobzone (2000, p. 219) has written that: “There seems to be no relationship between publicly financed long-term care as a share of GDP and any rough indicator of potential needs, such as the share of the very old population.” Better lifestyle habits do have the impact of reducing the years during which long-term care is needed. Studies have shown that public long-term care expenditures were quite similar for industrialized countries in Europe (France, Germany, Sweden and the UK) and North America (Canada and the US). Long-term care publicly funded varied in 2000 between 0.6 percent of GDP in France, to 0.66 percent in the US, 0.71 percent in Germany, 1 percent in the UK and 2.86 percent for the outlier Sweden. By 2020 dynamic projection suggests that from 2000 the change in publicly financed long-term care as a share of GDP will be −3.3 percent in the US, 24.7 percent in Canada, 15.9 percent in the UK, 24.5 percent in Germany and 45.5 percent in France. The US decline is due largely to an increase in working age population which leads to strong economic growth and an increase in the denominator in the equation. The proportion of 65+ who were living in institutions ranged from one in fifteen to one in twenty (1995); the percentage who were in formal homecare situations ranged from 5.5 to 9.6 percent in Europe to 16.0 and 17.0 percent for the US and Canada. Ten to 20 percent live with their adult children, although this figure has declined in all countries over time (Anderson and Hussey, 2000, pp. 195–7). In the US it is estimated that almost 50 percent of long-term care is paid for by Medicaid, with an additional 8 percent covered by Medicare. Long-term care expenditures are expected to increase by 20–21 percent by 2020 – compare this with 102 percent for Japan (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003, p. 3)! While no one is completely sanguine about the potential impact of longterm care on societies, there is reason to assume that healthier lifestyles will increase life expectancy and that these years, for more seniors, will be lives in relatively good health, free of debilitating infirmity or illness. Seniors will then live more independent lives. Several recent studies done in the US have confirmed the essentials of this more optimistic scenario (cited in Jacobzone, 2000, p. 219). A study of the European Commission stated that: “if the disability status of elderly citizens improves broadly in


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line with the projected increase in life expectancy . . . [then the] projected change in spending would be between 40 per cent and 60 per cent lower.” Their conclusion was: “Policy measures, which can either reduce disability, limit the need for formal care amongst elderly citizens with disabilities or which favour formal care at home rather than in institutions, can have a very large impact on public spending” (Economic Policy Committee and the European Commission, 2006, p. 163). Education In many economies there may be some savings to governments from an aging population. During one’s youth, of course, education is a major drain on social resources, followed by the pay-off of higher productivity for all who receive the education. Later in life many individuals participate in some form of continuing education, and this is almost exclusively tied to the development of skills that can be used to increase a worker’s productivity or his/her ability to work effectively for a longer number of years or to change into a skill or career that is more suited for the current and future needs of the economy. So while we speak of education as being a drain on government tax revenues, it almost always generates a return to the economy that more than justifies its expenditure. For seniors who are no longer gaining skills for the workplace, their education tends to be for intellectual engagement and personal satisfaction. As we argue in the next chapter there is a return to society from this activity to the extent that it reduces the cost of aging and helps to generate a benefit. All of the lifelong learning opportunities we have examined in the cities in our study are financed by the seniors who participate in them. Thus there is little, if any, burden to government finances from this activity. On the one hand, this suggests that government finances will not be stressed by the aging of the population. Any savings due to a diminution of the portion of the population that is composed of the young, student cohort would generate a cost to society through fewer highly skilled workers. In fact, the objective of both the administration of President Obama in the US and of the Lisbon Agenda in the EU is that of increased expenditure on education as a means of creating an economy with higher labor productivity and competitiveness. The EU foresees a decline in the number of the 5–25 age population from 116.7 to 90.6 million between 2002 and 2050, and the number of actual students to fall from 91.8 to 71.7 million (Economic Policy Committee and the European Commission, 2006, pp. 169–76). The participation rate in non-mandatory education varies significantly by country; for 21-year-old

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students, presumably in university, it ranges from less than 20 percent for some to over 50 percent for others. It tends to be lowest in the low GDP per capita countries in which it should be highest if they are to catch up with the other economies. The result is that there should be no significant (in excess of 1 percent of GDP) budgetary saving except for Spain, Austria, Cyprus and Ireland, and for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia in Central Europe. A reduction in educational expenditures as a consequence of aging is not anticipated to provide an offset to increases in health and other costs for the rest of the EU countries. This should be seen as appropriate given the mandate of the Lisbon Agenda that productivity and competitiveness be improved in the coming years, and the understanding that increases in labor productivity may be the dominant source of economic growth. In the US, while the under-18 population is expected to decline from 25.7 to 23.6 percent of the total, the actual number should rise from 72.3 million to 85.7 million. We have not been able to find estimates of the US student population in, say, 2030, but it is anticipated that the number of students enrolled in K-12 (through high school) will increase between 2004 and 2016 from 54.9 million to 59.8, and the number of high school graduates will increase from 3.1 to 3.2 million. Thus with the student age population growing by more than 18 percent, with actual students rising, and with the Obama administration devoting resources and programs to increase participation rates in education as a way to improve the economic situation of the low income and minority populations, it is hard to forecast anything but an continued increase in the student population in the US for the coming years. So, on the one hand, one should expect to see the burden of educational expenses continuing to increase, but, on the other hand, the national economy should see a benefit in terms of higher productivity and, hopefully, a reduction in the social costs that are a consequence of the lack of education and work skills. Educational expenditures by governments are, of course, determined by more than simply demographics. Many governments are making efforts to improve the quality of education at all levels and to increase participation rates. Improvements in quality usually involve increasing the teacher–student ratio, more telecommunications equipment, more and better equiped laboratories, more attention to upgrading the skills and knowledge of the teaching staff, and more intelligent and effective policies by school administrators. Furthermore, in many economies private sector schools and universities are providing education at all levels. Thus, the net impact of aging on educational expenditures by government should not be significant.


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THE SITUATION FOR SUB-NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS The fiscal burdens on sub-national governments, states, provinces and regions, as well as municipalities, varies greatly according to the constitutional mandates for various levels of government and on policy initiatives that have been taken during the past two decades. The actual and projected rising cost of health care, partly due to demographics, partly due to new technologies, and partly due to economic realities, have forced all national governments to consider administrative reforms, devolution to sub-national governments, measures to increase efficiency, and reevaluation of the desirability of certain expenditure programs. We will examine the situation in both the EU and the US; understandably, given the number of national governments involved, the section on the EU will be considerably longer than that on the US. The European Union The EU is very complex and varied with regard to the impacts of the costs of aging on sub-national governments. In some countries there are national, regional, provincial and municipal governments, while in others the structures are more unified. Furthermore, in each national system the responsibilities that are assigned to each level differ, as does the arrangement for funding those responsibilities. The various approaches to sub-national structures In the European Union, sub-national authorities are divided into one, two or three levels depending on the country. In seven EU countries there is only one level, corresponding to the municipalities; twelve countries have two levels and five countries have three levels (Table 3.1); finally, three European countries have a federal organization (Austria, Belgium, Germany). The first level, which corresponds to the municipal level, regroups over 91 250 authorities, of which 80 percent are located in only five countries: France (40 percent of European municipalities), Germany, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic. Because of their extensive division, municipalities in France, Cyprus, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are among the least densely populated in Europe with fewer than 1700 inhabitants on average (compared to the European average of nearly 5400 and more than 138 000 in the United Kingdom). In more than half of the EU countries, the municipal level includes several sub-categories. A distinction is often made between urban and rural municipalities (Cyprus, Estonia,

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Table 3.1

Sub-national levels in EU countries

1 level

2 levels

3 levels

Bulgaria Cyprus Estonia Finland Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Slovenia

Austria Czech Republic Denmark Greece Hungary Ireland Latvia Netherlands Portugal Romania Slovakia Sweden

Belgium France Germany Italy Poland Spain United Kingdom

Notes: We consider the two self-autonomous regions in Portugal and the three devolved nations in the United Kingdom, while we omit the infra-municipal parishes in both countries. Sources:

Dexia (2007); and Ferlaino and Molinari (2009).

Greece and Romania) but also within urban municipalities. Certain cities with greater demographic, administrative or socio-economic importance are given special status and thus additional competences (cities with county status in Hungary and Poland, republican cities in Latvia, and so on, plus some special endowments for the capital cities, as recently introduced in Italy, for example). Certain countries with large municipalities have an infra-municipal level that is responsible for providing local public services. The financing of these entities often comes from the municipal budget (Bulgaria, Lithuania). They can also have their own budget, primarily provided by grants (Portugal), or financed through fiscal revenues (United Kingdom). In several countries reforms are issued towards the merger of municipalities. Only a few countries are heading in the other direction and looking to add to their number of municipalities. In Slovenia, the number of municipalities has grown from 147 in 1993 to 210 in 2006, notably because the finance structure favours smaller municipalities. The second level (1150 authorities) corresponds to the intermediate level in large countries such as Germany (323 districts), France (100 departments) and Italy (103 provinces), but is the largest geographic level in certain smaller countries. In Denmark this level corresponds to the five regions, in the Netherlands to twelve provinces, in Sweden to eighteen


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county councils and two regions and in Slovakia to eight regions. In Austria, the second level corresponds to the nine Federated States. The third level groups 104 diverse authorities: regions in the large unitary States (26 regions in France, including overseas departments and regions), Federated States in the countries with a federal structure (16 states in Germany) and regions with a great degree of autonomy and legislative power in certain unitary States whose organization increasingly resembles a federal structure (17 autonomous communities in Spain, 20 regions in Italy (five of which have some degree of autonomy) and the devolved nations in the United Kingdom). The magnitude of sub-national public sector expenditure European sub-national public sector expenditure rose to 15.5 percent of GDP and 33.9 percent of total public expenditure in the European Union.3 The importance of the sub-national public sector in the overall economy varies considerably from country to country, the expenditure/GDP ratio ranging from 0.6 percent in Malta to 32 percent in Denmark. The average weight of sub-national expenditure in the EU27 countries is 33.9 percent of total public expenditure, equivalent to 15.5 percent of GDP (Table 3.2). Well above the average are the Nordic countries (Denmark, with 63.1 percent of total public expenditure, Sweden with 46.6 percent and Finland with 40.7 percent), two federal states (Germany, 44.2 percent and Belgium, 42.4 percent) and Spain (54.6 percent). A large group of countries are slightly below the average, like the Netherlands, Austria, Italy and the United Kingdom. Some countries, though with articulated sub-national organizations, have a lower impact of public expenditure at these levels: France, Slovenia, Slovakia and Portugal, for example. Areas of activity Throughout Europe, social protection and education are the two principal budget expenses for sub-national authorities (Table 3.3). In 2006, these expenses represented 19.6 percent and 21.2 percent of expenditure, respectively. Social protection expenditure is particularly significant in the federal countries (27.1 percent of sub-national expenditure in Germany, 19.5 percent in Austria and 17.2 percent in Belgium) and in the Nordic countries, especially Denmark (51.2 percent). Territorial reform in Denmark in 2007 further solidified the local competences in this area by fully transferring the organization, execution and funding of social welfare services to the municipalities. Well below the EU 19.6 percent average are Slovenia and Slovakia (9.3 percent and 7.3 percent respectively), while sub-national governments in Italy allocate 4.4 percent of the expenditure to social protection.

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Table 3.2


Sub-national public expenditure and revenue from taxes and social contributions

Country

Sub-national public expenditure (2007) percent GDP

Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom EU27

percent public expenditure

Revenue from taxes and social contributions (percent GDP, 2006) Public sector

Sub-national public sector

16.00 20.50 7.20 2.00 11.20 32.00 9.80 19.20 11.20 19.40 2.60 11.70 7.10 15.00 11.30 8.40 5.00 0.60 15.30 13.40 6.10 9.80 6.10 8.40 21.20 24.50 12.90

33.10 42.40 17.40 4.60 26.20 63.10 27.70 40.70 21.40 44.20 6.00 23.50 20.00 31.20 29.90 23.80 13.30 1.40 33.80 31.80 13.30 26.30 17.60 19.90 54.60 46.60 29.00

43.0 45.9 34.2 36.2 36.1 49.8 31.1 43.3 45.4 40.3 33.4 37.0 33.2 42.2 30.3 29.4 36.2 34.8 39.4 33.5 36.7 29.1 29.2 38.3 36.9 49.4 38.1

8.2 6.1 0.8 0.5 5.1 17.1 4.1 9.2 4.8 12.5 0.3 4.4 0.9 6.5 5.2 2.9 1.6 0 1.7 4.2 2.3 7.5 3.4 3.0 11.3 16.1 1.9

15.50

33.90

40.6

7.0

Source: Dexia (2007).

With a 21.2 percent share of average expenditure, education constitutes the largest sub-national budget in EU countries. This is due to the fact that in most of these countries, local governments are responsible for teaching staff. Slovenia, as an example, doubles the EU average (41.4 percent), but


Table 3.3

Main areas of sub-national public expenditure (percentage of sub-national expenditure in 2006)

Country

Social Education General protection services

Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom EU27 Source:

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Health

Economic affairs

Other

19.5 17.2 6.7 0 9.9 51.2 6.2 23.7 15.9 27.1 7.5 11.5 10.5 4.4 6.2 10.9 4.2 0 14.6 13.6 2.6 13.1 7.3 9.3 6.2 26.8 28.4

17.8 32.1 36.6 0 29.9 12.8 45.9 19.9 16.5 22.1 3.0 29.2 16.9 8.3 33.6 40.2 25.3 0 27.6 28.9 8.8 31.6 35.9 41.4 20.0 21.6 32.3

14.3 19.0 12.4 42.7 13.3 5.6 8.6 13.8 18.7 21.3 45.9 17.2 11.7 14.6 19.8 7.1 20.6 58.0 14.6 8.9 34.3 9.7 21.7 17.8 17.4 11.3 5.6

21.6 1.5 4.8 0 1.8 20.9 7.5 28.7 0.7 1.5 0 14.6 0 44.5 12.4 21.4 0.3 0 1.7 14.8 6.1 0.7 0.6 11.2 25.1 26.9 0

16.3 15.0 9.7 0 22.5 4.7 14.1 6.1 12.4 10.8 15.2 8.2 27.5 14.3 7.6 7.2 15.9 9.0 17.2 14.7 21.2 15.3 13.1 8.6 14.0 5.6 8.9

10.4 15.2 29.7 57.3 22.7 4.8 17.7 7.9 35.7 17.2 28.4 19.2 33.4 13.8 20.4 13.2 33.7 33.0 24.2 19.1 26.9 29.7 21.5 11.6 17.4 7.8 24.8

19.6

21.2

15.5

12.6

11.9

19.2

Dexia (2007).

expenditure is also high in Slovakia (35.9 percent), the United Kingdom (32.3 percent) and the Netherlands (27.6 percent); below the average are France (16.5 percent), Denmark (12.8 percent) and Italy (8.3 percent), where the remuneration of teaching staff is provided by the national government. Italy has the highest impact of health expenditure among the EU27 countries – 44.5 percent, with an average 12.6 percent in the EU. There is a

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lower impact for Sweden (26.9 percent), Spain (25.1 percent) and Denmark (20.9 percent); in many countries the expenditure of sub-national governments for health is very low, below 2 percent in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Slovakia, among others. In 1992, Italy began to introduce a series of reforms that devolved some health care powers to regional governments, including managerial reforms, introduction of quasi-markets, and establishment of the National Solidarity Fund that would equalize services between rich and poor regions. The general objectives were equity, efficiency, freedom of choice and cost containment. Regions were allowed to opt for one of four “templates.” (Jommi et al., 2001, p. 348) The details of these options are not relevant to this discussion, but it is noteworthy that individual regions opted for and modified one or more of the templates. This obviously entails a considerable loosening of the Italian system and devolution of decision-making and performance from the national to the sub-national level of government. Tax revenues Compared to the national level (40.6 percent), the sub-national levels of government have relatively low revenues (7.0 percent). Denmark and Sweden, with the highest share of taxes on GDP among the EU27 countries, also have the highest revenue at the sub-national level, 17.1 percent and 16.1 percent respectively. Federal countries, like Germany and Austria, have a sub-national revenue lower than expected, 12.5 percent and 8.2 percent. Italy has almost the same sub-national revenue as the mostly centralized France (6.5 vs. 4.8 percent), although the recent reform in the Italian system could change this figure in the next decade. The United States Since the US is a single national political entity, albeit with a set of subnational states, up to dozens of counties in the individual states, and finally hundreds of municipalities, examination of the impacts on these levels of government of the aging of the population will be simpler to describe than was the case with the EU. Two of the primary health care costs for US states are not related to the issue of aging. Medicaid is a health care program for non-elderly individuals with incomes below a certain percentage of the poverty level income. The legislation being discussed at this moment (August 2009) would set that at 133 percent. The federal government pays 57 percent of this program’s costs with the remainder being paid for by the states. The individual states have the responsibility for administering this program and can


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set income and other eligibility levels. The Children’s Health Insurance Program is also a major state responsibility, being funded similarly to Medicaid but is, of course, unrelated to seniors. In addition, health care in the Veteran’s Administration hospitals and clinics is entirely a national government responsibility. Perhaps the primary burden for states and municipalities will be the health and pension costs of their own employees. In this regard they are little different from many private sector employers. Medicare is the health care program that covers individuals 65 and older, and some who are disabled. This is funded entirely by the national government through income taxes, a payroll tax, and payments by individuals for some elements of it. Since Medicare is not completely comprehensive, most seniors also have supplemental insurance; seniors pay approximately 22 percent of their income on their health care coverage (Chua, 2006). In a very real sense, there is no single US health care system, with individual states exercising considerable control over the programs offered. For example, while the average expenditure on health by state is 13.3 percent of state gross product, three states are below 10 percent while 16 are over 15 percent. Most states have mental health programs, support hospitals and other care facilities and make some provision for the aged. But we really cannot say anything with regard to the burden that aging will place on state, county and municipal budgets. Needless to say, with unfunded federal mandates and cut-backs in federal support for social programs, and in state support to the counties and cities, these lower levels of government are increasingly stressed. This is one of the factors that are driving the movement to reform health care in the US. Social Security is a pension plan that is entirely financed by the national government. Its average disbursement per pensioner equals about 8 percent of the earnings per worker in the US, in comparison with 8 percent for the UK, 24 percent in Germany, 29 percent in France and 35 percent in Italy (Bongaarts, 2004, p. 6). There are no financial burdens to state governments as a consequence of the Social Security program, with the exception of the payments lower levels of government make for their employees.

THE FISCAL BURDENS ON GOVERNMENTS OF AN AGING POPULATION These phenomena generate fiscal pressures on governments and they need to adopt policies that will deal with them effectively. At this stage of the argument, representatives of the various levels of government will ask: How are we affected by this? A report done by a Canadian scholar

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highlighted four elements in the financial impacts of the aging of the population that affect the finances of governments: health care, education, elderly benefits and child and family benefits. For Canada, the smaller portion of the population that will be young means that between now and 2055 expenditures for both education and child and family benefits should fall as a percentage of GDP, expenditures for elderly retirement benefits will rise slightly until 2030 and fall back to their current level by the end of the period. Together they will fall from about 5.8 to 4.4 percent of GDP. The most significant element is health care, which rises from about 6.2 percent of GDP to 12 percent during the same time period, although the link to aging is weak. In the aggregate, these four elements will rise from 15 percent to 19 percent of GDP by 2055 (Robson, 2006). If these figures are typical of the other industrialized countries, what gives each country a distinct structure of burden is the constitutionally mandated allocation of programmatic and financial obligations to each level of government. In Canada, education and health are provincial responsibilities while elderly and child and family benefits are covered by the federal government. The result for Canada is that for the period 2005–2050 the net burden on Canadian citizens is $810.6 billion, but with the provincial governments bearing a burden of $847.3 billion and the federal government a net gainer of $36.7 billion. In this instance the national government benefits and the sub-national governments bear the entire burden of the aging of the population. The impact on cities was not examined in this report. Again, this will be different for each national situation depending on the responsibilities that are mandated for each level of government. It has often been the case that when faced with increasing fiscal burdens superior levels of government shift that burden to lower levels of government. Since fiscal responsibility at the national level seems to be in such short supply these days, cities should be prepared to be confronted with increased “unfunded mandates,” and programmatic and funding obligations. This prospect has been raised by the League of Minnesota Cities in its State of the Cities Report. It was suggested here that the federal government may: (1) choose to cut other areas of spending to pay for increasing Social Security costs, (2) decrease fiscal transfers to state and local governments, (3) decrease the rate at which it matches state funds for Medicare, and (4) find other ways “to shift the responsibility and cost of certain programs to states or cities” (p. 32). The current recession-based fiscal crisis for the national and state governments provided ample verification that these actions are among the first policy responses of the federal government; it is, of course, magnified by the inept actions on the part of many of the state governments. Thus lower levels of government, in this instance, cities, have a powerful interest in seeing that national governments act


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responsibly with regard to their continuing budget deficits and excessive national debts. Finally, some economists have concluded that when the dependency rate rises and the percentage of the population in working age declines, we should expect a lower savings rate, lower investment and more negative fiscal balance for government (de la Dehesa, 2006, ch. 4). Hence, the aging of the population may be expected to have some negative macroeconomic consequences that will have impacts on all levels of government with regard to tax revenues and the availability of funds for investments in infrastructure and other priority items.

THE ROLE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR In many of the industrialized countries the private sector provides some degree of health care options, long-term care and retirement funds. These are not of central concern in this study of the impacts of aging on governments, but since private plans may have an impact on the demand for tax revenues it is worthwhile discussing them briefly. Private plans often cover services not covered by the state plan, but to the extent that individuals resort to private plans the political support for publicly funded alternatives that cover those not wealthy enough for private plans may be reduced. This is seen clearly in the United States. In the United States, the private sector has sought to take on responsibilities with regard to health care, long-term care, retirement income and the array of services that are demanded or required by seniors. While this has stood in sharp contrast with the situation in most countries of the European Union where the social democratic welfare state has played a far more prominent role in the provision of social services, the recent realization that demographic changes have generated financial difficulties for governments that are large and growing has forced these societies to look to transferring some of these responsibilities from the state to the individual and, as a consequence, to the private sector. In the EU the picture is complex, in that while there is little current provision for privately funded pensions, most of the member countries are in the process of developing such schemes for future years. Furthermore, several countries are introducing private schemes for health care, albeit with close coordination with the public health care system. Studies of the issue note that there is no common scheme among EU member countries, but that a comprehensive survey is not possible due to the lack of comparable data about the national plans.4 However, more can be said about private health care.

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For the EU as a whole, a report of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies stated that: “Private or voluntary health insurance does not play a significant role in many health systems in the EU . . . In most EU member states it accounts for less than 5 percent of total expenditure on health and covers a relatively small proportion of the population. The exceptions to this trend are France, Germany and the Netherlands.” (Thomson and Mossialos, 2004, p. 1). In the Netherlands this option is available to about 25 percent of the population and in Germany to only 5 percent. The Netherlands would like to go fully to private health insurance, within the objectives of the national health system, but may be constrained by EC “Third Non-Life Insurance Directive” issued 15 years ago that precluded national governments from introducing measures that distort competition. In France, the private plans are used largely to gain coverage to certain services, such as dental prostheses and eye glasses, as well as a single room during a hospital stay; they account for 13 percent of total expenditure on health care and a bit more for the various services that are covered (Polton, 2004, p. 4). A prime example of this recent resort to the private sector in health care is the provision of health care in Italy. The region that has gone farthest in this direction is Lombardy, of which Milan is the principal city. Here the local health unit (LHU) is a purchaser of health services from independent hospitals and private sector providers, using funds allocated to it by the regional government. Thus, hospitals were taken out of the LHU control, and many smaller ones have been merged to form larger more efficient hospitals. These public and private sector entities are in a situation of competition amongst themselves in which the control and intervention of the region is minimal. Of equal importance, given the income level in the region and the international nature of its economy, is the fact that patient freedom of choice in health care is a key value in the Lombardy reforms. Hence, the reference to the creation of a quasi-market structure in which individuals have a choice among health care providers, of varying quality and cost. For Lombardy any other template would probably make it more difficult for the region to achieve its competitiveness enhancement objective. In the US, the private share of health care is about 52 percent and the public share about 48 percent (Borger et al., 2006, p. W64). During the scarce labor situation of the 1950s companies competed with each other for workers by offering health care and retirement income programs. This was fine for the workers of that company but the downside of this was that the rest of the population was deprived of a national health plan. Currently approximately 45 million Americans have no access to health care through a health plan. However, about 20 percent of these individuals


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actually are eligible for an existing plan, but either do not know this or choose not to apply for it until they are seriously in need of it. After several attempts to introduce a national health care plan with universal coverage, it is only today, in 2009, that a compromise among the social partners is making such a policy initiative a possibility. This is in large part due to the generally recognized ballooning of the cost to companies of provision of health care.

NOTES 1. The data in this section on the EU is largely from Economic Policy Committee and the European Commission (2006, Section 3). 2. Anderson and Hussey (2000, p. 201). This literature is also discussed, with the same result, in van Elk et al. (2009, pp. 16–17). 3. Data for this and the following section are from Council of European Municipalities and Regions (2008). 4. See, for example Commission of the European Communities (2008) and Börsch-Supan et al. (2005).

4.

The consequences for urban economies

Cities do not have the fiscal burdens of pensions, health care and long-term care that will be so important for higher levels of government, except for their own employees, of course. Nonetheless, cities are generally thought to be facing burdens of their own kind that are equally burdensome. The World Health Organization (WHO) (2007) has studied this in the context of its “Global Age-friendly Cities” program. The two dominating global trends in the 21st century are seen to be urbanization and aging. So the issue we are examining is, according to the WHO, at the center of the force that will shape global society for the foreseeable future. The WHO sees a positive element in this to the degree that cities are able to recognize “the wide range of capacities and resources among older people.” However, the primary focus is on the burdens aging will place on city resources: (1) the need to respond to the needs and preferences of seniors; (2) protection of those who are most vulnerable; (3) issues of inclusion and participation in community life; and (4) allowing seniors to act on their lifestyle choices. The WHO does recognize that not all aged individuals become infirm and in need of intensive or costly health or long-term care. Many live active lives until a very short period of time before death. The WHO also notes that many of the things done for seniors such as secure neighborhoods, safe streets, and so forth, benefit all residents, whether young, families or old. Finally, the volunteer and paid work of seniors is a positive factor, as is their patronage to local retail outlets for consumption of goods and services. In spite of these positive aspects, it is the central position of the WHO program that cities must undertake expenses to ensure “active aging” that gives recognition to the past contributions of senior residents to the city’s economy and society. These expenditure items include housing, transportation services and infrastructure, institutions and structures to encourage inclusion, and effective mechanisms of dissemination of information about all aspects of city living. No mention is made of the three aspects of senior behavior we are now going to discuss that generate positive gains to cities, so one cannot gain a complete understanding, from the WHO report, of the impact of aging on the urban economy, society and community. 50


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How an aging population will affect an individual city will be primarily determined by a small number of variables. In this section of the presentation we will focus on the most important of them. On the one hand, population growth forecasts will suggest which cities would appear to have or to lack a fundamental attractiveness to those who are interested in moving their place of residence. On the other hand, we will be interested in the choices made by seniors with regard to what they do with their time and money. We can link these decisions to the economic strength and viability of an urban region.

WHICH CITIES WILL GROW IN POPULATION? As the WHO noted, urbanization will be one of the primary trends in global evolution during this century. Estimates of the impacts of urbanization on the population of individual cities will vary greatly in their magnitude, with some cites growing rapidly while others stagnate or become depopulated. Some cities will continue to lose population to their suburbs and to other favored locations, while others will be magnates for migration of mobile seniors. For some cities seniors will be little more than a drain on their social revenues and will inhibit their economic growth, while in others seniors will serve as a force that generates economic competitiveness and attractiveness. Cities in the United States During the decade 1990–2000 the 65+ population declined as a percentage of the US total from 12.6 to 12.4, while it grew in the South and West by 16.0 and 19.9, respectively, and in the Northeast and Mid-west by only 5.4 and 6.6 (US Census Bureau, 2001, p. 4). However, the projected population growth of major US cities is quite diverse, and not entirely as one would imagine. Population is generally expected to grow most rapidly in the Sun Belt cities from Los Angeles through Dallas to Orlando to Atlanta-Charlotte-Raleigh, although New Orleans was projected to show a decline in population even before Hurricane Katrina. Many Northern and Rustbelt cities, such as Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Buffalo should, as would be expected, experience declines in population. Other Northern cities such as Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and St Louis will suffer loss of population in the city proper that will be offset by gains in the suburbs. Most surprising are the expected population gains that should be experienced by northern cities such as Seattle, Chicago and New York (Linneman and Saiz, 2006,

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p. 15). In other words, the impacts of demographic change, including aging, will vary significantly from city to city, and not always as conventional thinking would have one expect. The availability of water will be a factor in the decisions of seniors, as well as other people, in locating their residence. With the Sun Belt, from Georgia through Texas to Southern California projected to continue to experience drought conditions, we should anticipate an internal migration of people from those previously desirable locations to the cities of the Pacific Northwest – Portland and Seattle, and the Great Lakes region – Duluth, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, the water of which cannot be transported more than one county from the lakes. Indeed, when Architectook asked architects in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to imagine their city in 100 years’ time, those in Chicago saw water availability and its use as the key element in the city’s future. There has always been a social cost attached to previous migrations such as the movements of African-Americans from the agricultural South to the industrial North and from the Dust Bowl to the West Coast, but this migration is being anticipated with ample time to make the adjustment less personally damaging and socially costly. There is some evidence that the more highly educated and wealthier seniors of the boomer generation, and those that follow it, are less attracted to the sun and golf retirement locations than has been the case in recent decades. If, as we suggest here, these seniors are more interested in the urban functions of intellectual activity and culture and the arts, then we must expect their residence location decisions will be affected. Internal US migration data for 65 and older people show us that of 1.37 million 65 and older people who changed residence during 2002– 2003, 193 000 moved within the same central city, 159 000 moved from non-central city locations to a central city, and 73 000 moved from one central city to another. In the other direction, 171 000 moved from the city center to a suburb and 31 000 moved to a non-metropolitan area. So the net migration flow of those 65 and older was significantly to the city center. On a geographical basis 61 000 moved to the South and 36 000 to the Mid-west. The West had zero net migration 65 and older, and, interestingly, for the 75 and older population there was a strong tendency to move from the South back to the Mid-west, presumably to be close to their children as they enter the period in their lives during which they may require increased in-home care. The Northeast is the only region to have shown a net out-migration, with migrants moving equally to the Mid-west and the South (US Census Bureau, 2001, pp. 141–2). This is in conformity with the projections for population growth among cities that was just given.


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Cities in the European Union Data on population change 2001–2005 at the regional level show an evident population decrease (with a loss of even 6 percent or more) in the north-east and east (Eurostat, 2008). The new EU member countries in the central-eastern area are affected, though to a lower extent in the regions of the capital cities (for example, Prague, Bratislava). Among the old members, the former East Germany is losing population, as are northern Sweden and Finland and some regions in southern Italy and Greece. However, in the area of the “Mediterranean arc” the population has generally grown, including all southern Spanish regions (more than 12 percent growth) in particular, but also Atlantic and Mediterranean France and northern Italy. Ireland and some English regions experienced the highest growth rates in northern Europe. In countries with relatively low fertility and stagnation of the population, there is a clear correlation between these dynamics and the migration flows. Eurostat maps for population change and migration make it clear how the regions with negative population growth are the same that are experiencing negative net migration. In some regions, a negative natural change of the population has been moderated or compensated for by positive immigration: this is for example the case of northern Italy and western Germany. At the urban scale there are a few classical works studying the growth of European cities for the periods from 1950 on (Van den Berg et al. 1982; Cheshire, 1995). In the 1950–1975 period, most of the cities, even if with different timing, undertook the evolution from urbanization to suburbanization, with a movement of population to the suburbs, followed by decline. In the 1980s, urban areas followed different patterns, but in some cases (in Northern Europe in particular) there was a new growth of central areas, with an inflow of residents with localization preferences different from those of the “standard” families with children, choosing the periphery. A more recent study by Ivan Turok and Vlad Mykhnenko (2007) of 310 cities with more than 200 000 inhabitants offers some useful findings. For the past trends, it is remarkable that the number of growing cities has been falling since the 1960s – and in the late 1990s the number of declining cities surpassed those growing. As to the urban–rural population, there is a considerable difference in the timing of the urbanization in western cities compared to the eastern ones. In 1970, in western Europe, 43 percent of the population lived in cities: in the following years this figure started a constant decline. In the eastern countries this proportion reached 30 percent in 1990, then stabilized until it started to decline from 2000. Many people returned to rural areas or moved to western countries, as confirmed

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during our meetings in Bratislava, but with a possible change in 2009, with many migrants returning to their original countries as a consequence of the economic slowdown. Turok and Mykhnenko (2007) then group European cities in seven groups according to the growth/decline trend followed in the last decades. The most common trend is the continuous growth (from our sample, Bari, Geneva, Malmo, Nancy, Padova and Palermo follow this trend), then mid-term decline, a growth in the 1970s–1980s and decline from the 1990s (Ljubljana and Bratislava are in this group). A large number of cities in our survey follow the “resurgence” trend: recent resurgence (decline since the 1990s, followed by growth after 2000: Milan, Turin, Florence, Venice, Birmingham, Sheffield), mid-term resurgence (growth from the 1990s: Copenhagen) and long-term resurgence (growth from the 1980s: Vienna, Hamburg, Rotterdam). There are demographic and economic forces shaping the growth of European cities and regions. Low fertility is an important factor; internal migration favors the destination but penalizes the country of origin. Finally, there is international migration from non-EU countries. These obviously have an impact on the aging of the European population, and they also have significant regional impacts. The old-age dependency ratio reaches high levels in almost all regions of the EU15 countries: Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands are an exception, as are the regions of some capital cities (London, Paris and Helsinki among others) and some regions in southern Spain and north-eastern France. This dependency ratio is lower in all new member countries, but this figure is expected to change rapidly in the next two decades, with a growing impact of seniors in former East Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, where the effects of current emigration of younger individuals will be more evident.

THE DECISIONS OF SENIORS The new social and economic conditions of seniors in the years to come raise a new set of issues with regard to the impacts on cities of this aging population. Specifically, how will seniors maximize their welfare in this new world? Three central questions are relevant here and how they are answered will be the focus of the rest of this study. 1. 2. 3.

Where do they choose to live? What do seniors choose to do with their time? What do seniors choose to do with their money?


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In this section in which we examine the impacts of an aging population on cities we will take the subject population to be those individuals of between 54 and 75 years of age. The transition that occurs in people’s lives as they age usually happens before they reach retirement age – roughly 65 years of age. By this age children have typically left the household to be on their own and their parents reconsider many of the basic dimensions of their lives, setting themselves up for the last active period of their lives, prior to settling into some sort of situation that is dominated by their health care requirements. Typically the population 75 years of age or more tends to be more sedentary and less actively engaged in the sorts of activities that will be highlighted below. First, the choice of where to live. It is said that “life begins when the children leave home and the dog dies.” For many this takes place in their mid 50s or their 60s, and for many of these seniors it offers an opportunity to reconsider their living accommodation – the location and type of housing in which they live. In the US, there seem to be four basic options. One, of course, is to make no change, in which case their home mortgage is paid off and their disposable income can be much higher than at any other time in life. Another option is to purchase the house or apartment they have wanted for some time but could not move into because of family obligations, employment, and so on. Third, many move into retirement regions, such as the Sun Belt in the US. Finally, many cities in the US are experiencing an inflow of seniors who move into apartments or condominiums in the city center. The attraction of the latter option is the complex of urban amenities that are to be found there, including theaters, concert halls, galleries and museums, as well as dining and shopping and, in general, an “urban ambience.” This has been the experience for many years of older cities such as New York, Boston and Chicago, but Denver has its Lo-Do (Lower Downtown) and Golden Museum Triangle areas, and there are similar districts in virtually all large cities. Even cities that are having difficulty such as Pittsburgh (with its Cultural District) and Philadelphia (with its Arts Avenue) are developing their cultural assets, in part to make their city centers more attractive to educated, relatively well-off seniors. This movement is analogous to the movement in the Tom Toles cartoon in Figure 4.1. While the movement depicted here is between Caucasians and Afro-Americans, it resonates with the movement that is being experienced in many US cities, as seniors give up cutting the grass, driving three miles to buy a newspaper or some groceries, and the rest of suburban life, for the concentration of the glories of urban life that are to be found in the city center. As we will see in Chapters 6 and 7 on European cities, relocation of

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Source:


Courtesy of Tom Toles, Buffalo News.

Figure 4.1

The great senior city center conspiracy

residence by seniors tends to be far less prevalent than is the case in the US. This is due to a variety of social, cultural and political reasons, as well as simply tradition. We will explore this more fully in those chapters. This brings us to the second of the three issues: what seniors do with their time. The city center offers them first class dining and evenings out, educational opportunities and cultural experiences that are to be found in museums, galleries, theaters and recital and concert halls – all of which are often, but not always, accessible by convenient public transportation and taxi and do not require long drives, often at night, in an automobile. Attendance at cultural events is positively correlated with income and education – and with age (Nichols, 2003, p. 3, referring to Peterson et al., 2000). Each of the three is quite predictable and has always characterized cultural participation. A study of arts attendance in Southern California (The Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center, 2005) concluded that today, only 34 percent of seniors had not attended a museum in the past 12 months (as opposed to


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about 50 percent 20 years earlier), and 54 percent had attended twice or more – the highest level of attendance by age group. The report concluded that: “perhaps today’s seniors retire earlier and/or are more affluent, leaving more time for artistic and cultural pursuits.” At the level of the US as a whole, while attendance at all cultural activities drops off for the 75 and older age cohorts, attendance for the 65–74 cohort exceeds their share of the population in classical music, opera and non-musical plays, and this is true for the 55–64 group in these same activities as well as in musicals (National Endowment for the Arts, 2004). The most active cohort is that of 45–54-year-olds for which jazz is added to those of the 55–64-year-old cohort. An important question for cities is whether this cultural activity for the 45–54-year-old cohort will diminish to the levels of today’s seniors as they age or whether their higher educational attainment and incomes will dominate so that cultural attendance will continue to increase during the coming decades. Similar figures are found when we consider actual participation in the arts, rather than just attendance. Whatever their experience will be, it is clear that seniors are an important and growing clientele for urban cultural institutions. The same can be said of seniors and urban educational institutions. Participation in learning programs among the 50-year-old and older population has increased from 40 percent to 44 percent during the past decade and there is no reason to think that participation will not continue to grow in the future. While participation in educational activities was 47 percent among 50–54-year-olds and 40 among 55–64-year-olds, it was 23 percent among the 65 and older cohort. The same question must be asked here as was the case with regard to participation in cultural activities: will the younger cohorts continue their participation in educational activities past their 65th birthdays? It must also be recognized that much of the educational and learning activity of working age individuals, up to 65 years of age, is related to work-related skill development; that of the retired cohort is primarily learning for its own sake. The Institute for Retired Professionals, which conducts continuing education programs, now has 400 institutes across the country. As the director of one of the institutes said, “The boomers are the best-educated generation in the history of the universe. If early in life you learn to value education that stays with you through life” (Ellin, 2006). In 2009, 160 000 seniors enrolled in 8000 courses offered by Elderhostel, a nationwide program for courses on university campuses for seniors. In Chapters 5, 6 and 7 we will examine the lifelong learning activities of seniors. Finally, what do seniors do with their money? The OECD noted that “retirees spend money rather than save it” (Leibfeitz, 2003). What they spend this money on is, of course, closely related to what they do with their

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time and, since each of these activities has just been discussed, their financial implications should be clear enough without much further discussion. Increased income and better health will result in more travel and while cruises and exotic places have always been attractive to seniors, cultural tourism to cities with a wide range of urban amenities will also be favored. This travel will be both within the nation and international. In a classic study done in 1993, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey studied the economic impact of expenditures on cultural activities in the New York metropolitan region. Three of the findings are of interest when we consider the consequences for cities of an aging population that will have both the time and the money to attend cultural events. First, while there was capital investment in cultural facilities of $1.5 billion during the decade 1982–1992, only $313 million, or about 20 percent, was contributed by the City of New York – the rest came from other sources. Second, wages, salaries and royalties in the cultural sector were $3.5 billion while revenues of restaurants, hotels and retail shopping were $9.8 billion for the metropolitan region, of which $9.2 billion was for the core or center, New York City. Third, and of considerable importance, spending on cultural activities “grew solidly at a time of retrenchment in many other sectors of the economy” (Port Authority of NY & NJ, 1993, pp. 2 and 5, and ch.VI). While seniors are only one part of the population that participated in cultural activities, we must remember that their expenditures must be multiplied by a relevant factor if we are going to be able to ascertain the full impact of their expenditures on the urban economy. There have been numerous reports in newspapers in which the juxtaposition of artists and, among others, the information-communication technology sector specialists in certain districts of cities has led to collaboration in, and creation of, firms that specialize in animation, video games and advertising. In recent research, Ann Markusen and David King have examined the “artistic dividend,” that is the economic impact of artistic and cultural activity on a regional economy. In addition to the consequences that were highlighted in the report of the Port Authority of NY & NJ, they argue that: the productivity of and earnings in a regional economy rise as the incidence of artists within its boundaries increases, because artists’ creativity and specialized skills enhance the design, production and marketing of products and services in other sectors. They also help firms recruit top-rate employees and generate income through direct export of artistic work out of the region. (Markusen and King, 2003, p. 3)

In the research of one of the authors of this book, a city’s cultural assets is identified and one of a small number of statistically verified determinants


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of urban competitiveness (Kresl and Singh, 1999). Hence any stimulus of cultural activity should be understood to have its impact on some of the industries that are considered to be central to the urban economy of the future; the contribution of seniors to the economic vitality of an urban region can be significant. In the US, Americans for the Arts is an organization that has functioned as a spokesman for the culture and arts communities in US cities and towns, of all sizes. They have done studies for the country as a whole and for dozens of communities with regard to the economic impact of the culture and arts industry (Americans for the Arts, 2007). These studies are a rich source of data on non-profit culture and arts organizations, their structure and operations, their audiences and their financial supporters, and the role seniors have in this sector. For example, they present data on the volunteer activities of residents of the communities being studied. Volunteers give, on average, 50 hours of service each year, often concentrated in short-lived events such as the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina but also for longer lasting events, such as a theater or concert season. The typical organization received 5000–8000 hours of volunteer service, with a value of $8–12 million. Almost half of these volunteers are age 55 and older. With regard to the audiences, Arts for Americans found that 85 percent had at least a four-year university education and that for all events over 42 percent were age 55 and older. Typically, seniors tend to attend the events of the major, established concert halls, theaters and museums, while younger people attend more popular, smaller, more avant-garde events, although this line should not be drawn too firmly. We have seen that seniors are also active participants in educational activities. In the US, adult and continuing education is a $6 billion industry and it is projected to increase to $8 billion by 2011. It has been estimated that about one million Americans 55 years and older will enroll in university-offered continuing and professional courses, spending on average $920. As this evidence suggests, there is a significant impact on urban economies of seniors participating in a variety of educational activities, and we should expect to see this impact grow in coming decades. Many of these seniors will still be working, either in the companies in which they have been employed or as self-employed consultants, small business owners or entrepreneurs. In their strategic planning many cities have chosen to develop their local assets with the intention of becoming or enhancing their status as a “learning region,” on the understanding that this will enable them to be successful as an economy of innovation, research and development, and high technology production activity. For this to work, it is useful for all cohorts

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of the population to be interested and engaged in intellectual activity – it does not work if just school and university young people spend their time in learning activity. Seniors engaged in intellectual activity add to a city’s credibility as a learning region through their example to others, their support for tax-supported initiatives to develop learning region assets, and their contribution to making the social space of the city an intellectually stimulating environment. Once again, seniors can be contributors to a city’s economic development aspirations. When we put together the impacts, in a given city, on employment, incomes and tax revenues of the several sectors of urban economies that are going to be positively affected by the expenditure by seniors of time and money, it can be projected to be a significant economic boost to the cities that are able to make themselves attractive to this growing segment of the population. Beyond the financial consequences of the three choices of seniors, cities will also be affected by more general considerations. In most countries investments in whatever health care, cultural, educational and other infrastructure facilities may be constructed to meet the demands of seniors are done by national or sub-national governments, often with some degree of private sector participation, as was just noted with regard to cultural facilities in New York. In some instances cities may be required to issue bonds to participate financially in some other way. But whatever the financing scheme, the city will enjoy the benefits of construction jobs and incomes, as well as additional tax revenues. These benefits may be offset to some degree by the burdens on cities of their own aging employees and their health care needs. Furthermore, they may be required to “reassess their policies, programs and services in the areas of transportation, housing, land use planning, public safety, parks and recreation, workforce skill development and volunteering/civic engagement.” Some of these activities, such as skill development and volunteering/civic engagement will bring benefits, some of which will be nonmonetary, to the city in which they occur. What is disturbing for those who look to the future is the report issued by a group of concerned organizations that “only 46 percent of US communities have begun planning to address the needs of the exploding population of aging ‘baby boomers’” (CSRwire, 2006).

THE BASES FOR DECISIONS BY SENIORS We can be more precise about these three aspects of the behavior of seniors now and in the years to come so we can become more analytical about the


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consequences of their actions. First, there are several factors that affect the propensity of seniors to relocate their residence from a house in the city’s periphery to an apartment or condominium in the city center. The fundamental determinant of relocation must be the prices of residences in the periphery and the city center. For many years houses in the suburbs appreciated in price relative to residences in the city center. This provided a financial incentive to the inward relocation process. Traditionally many seniors retained their suburban house to pass on to their children, either as a residence or as an inheritance asset. With increased mobility and changes in job markets the notion of a “family home” has been diminished. If suburban housing prices decline relative to city center residences, perhaps as a result of demand outstripping supply, many seniors may become trapped, to a degree, in houses that are larger than they want to maintain and become more dependent on personal automobile travel than they would like. A second factor is a set of social goods – public transportation, personal security, the desired degree of social inclusion and diversity, parks and pedestrian ways, access to shopping and cultural institutions and urban amenities in general. Many seniors flee from the notion of being warehoused in homogeneous, gated, senior communities. Until their final years of infirmity they want engagement, street life, and exposure to new experiences. City governments can provide these social goods that both attract active, relatively wealthy, healthy and educated seniors and benefit the city center and all of the city’s residents. These social goods are equally attractive to younger families. The major limiting or facilitating factor to movement to the city center seems in many cities to be adequate transportation – in particular a good subway or light rail system. In some cities, particularly in the EU, there are legal and real estate practices that inhibit relocation of residence. Where rental is more common than ownership of a residence, movement to a similar apartment may bring a new rental agreement that is far costlier than the existing one. This is the situation in Munich and tends to force seniors to remain where they are. In some other cities, the city center is dominated by corporate and high priced executive housing and there simply is no space for construction of residential buildings that would be attractive to seniors. Vienna and Geneva are examples of this. In US cities, in which the city center has been in decline due to movement of people, and then jobs, to outlying districts, there is usually ample opportunity for transformation of land to new residential uses. We can be more specific with regard to the incentives to engage in these three behaviors. First, there is the decision to relocate residence. Without wanting to be overly formalistic, we can summarize the factors that enter into this decision as follows:

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Ir = ƒ(Δpp/Δpc + ease + trans − crime − poverty + ua) Where: Ir = incentive to relocate to the center Δpp/Δpc = increase in price of residence in periphery/center ease = lack of legal constraints and transaction costs in relocating trans = quality of public transportation crime = crime/100 000 population poverty = poverty rate ua = adequacy of urban amenities This decision is most powerfully determined by the cost of residence in the outlying region and the city center. Thus we are interested in the price of houses in the suburbs of a city and the price of residences (houses, condominiums and apartment rents) in the city center, and the change in prices during the recent past. Clearly prices have risen in many suburbs during the past decade, and prices in their city centers have stagnated; this is the classic incentive for seniors to relocate to the city center. The current economic recession and the fact that it is centered on a collapse of housing prices means that the relocation incentive will be very weak for a short period of time, perhaps 2009–2011. There is usually a pent-up desire to act in this kind of situation so the relocation activity in the subsequent years may be quite robust. This effect will be strongest in the cities in the US where ownership of residence is so dominant; in the EU where residential renting is more common the effect will be weaker. The data in Table 4.1 show how widely divergent and how important the prices of houses and condos can be for senior decisions in a particular city, as well as how difficult it is to come to a definite conclusion as to what the available data demonstrate. First, we do not have data for all cities, and some of our 12 cities were not included in the study by the National Association of Realtors. Secondly, the data are for Metropolitan Statistical Areas and do not accurately capture the specific locations from which and to which seniors will relocate their residence. Within an MSA some districts will be dramatically more or less costly than others. One could make assumptions about the most likely locations of seniors’ origin and destination and get house and condo price data for postal codes but unless the assumed locations accurately represented the situations of seniors the exercise would not be of much value. Of more value to us is the spread of the “price incentive to relocate” figures. For the 7 of the 12 cities for which there is data the range is from 1.12 to 1.51, and for the regions there is an incentive of 1.32 for the West and a disincentive of 0.86 for the Mid-west. In the South the price


Table 4.1

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Prices of existing condos and houses in the 12 MSAs Price of houses 2006

Price of condos 2006

Price incentive to relocate

Price of houses 2009/2008

Price of condos 2009/2008

Albuquerque Atlanta Charleston Charlottesville Denver Milwaukee Nashville Philadelphia Pittsburgh Portland Seattle Tucson

184.2 171.8 212.4 – 249.5 220.9 – 230.2 116.1 280.8 361.2 244.9

138.6 153.0 – – – 170.3 – 190.6 – 185.9 – 162.5

1.33 1.12 – – – 1.30 – 1.21 – 1.51 – 1.51

−4.1 −24.9 −6.6 – −13.7 −1.4 – −6.7 −7.3 −13.3 −15.3 −20.3

−2.4 – – – – −14.7 – −2.8 – −10.8 – −8.9

US Northeast Midwest South West

221.9 280.3 164.8 183.7 350.5

221.9 249.7 190.9 184.0 264.7

1.00 1.12 0.86 1.00 1.32

−13.8 −15.9 −6.8 −10.8 −19.8

−20.2 −11.9 −20.0 −24.8 −25.7

Notes: Price incentive to relocate = house price/condo price. – = data are not available or the city was not included in the study. Source: “Median Sale Price for Apartment Condo-Coop Homes for Metropolitan Areas,” and “Median Sales Price of Existing Single-Family Homes for Metropolitan Areas,” National Association of Realtors, 2009.

incentive to relocate is zero, as it is for the US as a whole. The data on house and condo prices during the first recession year, 2008–2009, show that in Milwaukee house prices held up better than did condo prices, but for other cities this was not the case and this fits the pattern for regions. The full study indicates that in the fastest growing cities in the South and the West, where prices had risen so dramatically, condo prices fell by over 50 percent and house prices fell by up to 30 percent with some cities in the industrial Mid-west experiencing house price collapses of almost 50 percent. A rational senior would keep this experience with residential price booms and collapses in mind when deciding where to retire and what sort of residence to purchase or rent. Many of the previously popular retirement locations may well become less so in the coming years.

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Transportation is another important factor in the decision to relocate. The transportation infrastructure varies dramatically from city to city. In the city with an inadequate system, the incentive to move into the city center to have access to urban amenities is strong. In other cities, especially those with light rail and metro systems, access is good enough that many seniors will remain in the outlying areas, perhaps in town centers, where they have friends and familiar shops, and so on, and the incentive to move to the city center is weaker. The weak transportation system tends to be a feature of many US cities, but not of most cities in the EU. Hence, we should expect the relocation inducement to be stronger in the US than in the EU. We will find that in some EU cities relocation of residence is not common because of laws and real estate practices that provide disincentive to movement. For example, a new rental contract may mean that the monthly rent and/or its annual increase will be substantially higher even for a similar apartment. This is particularly true in the EU where renting is more common in relation to ownership than is the case in the US. In other cities the center of the city is given over to commercial buildings and very high priced condominiums, and no new residential construction is taking place. In some US cities the city center has been in serious decline for decades and the “hole in the doughnut” phenomenon (where the income of the center drops below about 60 percent of that in the outlying areas and the center is considered to be beyond redemption) has made it an utterly unacceptable living space for seniors with options. These factors will have obvious impacts on the spatial mobility of seniors. Because of the fact that seniors are forced to rely for their final decades on wealth they have accumulated during their working years and have little ability to regain a loss; because of their reduced physical ability to defend themselves; because of the potential for long-term consequence of an act of violence, among other things, seniors are especially prone to avoid areas in which they feel physically at risk and subject to criminal acts. Therefore, they seek crowded, well-lit streets, areas in which there is an obvious police presence, a high density of population, and the safety of retail outlets and restaurants. Irrationally, perhaps, they also tend to want to avoid areas in which they encounter groups subject to exclusion – immigrants and welfare recipients, as well as groups of young people, and in general people who are decidedly different than they themselves are. If a city center cannot provide a residential and retail space that gives recognition to these fears, they cannot expect it to be attractive to many seniors. Finally, the supply of high quality urban amenities is a powerful force in promoting relocation of residence. As indicated in the Tom Toles cartoon in Figure 4.1, it was the presence of high quality restaurants, retail outlets,


Table 4.2

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Decision factors for seniors’ residence relocation

Denver Pittsburgh Atlanta Milwaukee Philadelphia Seattle Nashville Portland Charleston Albuquerque Charlottesville Tucson

Cr

Cu

Re

Tr

Po

Total

Rank

5 1 4 3 2 10 7 9 7 11 6 12

2 7 3 4 1 5 8 6 11 9 12 10

5 8 9 1 10 3 6 4 2 11 12 7

2 1 3 4 5 8 6 7 11 9 12 10

2 3 3 7 5 1 6 8 10 11 9 12

11 20 22 23 23 27 33 34 41 51 51 51

1 2 3 4 4 6 7 8 9 10 10 10

Key Cr = Crime Cu = Culture Tr = Transportation Re = Recreation (Urban amenities) Po = Poverty

residential options, theaters, concert halls, museums, and parks and other green areas that drew the subject demographic group back to the city center. Without them the city center is nothing but a sterile complex of boring office towers that is emptied within one hour after the end of the working day. Here there is, as we will argue in the next three chapters, a symbiotic relationship. The urban amenities draw the seniors to the city center and the patronage and participation of seniors enhances the vitality and supply of each of the amenities. This symbiotic relationship can be a powerful one and is something that should be targeted by the city’s strategic economic planners. These factors can be represented as shown in Table 4.2, with public security being reflected in the crime rate and with ease of relocation not capable of being captured by a single variable. Any individual can, of course, wonder whether a city high on the list is really more attractive than is one toward the bottom. For example, Charlottesville is low on the list in part because it is a small city that does not need an extensive transportation system and its array of cultural institutions and opportunities can never equal that of one of the larger cities. Pittsburgh’s high rating in transportation is more tied to its rail, interstate highway and its airport hub status (recently withdrawn by US Airways), than because of its intra-city transportation system that

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would be of relevance to seniors. Nonetheless this sort of ranking indicates to local leaders what areas need work if they want to become more attractive to relatively healthy and wealthy seniors. Second, is the issue of what seniors choose to do with their time. The following equation specifies the major determinants of how seniors allocate their time and money: Atm= ƒ(educ + wealth + trans + health + opportunities) Where: Atm = determinants of allocation of time and money educ = educational attainment, % population with at least a university degree wealth = per capita income or wealth trans = quality of public transportation health = health of seniors opportunities = voluntary associations, cultural facilities, educational institutions For many seniors, retirement or relocation after the children leave home is the first period in their lives that they have had free, discretionary time. Freed of the obligations of full-time employment and/or the demands of children, they have to make a decision as to what to do every day and evening. Many observers have noted the willingness of these seniors to extend the use of their professional skills after retirement in a variety of activities. These include mentoring younger workers just entering a career, working perhaps one day a week for the company from which they retired, or one similar to it, teaching these skills in some employmentrelated educational program, serving as a docent at a cultural institution, or volunteering in programs to help youth, the infirm, the excluded, and a variety of social services. In some societies, of course, individuals with professional skills continue to be fully employed well into their 70s; others choose to eschew any contact with their former working life, typically in countries in which there is a rigidly fixed retirement age that is the result of a long struggle by labor to gain this and other benefits. We have found that many seniors have a hunger for intellectual activity that has been unrealized since they left university for employment. Perhaps they read occasionally and passively in some area they found intriguing, but were unable to pursue this seriously. Now in retirement they find they are now in control of the allocation of their time and are drawn into informal discussion or reading groups, or into more formal lifelong learning programs offered by or in conjunction with a local university or college.


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This is a very popular activity in cities in both the US and the EU; the Osher Centers of Lifelong Learning in the US, and Volkshochschuler and Universities of the Third Age in the EU are formal examples of this. These programs are invariably very popular. Seniors participate, as students, in these intellectual activities, but in many instances are also able to function as teachers in them. Many cities are planning strategically to create a “learning region,” a region based on universities and other assets that will result in advanced use of new technology and a highly skilled labor force. For this to be achieved it helps if all age groups in that society, including seniors, appreciate and are engaged in learning activities. For middle-aged people this will usually consist of work-related skill development but for seniors intellectual activity will dominate. Another activity that is very popular is participation in activities in the culture and arts sector. As will become clear when we examine the individual cities in the three chapters that follow, seniors are usually 60 percent or more of the audience of theater, museum and concert hall presentations. At Teatro Goldoni in Venice, seniors are over 80 percent of the audience. Culture has been described as an urban function and the participation of seniors in this sector adds vitality to it and to the city center where most of the major cultural institutions are located. Third, there is the decision with regard to what seniors choose to do with their money/wealth. Numerous things, of course, but only a couple that are of interest to us. Seniors dominate the lists of sponsors, contributors, and boards of directors of institutions in the culture and arts sector and they are, naturally, the grantors of bequests. Many such institutions are dependent upon such private contributions for one-third or one-half of their annual budget. Given the current reductions in government, corporate and foundation support, seniors, while certainly not able to offset this reduced funding, in normal times are one of the major and most dependable sources of financial support; they are certain to become increasingly so. Without the audience and financial support of seniors many cultural institutions would not be able to survive. Studies have shown that those who attend these events spend multiples of the cost of the event on restaurants, retail, hotels, and so forth. Not all senior participants will be residents of the city but are instead those who engage in some form of “cultural tourism” – either their own weekend in the city or a more formal group excursion. Seniors in the US receive educational/cultural travel offers on a regular basis from the universities they attended, the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution, and so forth. Clearly they are seen to be a demographic group that is keen to participate in such intellectually rewarding ventures. We have already noted the desire of seniors to participate as docents in

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cultural organizations, volunteers in social programs, mentors to younger workers, participants in civic institutions, and to work on a part-time basis – in short, to make available to the community the skills they have developed in four or more decades of work and professional activity. The income of seniors tends to be more stable over the business cycle than is that of the working population. This was a conclusion of the study done of the economic impacts of the culture and arts sector that was done by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. When the stock market collapsed in October 1987, the New York economy was very negatively affected – but the culture and arts sector was almost unaffected, buoyed by the steady incomes of its senior audience members. In support of this, the Pew Foundation published a report in 2009 that showed that in the current recession seniors: are less likely than younger and middle-aged adults to say that in the past year they have cut back on spending; suffered losses in their retirement accounts; or experienced trouble paying for housing or medical care. They’re more likely to report being very satisfied with their personal finances. And they’re less likely to say the recession has been a source of stress in their family. (Morin and Taylor, 2009)

This tells us that seniors’ consumption of goods and services can be both an important contributor and a stabilizer to local economic vitality. Finally, William Frey (2006, pp. 48–52) has reminded us that the net flows of seniors from suburbs and other rural areas into the city will result in a positive impact on the tax base and tax revenues. While this may not be an enormous impact, it may in some instances be significant.

THE LIFELONG NET CONTRIBUTION CYCLE Much of what we have discussed in this chapter is captured in the lifelong cycle mentioned in Chapter 3, which depicts the net contribution of an individual to society from birth to death. As indicated in Figure 4.2, one’s first years are a complete cost to society, principally for health care and education. All benefits are psychic in nature and accrue almost exclusively to family members. During one’s working years the contribution to society is made, either through the product of work or from the social benefits of a well-managed household that includes the raising of the next generation’s taxpayers. The cost to society is reduced to general social goods such as transportation infrastructure, national defense and other government services. Occasionally individuals in this period of life will require social expenditures for their maintenance – health care, sustenance, and so


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Contribution to society

(–)

(+) (–)

Age

Cost to society

20

40

60

80

90

The thin line indicates the cost of an individual to society. The thick line indicates the contribution of an individual to society.

Figure 4.2

Lifelong net contribution to society

forth. Upon retirement, one’s contribution to society drops off dramatically, eventually becoming zero. At the same time one’s claims on social resources rise, principally for retirement income, health care and long-term care. In the two periods of highest cost to society, private plans for provision of the goods demanded – education, health care, retirement income and long-term care – will reduce the burden on society, but almost never will they be negligible. Therefore, during the early and retirement years the individual imposes a net cost to society; it is this cost that comprises the fiscal burden on government. This net cost to society can be reduced through some of the impacts we are studying here. The contribution to society can be extended beyond the working years if individuals relocate residence to a declining city center, thus bringing a “rejuvenation through aging” that reduces the net expenditure of government revenues for the social pathologies and the lost tax revenues that accompany a city district in serious decline. Furthermore, as we argue, the support seniors give to the vitality of the culture and arts sector of the economy make the city more attractive to skilled workers, headquarters functions, and office and plant location, and enhance the city’s relative competitiveness. This raises the contribution to society curve, as shown in Figure 4.3. On the other side of the equation, as many health professionals have told us, seniors who are intellectually and culturally alive, and are engaged in physical activity and in their community, have good health longer in their lives and are in need of costly medical

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Contribution to society b (+) (+)

(–) c

a

(–) Cost to society Age

20

40

60

80

90

The area “abc” is the potential gain to an urban economy from an aging population. The thick line indicates a net cost to society. The thin line indicates a net contribution to society.

Figure 4.3

Lifelong net contribution to society

interventions for fewer years at the end of life. This lowers the cost to society curve. The result is a reduction in the net cost to society and, as is shown in Figure 4.3, may cause it to become a net contribution for a few years before the inevitable net cost appears.

5.

Urban economies in the US

The striking thing about US cities is the extent to which many of them – including almost all that are included in this study – have already become aware of the issues we are raising and have, in most cases, begun to act in appropriate manners. In all of the cities we have visited, residential construction is taking place in the city center, and seniors are recognized as being significant contributors to the financial health of cultural institutions and participants in educational activities. Each city has taken its individual approach to the issues, given their specific situations. Each differs in the strength of its cultural and educational institutions, but each is endowed with a set of musical, artistic, theatrical and dance venues that is attractive to the population cohort we are studying. Each has its own relation with its surrounding area and towns, and each has its own inventory of historic and cultural districts, housing stock, transportation infrastructure, governmental effectiveness and social structures. This rich variety of situations, and assets and liabilities gives us an excellent laboratory for ascertaining best practices with regard to capturing benefits from an aging population; it also suggests some of the difficulties that a city may have to overcome. In many of these cities the activities of seniors have had the impacts that we have suggested they would. Seniors have brought new life to city centers that may have been in a state of gradual decline. They are typically 70 percent or more of the financial supporters of cultural institutions and at least 50 percent of attendees at events, performances, exhibitions and shows. Seniors have supported specialized educational programs offered by local universities and colleges and in many cases have made sizeable contributions to them. They serve as mentors of younger workers, help to provide social services to groups in need, such as children, single women, the ill, and other seniors. Finally, they serve as docents and ushers, and volunteer in other ways that assist cultural institutions. In other words for US cities, seniors are, and are often understood to be, a significant positive force for the local economy. It is well understood that cities in the various regions of the United States have historically tended to take a similar approach to they way in which they are structured, their aspirations, the social and political values

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they espouse and so forth. Western cities have typically been characterized by spatial sprawl, whereas eastern have been denser and more vertical, and northwestern cities have introduced growth management initiatives. Local political values in the East and West Coast have tended to be on the left while in much of the West and South conservatism has held sway. Laissez-faire has guided much of the development of the newer cities in the West and the South, while in older eastern cities negative externalities and negative consequences of development have been given more attention. In the West, individualism and self-reliance has been at the center of society whereas in the East and West Coast neighborhoods and community structures have been relatively stronger. Following World War II there was a massive movement of population from eastern cities to western and southern cities. This migration was stimulated by federal initiatives to develop rural electrification and irrigation, and the expansion in defense procurement and military bases. This occurred again in the decade following the OPEC oil price shocks of the late 1970s with the collapse of manufacturing in the Mid-west and North-east. While migrants adapted to their new western and southern settings, to an increasing degree they brought their political and social values with them. As a consequence, there is a perceptible convergence in urban values and policies throughout the country. Mass transportation is gaining on commutation by private automobile in cities such as Los Angeles, Denver and Atlanta; concerns about pollution and other forms of environmental degradation are being expressed everywhere. In the presidential election of 2008, a new phenomenon was the occurrence that traditionally Republican states in the West actually supported the Democratic candidate, with migrants from the Democratic East providing an impetus to this shift in the political landscape. Furthermore, there is the effect of the Census Bureau’s statement that seniors in the years to come will be quite different from their predecessors – healthier, wealthier, better educated and more mobile. It stands to reason that this population will have different lifestyles, aspirations, demands and capacity to contribute than has been the case, and cities must be prepared to take advantage of this. In our discussion of US cities we will begin with those in the West, then move to the South and finally the Mid-west and North-east. While the order may seem arbitrary, there are commonalities in the situations and policy responses in the regions; and it makes some sense to begin with Seattle and Portland where the focus has been on the “creative class” of younger professionals and where the consequences of aging appear to be weakest and then to move to regions where they are more noticeable.


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CITY STUDIES Seattle The center of Seattle went into decline in the 1970s as white residents reacted to the introduction of school busing. The result was that the downtown area housing was dominated by low income housing and the decline of retail. The situation was turned around in the early 1990s through a public–private sector collaboration led by Mayor Rice. Construction of middle and upper income housing commenced and the retail sector along Pine and other downtown streets came back robustly. Toward the end of that decade a transportation tunnel was constructed that improved bus travel between the downtown area and the residential and university districts to the north. In the nearest residential area to the north, Belltown, over 8000 new residents moved in. This growth was fed by the high-tech boom that Seattle experienced. While there is no recent census data of the Seattle population, there are indications that the two groups that are making this movement are seniors and young professionals. There is also some reverse commuting with older workers moving into the city center and taking public transportation out to jobs in, for example, Renton, the home of Microsoft. In addition to an increase in middle-income housing, Seattle has recently seen construction of Mirabella, a residential building with condos priced at $600 000 to $1 000 000 and offering a continuing care dimension. There is a second such entity nearing completion and city officials are convinced that the city could support a third such residential unit. These are almost exclusively aimed at seniors. In addition to access to good health care and transportation, one of the inducements residential developers use in their publicity is proximity to the city center’s cultural institutions. This housing is, of course, market driven with developers responding to needs they see and can meet. The city administration seems to be focusing its efforts on getting families to move into the downtown area with the end being that of having more children on the city streets. Participation in Seattle’s cultural institutions seems to be less dominated by seniors than we will find is the case in the other US cities. Seattle describes itself as “a city of intellectual curiosity” and this extends to its culture and arts life. This cultural life is broadly participatory throughout the city, with 19 community orchestras and numerous choral groups giving performances. Appropriately, the Seattle Opera is a very informal affair and the audience includes all age groups. This is not to say that seniors participate less here than they do elsewhere, but that they do not dominate the audiences. Perhaps this is due to the recent development of Seattle’s

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cultural institutions. Fifty years ago there was very little activity, but with the emergence of the city’s aviation and then technology sectors culture and the arts grew rapidly so there is now a very high level of activity. Its support is equally divided among corporations, individuals and government. Arts activities tend to be integrated across the usual borders and very collaborative – theater and opera, music and dance, and so forth. The nature of the creativity that is integral to this cultural scene, encourages participation of younger people. Cities in which the cultural goods that are created elsewhere are displayed or performed tend to be dominated by seniors because of the lack of participation by other age groups. The explicit linkage between intellectual and cultural activity is reflected in the lifelong learning activities of the University of Washington (UW), among other institutions. The state of Washington has the ACCESS program through which all residents aged 60 or older may register as an audit for any course at a state educational institution, for a fee of $5, on a space available basis. The UW Extension has courses that are available to all, as well as special lectures and Civic Roundtable programs for 50+ residents. The UW Retirement Group allows senior residents to attend lectures and short courses. Finally, in 2006 a formal Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) was established. Starting with five courses and no members the program grew rapidly to 620 members in December 2008 and 900 anticipated a year later. Each quarter 25–30 courses are offered with students paying an annual fee of $110 and $10 for each course taken, with enrollments usually 30–35 students. The UW is fully supportive of the OLLI and both the Development and Alumni Offices are enthusiastic about it. They understand that OLLI programs have had significant impacts on university fundraising campaigns elsewhere. The OLLI has developed partnerships with residential developments that are designed to be attractive to seniors. One of them, Trilogy at Redmond Ridge, is a community of 1800 aged 50 and older. OLLI is offered classroom space there and the administration of the development markets OLLI courses to its residents. In fact, the developer came to OLLI to get them involved and feels it is crucial for the image of the activity that the university be explicitly involved. Course enrollments here are now about 300 and growing rapidly. Developers for units in the city center area are acting in a similar manner so as to be attractive to intellectually curious seniors. These partnerships work best when there are synergies in the missions of the developer and OLLI. These seniors are drawn to the OLLI program because of their intellectual curiosity. They explicitly do not want to participate in planned social events, in fact a recent survey of the boomer generation of seniors indicated that over half of the 60–69 group responded that they were “not


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interested in dating” (Harris Interactive Inc., 2005, p. 24). However, as a consequence of participating in the courses they meet others and form their own social, hiking, and cultural connections with other students. This is a very important positive consequence of OLLI and other academic course programs. Portland City planners in Portland have not yet begun to think about or to plan for the aging of the population, to a degree that is even greater than in Seattle. The focus on the “creative class” is even more explicit here. But the emphasis on providing housing in the downtown for families has an unanticipated side-effect. Research has been done on the needs of families, but not yet on the needs of seniors. As it turns out, the two-bedroom apartments with ample closet space that are being provided to draw families is also the same housing that is desired by seniors. At present over 80 percent of the downtown housing is studio and one-bedroom apartments, so the additional housing that is being offered is attractive to both families and seniors. It is anticipated that the population of Portland will increase by about one million inhabitants by 2035, with the downtown growing by 30 000–40 000. In planning for this growth, the objective has been that of creating more employment in specific places rather than responding to demographic change. This is in part due to the need to target population growth in areas that are served by the transportation system, including the light rail network. This has been put in place by a substantial public investment program and it can be justified only by continued high and higher rates of use. The growth management system for which Oregon is justly known is state-wide but, even so, Portland has a reputation as being not terribly “business friendly.” This plus the fact that the airport is not a hub for a major airline makes realization of the objective of the plan challenging, to say the least. Seniors are not yet explicitly in the picture. Actually, the young professionals have been attracted to areas out of the downtown district across the Willamette River, but with excellent public transportation access to all parts of the city. The city has used tax and other inducements to increase the housing for below median income residents and the market takes care of those with high incomes – the difficulty is for the middle-income group that includes many seniors. The available housing for them is 2–3 miles from the city center. However, this distance is less a disadvantage in Portland given its excellent public transportation system, that includes deep discounts of fares for seniors – even at some

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distance from the cultural and educational offerings of the center they still have good access. For the more affluent seniors there is ample housing in the Pearl District, just north-west of the central business district; South Park is between Portland State University (PSU) and downtown centered on a street that houses the Portland Art Museum, the Portland Center for the Performing Arts and Schnitzer Hall; and slightly further afield is the rapidly developing South Waterfront renovated industrial area. The culture and arts sector in Portland is more dependent upon individual contributions for its financial health than is the case elsewhere. While the mayor is described as being solidly behind these activities, government support is quite inadequate. State support for the Oregon Arts Commission is ranked 47 out of 51 US states and the District of Columbia, and the Portland Art Museum gets only 2 percent of its funding from government sources. The Oregon Cultural Trust was to receive funds from the sale of state lands, and culture and arts automobile license plates and the option of paying certain taxes into a cultural fund rather than to the general state coffers; the legislature gutted most of these programs. This is counterproductive given the focus on the creative industries and the role of the vitality of a city’s culture and arts institutions in attracting creative workers. With no sales tax the only hope seems to be for a ballot initiative to create a culture district for Portland, similar to what has been done in Ashland for the Shakespeare Festival. An opinion survey of Portland areas residents generated the information that 70 percent of them were in favor of additional dedicated funding for the arts (Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, 2008, p. 5). So all is not lost for the Portland arts and culture community. While Portland is not really a university town, learning and intellectual activity are widely supported and seniors are among the most active participants. The University of Oregon (UO) established its lifelong learning program in 1993 and has Osher Foundation support. The first program was in Eugene, the location for the university, but programs were established in Bend in 2003 and in Portland in 2008. The Portland OLLI is situated in an environment in which there were existing programs, of a sort, at PSU and at the Portland Community College; in addition, the state has enacted the Audit Program which enables residents in the state to audit all courses at state educational institutions on a space available basis. So the first task was to find its niche. At the end of its first year, the OLLI had 127 members, with this number expected to triple within five years. Participants pay an annual fee of $35 and $75 per quarter; if the participant pays the annual fee and the fees for three quarters ($260) the Summer quarter is free. The offerings include eight week and four week courses, discussion groups and lectures. Faculty teach on a pro bono basis.


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Enrollment has been 7–20 per course. While some seniors prefer the PSU courses because of the contact with young students, others find the more experienced students and the discussion at OLLI to be more satisfying; many, of course, participate in both programs. The OLLI facility is situated in the White Stag UO building in the Old Town District and is easily accessible to the Pearl and South Waterfront districts where many seniors live. While some suburban seniors who have to use their cars do not like to park in what they see as a “run down” part of town, those who live in the city center appreciate the urban renewal impact of the Old Town location. The OLLI program in Eugene has developed partnerships with cultural institutions and senior residential units, due to its newness the Portland OLLI is just beginning to try to do this. Denver This is the city that sees itself as the “boomer capital of the US,” and the boomers of Denver fit the Census Bureau conceptualization of seniors more than is the case in almost any other city. The city government is explicit about wanting to adopt policies that will enable it to capitalize on the potential benefits from its seniors. There has been a paradigm shift from “seniors are feeble” to “seniors are different;” from a notion that seniors are all about health care, special housing, special transportation, being confined to their residence or care facility, and fiscal burdens to one that opens the community’s thinking to a potential that is quite positive. The slogan “aging matters” has been introduced to all municipal government agencies so there is a seniors component in virtually all department programs. Clearly there is a large component of the senior population that is low income, immobile, lacking in education and in poor health. This population will, as has always been the case, be in need of policies and financial support especially in its last few years. Denver has introduced a significant number of “livable community” housing units in recent years. In Denver the initiative has come from the top – from the Mayor’s Office. The mantra is that Mayor Pena imagined a great city, his successor Mayor Webb began to introduce policies to realize this objective, and the current mayor Hickenlooper has carried it on. This continuity over the administrations of three mayors is virtually unheard of in US cities, with each mayor typically wanting to put his/her individual stamp on the city. Mayor Hickenlooper, in particular, has also adopted an explicitly metrowide vision, as opposed to one of just the city itself. As a consequence, an issue such as policy toward aging is given attention by all departments of municipal government. Mayor Hickenlooper has convened a conference and a commission on aging, with the notion being that “Old is feeble”

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has been replaced by “Old are different” and being active have a need for municipal programs that capitalize on this more positive evaluation of seniors. This activism on the question of policy toward aging has resulted in financial support from the Rose Community Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies. We can see how this has worked if we examine each of the three issues we consider to be of importance. Denver is known for its “Lo-Do,” or Lower Downtown, neighborhood, a rejuvenated area of residence, entertainment, restaurants and retail, the expansion of which is fueled by movement of boomers and seniors in to the center from the suburbs or other parts of the region. This is a development that has been gaining strength during the past three decades. The Golden Triangle is another district that is growing in popularity with boomers and seniors; it is the arts and culture district of Denver. Given the educational and income characteristics of this cohort of the population these two areas should continue to grow. The Denver area is home to the University of Denver, Metropolitan University, the University of Colorado in nearby Boulder, and many other smaller institutions. Many of them have classroom space in the Aurora Campus on the edge of the downtown area and are accessible to all in the city center as well as to commuters. Currently there are 15 000 students enrolled, students of all ages. The University of Denver Enrichment Program offers classes by regular faculty to seniors. It was started in 2004 and already has 2000 adult participants and offers 40 courses each term. The courses are two hours and are priced at $175 for four sessions or $135 for three sessions. They also do one-off events, and there were a couple of meetings on the violin concerto, as a genre of music, in conjunction with Joshua Bell playing the Mendelssohn concerto with the Colorado Symphony orchestra. Partnership relationships have been established with 24 institutions in the Denver area, including the Ballet, Public Broadcasting System, The David Dorfman Dance Company, several theaters, the Center for Judaic Studies, and the Cook Street School of Fine Cooking. The University of Denver has been more aggressive about establishing a wide array of partnerships than have other lifelong learning centers. Perhaps the most imaginative and impressive seniors activity in Denver is that of participation in cultural activities and the arts. Central to this is the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA). Established in 1980, the challenge was to create a space for the arts in a city that had been dominated by sports. Initially there was little support in the broader community, but now the theaters of DCPA have 80 000 subscribers, and its events sell over 750 000 tickets – far in excess of tickets to sports events. This arts organization has now become an integral part of local economic development thinking. DCPA now prides itself on being the largest arts complex


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in the US, surpassing New York’s Lincoln Center. Its offerings are primarily theater, broadway plays, popular performances, and so forth. The Denver Symphony, Opera and Ballet are separate and distinct organizations. DCPA markets itself very successfully to a variety of groups, such as young professionals, busy professionals, gays and seniors. They have had success with African-Americans, now comprising 10 percent of audiences, but the considerable Hispanic population accounts for only 3 percent of attendance. These groups are offered packages of tickets, dinner, cocktails, lectures, and so forth. Attendance by seniors is facilitated by special arrangements for transportation. The Denver Rapid Transit Authority (DRTA) offers Senior Ride, roundtrip tickets for $1.50, and advertises events to encourage actively senior participation. This is attractive to seniors within a 15–20 mile radius. There is currently a light rail line that runs south of the city to the residential areas of Littleton and Highlands Ranch, and one to the west, to Golden, will be open in the near future. A line to Arvada in the North is planned. Since the west beyond the city is dominated by the airport, rapid transportation will soon be avaliable to almost all seniors in the metro region. Such effectiveness of metro transportation is rare among US cities, and should make it less necessary for seniors to relocate their residence from a house in the suburb to an apartment in the city center. Seniors are well represented in the audiences of DCPA events. They are offered 15–20 percent reductions in ticket prices and half-price tickets one hour before the performance. They can also serve as ushers, receiving two free tickets and free parking. One of the most imaginative initiatives is that of working with banks in neighboring states, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah and New Mexico, to offer two- or three-day bus trips to Denver that include tickets to DCPA events, hotel and transportation, with time for fine dining and retail shopping. Most of these participants are seniors, who have the time for such an excursion. DCPA now finds that it is a destination in itself, and Denver has become more than a place to see a football game or spend a night prior to going skiing in the mountains. The state of Colorado has established seven Scientific and Cultural Facilities Districts, one of which is the Denver area. They are funded by the state through a 0.01 percent sales tax, and this program has been supported by voters every time it has come up for renewal. This is a particularly important source of revenue for the 90 arts and culture organizations in the Denver district. DCPA does not take its events to the surrounding towns, but it does have educational outreach programs. And of course there are lectures at DCPA in conjunction with events. These are offered at times that are

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convenient to the various audience groups, working professionals and, of course, seniors. Tucson It was immediately apparent that Tucson was thinking positively about seniors when the meeting with an official in the city government began with 15 representatives of government agencies in the room; this included agencies devoted to aging, housing, charity and social services as well as the Mayor’s Office and the Police and Fire departments. This is the result of an initiative to create extensive inter-departmental and inter-agency cooperation throughout the offices of the city. This is a degree of coordination and breadth of effort that one can hope will be replicated elsewhere. Nonetheless, Tucson is in many ways a counter to Denver. Whereas Denver sees itself as the “boomer capital of the US,” seniors in Tucson are less wealthy, educated and healthy than their counterparts in Denver. As a consequence, Tucson is more focused on six areas of city services to seniors: (1) housing services, including rent subsidies and safety issues to low income seniors; (2) health and wellness including fitness, meals and home safety; (3) transportation; (4) information and referral; (5) safety and security; and (6) recreation. The Police and Fire departments are involved in primary care, security, community nursing and financial crime – often a primary concern for seniors. What is of interest in this is the way in which these departments have extended their coverage beyond traditional boundaries, cut through bureaucracies, linked various aspects of their activities, such as 911 and emergency rooms at the hospitals, and created close working relationships between the Police and District Attorney in the SAFEE (Stop Abuse and Financial Exploitation of Elderly) program. These activities dominate the capturing of economic gains from having a population of resident seniors with characteristics that would benefit the city. Nonetheless, there is a growing awareness in Tucson that boomers are indeed different, and that their expectations will drive city programs in the future. However, at this time there is no one in Tucson who is thinking the way we are suggesting in this book. Perhaps when the balance between seniors of the past decade and those of the coming decade has shifted to the latter then the impetus for city policy will also shift. In 2006 150 people participated in the “Boomers and Beyond Conference” that focused on the need to shift from the above six services to meeting the needs of the new generation of seniors with more economically beneficial characteristics; this was perhaps the first step in this direction. A 150 page book on “Successful Retirement” is being distributed


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to seniors. This book will cover items such as education for financial and legal questions, volunteering, how to prevent isolation, and so forth. But it also has extensive more forward-looking coverage of lifelong learning programs, creative arts programs and cultural activities. In Arizona, the most rapidly growing age groups are the 0–5 and over 85 years of age and older groups. It is estimated that by 2020 25 percent of the population will be 65 and older. One of the difficulties a city such as Tucson has in being attractive to the economically beneficial cohort of this growing senior population is the draw of the alternative to city center living – the retirement village. Tucson offers two clear alternatives. Green Valley is a planned retirement community that includes residences and attractions such as low taxes, golf and other diversions, as well as access to the city 25 miles to the north. Another is Academy Village, established by a former president of the University of Arizona. Rather than the golf and social events of Green Valley, Academy Village was designed for retired academics and other professionals who wanted to center their retirement years on intellectual and cultural activities. In addition to having spaces for chamber music and other performances, theater, lectures, classes and special events, Academy Village organizes bus tours to cultural events, such as symphony and other performances, and museums in Tucson and Phoenix, and Southwest cultural sites throughout the region. While this initiative may not be the mainstay of the cultural life of either Tucson or Phoenix, it does graphically demonstrate that there are populations of seniors who prefer to spend their time and money on cultural and artistic activities. More traditional learning options are offered through the University of Arizona and its Osher Center. About 45 courses are offered in three local places – Tucson, Green Valley and Marana. Total membership is over 1000, with two-thirds of them in Tucson. In addition to courses, that last eight weeks and meet two hours per week, in Tucson, less formal courses – Study Groups – are offered in the two other locations. In Green Valley the Study Groups are offered in three venues, thus making them accessible to all. Most of the nine Study Groups in Marana are focused on topics of local interest rather than the traditional academic subjects. Albuquerque This city does not see itself as the magnet for boomers that Denver is. While many of the city’s seniors are retired military, there are also large populations of retired academics and professionals. Albuquerque has established an Office of Aging that meets the needs of less educated and less wealthy seniors as well as the needs of those who have the potential

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of creating positive economic benefits to the economy. Other city agencies tend to focus on veterans affairs, senior social services and SCORE, a national organization of retired executives. Mayor Chavez lowered the age of seniors from 55 to 50, in line with other agencies such as the Senior Olympics and the American Association of Retired Persons. This step added about 30 000 individuals to the official population of seniors. Albuquerque is a good example of a city in which aging is seen to be a benefit to the city. For example, 1600 seniors serve as volunteers to a variety of social and cultural programs, such as “foster grandparents,” and others with professional or technical skills work one or two days a week for firms in the high technology and science sectors of the economy that the city is trying very hard to promote for future development. The Mayor’s conception of economic development goes beyond production of goods and services, to include culture, quality of life, livable communities. Seniors are major supporters of the additions to the housing stock through their demand for residences in both the Downtown and University areas. Developers have taken a “new urbanist” approach of building pedestrian-friendly houses, and condominium and apartment buildings with good access to shops and with transportation to cultural and recreational districts. The city government has just adopted a Growth Strategy document in which the central theme is that the past development of the city that was dominated by sprawl, residential development on the periphery and “leap-frog” siting of residential and commercial ventures was to be replaced by an approach that gave more recognition to the need to utilize efficiently the existing infrastructure, to focus on the downtown area and to promote development that would lead to higher population density. While Albuquerque has far to go to realize this new strategy for its urban space, if successful it should encourage seniors to opt for Albuquerque as a location for their retirement. The population of Albuquerque is younger than the national average, and as a consequence much of the city’s cultural life is aimed at multigenerational audiences. The folk music scene tends to be primarily the 45 and older population, but the Albuquerque songwriters series featuring local creative talent caters to the 30–60 audience. Since the city lacks major musical and theatrical institutions, Albuquerque is host to a large number of touring groups, ranking first to fourth in the nation by culture and arts presenters. As is the case with the events of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, seniors make up a major share of the audiences for these performances. The city has instituted an Office of Music, the primary activity of which is Globalquerque, a world music festival in September. It meets for two days and its 5000 attendees are generally from the population of higher income and higher educated residents, and the events are


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staged at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. But its director, Tom Frouge, works to integrate different age and social groups. He describes Albuquerque as one of two “random collisions of cultures” places in the US, with Louisiana being the other. It is this “collision” of the Anglo, Hispanic and Native American cultures that makes Albuquerque so attractive to seniors. The culture and arts sector provides 6 percent of the city’s employment, with half of the activity being funded by revenues from outside the region. Albuquerque is usually ranked number 1–4 as a destination for arts and culture presenters. This indicates the interest in these activities in the city on the part of the population, especially of its many highly educated seniors, but it is also an indication that the city does not have a sufficient number of its own cultural institutions and has to rely on touring groups. As is the case in many cities, 1 percent of construction costs in the city are put into a cultural fund and Albuquerque has made the decision to allocate much of this to public art and one sees murals, statues and other forms of art situated throughout the city. Clearly this is not targeted specifically to the city’s senior population and is more intergenerational in nature. The University of New Mexico has an Osher Center that offers 60 courses per year and access to a variety of lectures and performances. The annual membership fee is $20 with tuition for the courses, that meet for 2–6 sessions of two hours each meeting. Tuition for courses varies from $30 to $70, and there is a fee of $19 for lectures. Members receive a discount at University cultural events and free access to the library. Milwaukee Milwaukee has a population that is older than that of the seven county region. While its under 34 population is 12 percent below that of the region and its 34–54 population is 2 percent below, the 55 and older population is 15 percent higher. Aging in the rest of the region is due to aging in place, but in Milwaukee aging is the result of in-migration from the surrounding area. As a consequence Milwaukee has had to create attractive living districts for in-migrating seniors. At this moment, there are four districts that have been established as “Livable Communities for All Ages,” to use the parlance of the US Department of Health and Human Services. They are intergenerational residential areas but are clearly differentiated by race and income. Layton Boulevard is 42 percent Hispanic, Sherman Park is 78 percent African American, the Prospect/Farwell Corridor is 99 percent white and relatively affluent, and West Allis and West Milwaukee is working-class. Data for the last two communities shows that seniors are about 20 percent of the population.

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In the context of the focus of this study, the Prospect/Farwell Corridor is the most relevant. This community is north of the center of Milwaukee and is on Lake Michigan. The seniors who reside here are a mixture of affluent whites and low-income Russian immigrants. Until recently life for these seniors tended to stop at the door to their apartment or condominium building. There was little to draw them out and with little street life there was a perceived threat to personal security. The decision was made to give tax and other inducements to shops, restaurants and galleries to locate in Prospect/Farwell, joining a music conservatory. This initiative has been very successful. The impetus for these livable communities came from the dissatisfaction of seniors with their housing arrangements. The local housing director was not sympathetic, so the County Office on Aging invited a US congressman to visit, after which visit the situation changed significantly. Some of the buildings are now for seniors exclusively, the building has to be drug free, and there will be human services staff present in the building. The Office on Aging is now able to get the 30 relevant agencies in the same room so that a continuing care community of service providers has been created. An indicator of the success of Milwaukee’s approach to housing for seniors is the fact that private sector developers have begun to apply for permits to build senior oriented residential areas in the city center. Until recently the private sector was interested only in housing in the periphery, however it has become clear that seniors now want to abandon the “cornfields” for the amenities of the city. After the success of one such development, Garden Place, now 12 developers are beginning projects in the city center. One aspect that is constraining this development is the lack of any cooperation among the city, county and state in the area of transportation. Denver provides an illustration of how much a good transportation system can facilitate creation of an urban space that is congenial to seniors. In each of these areas there is a full complement of physical exercise equipment and graduate students from the University of Wisconsin sports therapy program are available as personal trainers. Most of the work of the care agencies is on behalf of lower income seniors. However, the relatively affluent and well-educated seniors are also part of the picture. This can be seen most clearly in the activities of cultural institutions such as the Milwaukee Museum of Art. Building on an initial structure of Eero Saarinen of 1957 an addition was commissioned by Santiago Calatrava in 2001. The visitors to the Milwaukee Museum of Art are over-represented, in relation to the Milwaukee 7 county area, with 55 and older people by 15 percent, and under-represented by 12 percent with the under 34 population. Sixty three percent of Museum members


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are 55 and older, with 30 percent being 55–64 and 32.6 being 65 and older. Many seniors volunteer for the docents program, which entails a commitment to become proficient in leading a group through an exhibition or the permanent collection, to do 35 tours per year and to do this for at least five years. For the Milwaukee Museum of Art the typical visitor is a woman of 55 years or older, with an income of $70 000–180 000, who has at least a university education. She visits the museum once or twice a year and has a 50/50 chance of becoming a member. This is, of course, the demographic we are featuring in this study. Thirty-seven percent of all visitors were at least 55 years of age. Seniors are clearly important for the culture and arts life in Milwaukee, and the city has made significant efforts to make both the Museum and the city “grey friendly.” Lifelong learning is available through the Osher Center at the University of Wisconsin: Milwaukee. Twenty courses are offered to about 425 members, who pay $40 per year and $15 per 3–5 week course, each of which meets for 75 minutes per week. Teachers are UWM faculty or local experts. In addition, there are seven interest groups that meet for language experience, play reading, discussion of topics in history, and so forth. The Center also organizes “Go Explore” day trips to local sites for up to $33, and a variety of social events that help to integrate seniors into the community in which they live. Members can also participate in the management of the Center by participation in one of five or six committees. The courses are offered in five locations throughout the city of Milwaukee making them accessible to almost all seniors. The UWM offers free auditing, on a space available basis, in addition to the Osher programs, and Marquette University offers the auditing option to its alumni. Charleston Charleston is a city that was almost dormant from the end of the Civil War until about 1980. It was a cultural event that awakened the city and put it on a course of sustained development. Giancarlo Minotti chose Charleston as the site of his Spoleto Festival of Opera, and the city was forced to re-think its identity and its future. Since this date, culture and the arts have been essential to the vitality of the city center and to the positive branding of Charleston. More recently, seniors have been able to participate as an active element in the city’s economic development. The Mayor of Charleston has established the Mayor’s Office on Aging, and its director is convinced that the cultural and educational engagement of the

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45–54 year old cohort of the population will continue this engagement into the future as they age. Whether this current engagement will continue its pattern of participation in the several aspects of cultural life, as she anticipates, or will exhibit the pattern of narrowing that was noted in Chapter 2, will only be known in a decade or so. The revival of the city center has been accompanied by a boom in residential construction, with many of the apartments and condominiums being taken by seniors. They tend to remain in these residences until their final years in which they move to care units of one kind or another. This is a pattern that is seen in many of the other cities in this study. While seniors are in the city center they are very active participants in the life of the city center. Many serve as ushers to Spoleto and other cultural events, receiving free admission to another event in exchange. Often this is one of the first post-work cultural events they can attend and often they find it enjoyable and become regular attendees in other theater and musical events. So many volunteer for activities that the challenge for the administrators of these programs is to determine how best to make use of the skills, interests and experiences of senior volunteers. Charleston is on a narrow peninsula so different social and age groups have to share some of the same spaces. The experience in Charleston has been that this does not generate conflict but rather that they tend to mingle. Intergenerational contact is generally thought to benefit all participants, and it certainly keeps the seniors from retreating into a senior ghetto in which they stagnate and decline. There is an effort under way to make the peninsula more pedestrian-friendly. Making one of the two major streets, Market Street or King Street, into a car free pedestrian shopping street has many supporters, but merchants believe this will deprive them of many of their traditional customers who would find it inconvenient to have to search for parking. One of the typical residential developments that are found in cities such as Charleston, cities in the South with warm weather and many golf course options, is Daniel Island. This is an extensive community of intergenerational housing, done along the lines of the “new urbanism” movement, that is a somewhat self-contained entity. There are regular popular culture events and festivals. The symphony, ballet company and theaters are all located in Charleston, a 12–14 mile car ride with no convenient bus or rail transportation available, and therefore not accessible to seniors who do not want to drive at night. Charleston, then, is an example of a city that is divided between two options for seniors: one is access to the full array of urban amenities and the other is golf and a suburban lifestyle, separated from the city. The city has an ombudsman who has four elements in her activity: (1)


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finding best practices, (2) reducing duplication of effort, (3) developing linkages among entities, and (4) filling gaps in services offered to seniors. This effort to increase efficiency and effectiveness is something that all cities should consider introducing. The ombudsman holds a Senior Forum every 18 months to get information about the needs and concerns of seniors. This individual also deals with problems of seniors on a regular basis, and offers an educational program entitled “achieving successful retirement.” In this program the city’s cultural and educational offerings are highlighted as activities that will lead to social integration, intellectual stimulation and, ultimately, to better mental and physical health. Education is another element in rejuvenation, and both of the local institutions of higher education, the Citadel and the College of Charleston, offer admission to seniors in regular classes, for a nominal tuition fee. These programs are very popular; however the Osher-type courses, that usually consist of meetings for a duration of several weeks but less than a semester, are not graded, and are not part of the regular university curriculum or administrative structure, are not offered in Charleston. The lifelong learning options in Charleston are limited to lectures either as part of a series or as a single event. As a final point about Charleston, it should be noted that local officials are envious of their counterparts in Tennessee where the state government spends considerable time and money in attracting seniors – presumably the segment of this population that is educated, wealthy, healthy and mobile – to visit or retire there. In both Charleston and, presumably, Tennessee, seniors are seen as a powerful contributor to the economic vitality and competitiveness of a regional or an urban economy. Atlanta Atlanta is experiencing a considerable stimulus from its senior population. This is most noticeable in residential renovation and in cultural activities. Seniors are recognized as being at the center of a renovation of the Downtown and Midtown areas of the city. Furthermore seniors are seen as an element in the diversity that Atlanta seeks to promote. The city suffered from a loss in employment and population during the first years of this decade, but since 2005 expansion has returned with both singles and seniors finding center city living to be desirable. Now seniors are fueling an expansion of Atlanta’s population by 75 000–80 000 per year. In fact in 2007 building permits were more numerous in Metro-Atlanta than in the previously “booming” counties that surround it. While this center city residential development has been an objective of the city for the past 15 years it has only recently become a reality. The north–south axis of Atlanta is

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marked by Downtown in the south, then Midtown and finally Buckhead in the north. Downtown has been the administrative and headquarters district, as well as a place where all social groups come together with venues for popular entertainment. Buckhead has become a popular shopping, residential and business center. In the middle, Midtown has long been the neglected area. This is now changing with a boom in condominium and apartment construction taking place. Completion of the MARTA subway line to connect all three areas and increased familiarity with it has meant that both Downtown and Midtown is increasingly attractive to seniors. Downtown has become a mixed generational residential area with 25 000 new residential units as well as more than 30 000 students. The cultural facilities of universities, such as Georgia State and Morehouse, are venues where both groups, seniors and students, can mingle. There are other areas close to the center of Atlanta that are popular locations for seniors who are moving their residence from a house in a suburb to an apartment. Inman Park is one of several. This is an area that declined in the post-World War II years but began to revive in the 1980s. Now it is popular, with a dynamic urban life and with good bus connections to Downtown and to the MARTA rapid transit system. The keys to this resurgence fueled by seniors are good transportation, security, pedestrian ways, parks, health facilities and housing. These improvements may be seen as expenses that should be seen as costs of an aging population, but in Atlanta they are seen as amenities that improve the city life for all residents. Atlanta is the only city visited that mentioned the Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORC) program. This was started 25 years ago by the United Jewish Appeal in New York City, but has been expanded by the US Congress to 45 demonstration projects in 26 states. UJA participates on less than one-half of these projects. The idea of NORC is to create senior living communities in areas of a city, perhaps a block on a street, a neighborhood or a high-rise residential structure. Many of these are designed to allow for more efficient provision of health and other services, but the NORC idea is not limited to this. In Atlanta about 67 percent of seniors prefer to retire in the house or apartment in which they have been living. A NORC can be a structure that makes it possible for healthy, active and mobile seniors to form a cluster that will facilitate provision of transportation, cultural and educational services. Atlanta’s weak point here seems to be its transportation system. MARTA is still limited in its coverage to one north–south and one east–west line; lines that roughly go as far as the I-285 beltway, but not beyond. One of the primary difficulties is the lack of metro-area wide transportation cooperation. The current mayor, Shirley Franklin, is


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focused on the entire region and is working to develop better relations among the various municipalities in the region and is initiating the first rethinking of the transportation system in 40 years. Without a good transportation system, perhaps similar to that of Denver, seniors who do not want to drive their car at night have little choice but to live in the center or to do without the amenities the city center offers. This is, of course, true for all cities, but Atlanta shows this clearly. Many of the residential areas that are popular for seniors that are not in the city center tend to be golf or religious communities, so there is a residential specialization according to interest. There is essentially a cultural void in the outlying areas. The cultural sector has been powerfully affected by the activities of seniors, both in art and in music. The demographics of the audiences and contributors are similar to what is found in other cities – the subscribers’ age averages 54 years old and the 55 and older population is about 50 percent of the audience. Younger participants are less committed to the Mozart–Beethoven–Brahms literature and the growing boomer generation tends to have this interest in non-standard music. The Atlanta Symphony targets seniors either as participants in their main series or in special Sunday afternoon performances. The Symphony markets itself aggressively in various living communities. The expansion of the MARTA system has made both the Symphony and the High Museum of Art, separated by a restaurant, shop and a courtyard, more accessible to seniors. In response, the two institutions have initiated a series of lectures when there is a common theme in presentations and concerts, such as works from late 19th century France or post-World War II New York. These are very popular. The cultural institutions of Atlanta have discovered that the interest of seniors in their programs is not sensitive to the state of the macroeconomy. This stability of interest, which is found in most cities, marks cultural activities as a particularly desirable economic activity, in addition to its impact, discussed elsewhere, on the economic competitiveness of the city or urban region. Charlottesville Charlottesville is a classic example of an American university town that is making itself attractive as a city to which professional and academic people move upon retirement. University towns typically have attractive residential areas, a wealth of intellectual and cultural activities anchored in the university, and a lifestyle that is relaxed and congenial. Often they are situated in smaller cities in which their attributes dominate the life of the city. In this sense, Charlottesville stands as a proxy for dozens of similar

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towns and cities throughout the country. This is a city that is exemplary with regard to two of the three aspects we are highlighting in this study. The first is the residential movement into the center of the city. In university towns this is often as much an inward migration from other parts of the country as it is from people moving in from the outlying parts of the metropolitan region. To this must be added alumni who return to the environment they came to enjoy so much as students. The center of Chartlottesville is structured similarly to a bar-bell, with one focal point on the University of Virginia (UVA) to the west and the other being the historic district to the east. The University area, of course, has been well developed for many decades. The historic district has taken off in the past decade or so, with the number of residential units growing from 500 five years ago to perhaps 5000 in 2010. Retail has picked up and a supermarket grocery store is soon to open. There are two entertainment venues in the historic district, the Pavilion for younger people and the Paramont for seniors, however their offerings do overlap and the two groups often mingle together. Both of these ends are well developed, but the bar between the two, the UVA-Center corridor, has not received much attention. This is now changing, with the influx of educated and relatively well off seniors moving into the city. In the corridor, 1000 residential units – apartments and condominiums – are in planning, with 500 being the minimum scale necessary for the take-off of retail activity. A shuttle bus will link the University and the historic center, through the developing corridor, and planning for future development is centered on this corridor area. Planning is difficult because the University is more a creature of the county than of the city, and relations between the city and the county are almost uniquely difficult. There is little cooperation between city and county except for some activities of the Police and Fire departments. There is virtually no joint planning of transportation. As a consequence it is difficult to allocate land to transportation or retail or other activities in a rational manner. The picture is much clearer when it comes to the second aspect – educational activities. As would be expected in a university town, there is a rich array of opportunities for seniors to participate in intellectual pursuits. UVA formalized its offerings to seniors and other members of the community in 2001 when it established with the Osher Foundation the Jefferson Institute for Lifelong Learning (JILL). JILL offers 25–30 courses of six hours in length each semester, in three or four meetings, on topics in the Humanities and Social Sciences. These courses are given by faculty of UVA and by members of the community on a pro bono basis. Students pay $100, with the revenues going to pay for operations and salaries for a small staff. There are currently 600 seniors enrolled with a goal of 900 in


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the near future. This program is very popular throughout the region, with many students driving on the interstate highway from Staunton, 40 miles to the west. The Miller Center for Public Affairs and other departments and institutes of UVA have the usual lecture series and occasional lectures and these are also popular with seniors. The cultural scene is very lively, as would be expected in a city with a major university. There is a rich array of theater, dance, art and music events, including the UVA/Charlottesville Symphony Orchestra. Seniors are the mainstay of the audience in many of these institutions. Charlottesville turns out to be a location that captures very dramatically the economic potential of an aging population for an urban region. Nashville While this city has yet to begin to think about or discuss seriously the 55 and older population, seniors are nonetheless having a powerful impact on downtown Nashville. Traditionally known as a center of country music, with the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame in the downtown area, seniors are gradually changing the identity of this district. Officials described the country music fans as being likely to stay in a KOA campground on the outskirts of Nashville and to spend very little on restaurants and retail. While this has provided a benefit to the city in terms of its branding and some economic stimulus, there is a clear limit as to what can be accomplished by this activity. Far more potential is perceived to be demonstrated by expansion of the art and classical music sectors. In 1988 the Schermerhorn Concert Hall filed for bankruptcy. A decade later, a new hall was discussed and the new Schermerhorn was opened in 2006. Just a few blocks from the Frist Art Museum, this started a boom in residential construction, primarily of high rise condominium and apartment buildings. These quickly became very attractive to relatively wealthy seniors, with the majority of new residents being 55 years and older. Recently, one real estate tour of these buildings reported 16 purchases of units priced in excess of $500 000. A decade ago there were only 300 residential units in the downtown area, but 3000 are being constructed in the area adjacent to the “cultural district.” It is now anticipated that there will be 20 000 residents here a decade from now. One standard indicator of long-term attractiveness and viability is the existence of a good grocery store; one has just opened in the Veridian condominium tower. This new area was previously occupied by small-scale repair shops, auto supply stores, used merchandise stores and other low rent commercial outlets. The area, known as The Gulch, was slowly deteriorating and the cultural

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district related and senior-led residential expansion is, from the standpoint of city planners, saving this potentially valuable downtown space. Downtown taxes have always been considerably higher than the property taxes in the suburbs, because of the revenues local governments have been able to gain from development fees. However, residential expansion in the suburban areas is slowing and Nashville officials believe that this fiscal disadvantage of downtown living will be diminished if not erased in the near future. The lack of cooperation with the surrounding counties has left the public transportation system underdeveloped, so those seniors who want to participate in cultural events and do not want to drive their car have an inducement to relocate their residence to the city center. This is particularly the case for alums of Vanderbilt and the other universities in proximity to Nashville. The Schermerhorn Concert Hall and the Nashville Symphony, as well as the Frist Art Museum, are the focal point of this rejuvenation of downtown Nashville. As is the case with other cultural organizations, the audience is largely 55 years and older. This is the case in spite of the fact that the orchestra emphasizes contemporary music. At least one such work is on the program of every performance; they like to give the second performance of new works that are not likely to be given much attention after their premier, and the orchestra has received three Emmy awards for releases on the Naxos American Classics series. Clearly the orchestra is cultivating and developing its senior audience members. Naturally, seniors are very important to the financial health of the Schermerhorn and the Symphony. They were key to the success of a $123 million campaign to build the new hall and they participate in the Legacy Society that involves them in estate planning. The leadership of the Symphony is not worried by the gray hair they see in their audiences, arguing that classical music becomes more attractive since we become more introspective at a certain age, we have more free time, and we have more disposable income. Furthermore, it was said, look at the audiences in symphony scenes in movies of a few decades ago – audiences have always been dominated by seniors! Seniors are also very active as docents for the Hall and the Symphony. Volunteers get 12 weeks of training and they serve as ushers and guides. Pre-concert lectures with the conductor, musicians and others, and a 5pm series of lectures tied to performance, has made classical music more accessible to seniors. In fact, the Symphony and the Hall have subscribers from as far as mid-Kentucky and northern Alabama. This audience is likely to stay for the weekend and to devote their time and money to restaurants and big city retail. This is in clear contrast to the audience for country music.


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In sum, Nashville is a rather surprising example of a city whose city center is being rejuvenated by the healthy, wealthy and educated population of seniors who find the city’s offerings of culture to be attractive, and want to move their residence in close proximity to them. Pittsburgh This is a city that is challenged in powerful ways when it comes to the vitality of its downtown area. To see this we can compare the city topographically with a similar city that is in this study – Lyon, France. Both cities are situated at the confluence of two rivers. In Lyon the Saône joins the Rhône and continues to the Mediterranean, while in Pittsburgh the Allegheny and Monongahela join to form the Ohio River. The two city centers are thus at a triangle upstream from the juncture of the two rivers. Both cities have an escarpment across one of the rivers with a funicular that takes people to and from the residential areas at the top. However, in Lyon the area between the Saône and the escarpment is a UNESCO recognized Renaissance historic district filled with retail, residence, restaurants and hotels, while in Pittsburgh that space is given over to railroad lines and a train station, albeit marvelously restored. Across the other river in Lyon is a flat plain of residential and commercial districts. The center of Lyon is easily accessible via seven or eight foot and car bridges on each river. Across the other river in Pittsburgh is a space filled with sports stadiums and rail lines, with residential areas almost a mile back from the river. Finally, in Lyon, the area north between the two rivers is a hill with easy transportation access to the center, whereas in Pittsburgh, access from the east is blocked by a multi-lane Interstate highway. Thus, access to Pittsburgh’s “Golden Triangle” is made very difficult by a combination of topography and transportation and sports infrastructure. The Golden Triangle has struggled for many decades, and certainly since the demise of the city’s steel industry in the 1970s. City leaders have initiated a series of major initiatives to make the downtown area more attractive for retail, residence and cultural activities. First, the Cultural District was developed in about 1980, with Heinz Hall for the Pittsburgh Symphony and other events, then theaters were established, followed by restaurants and bars, and now the effort is being made to increase residential options. Concurrently, the number of sex shops and low end retail have declined. One effort that has failed is that of attracting a major retailer, in addition to the long-time king of retail, Kaufman’s, now Macy’s. Nordstrom’s backed out of site after stating it would come. Lasarus was a big department store that was part of the Fifth and Forbes project but failed after a few years. There is still no major supermarket for

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grocery shopping. This makes is very difficult to attract residents to the Triangle. At present there are only 2500 downtown residents, plus another 1500 students. But it appears that the Triangle is beginning to take off. This year there will be an additional 300 residential units constructed, with another 600 planned in the coming 2–3 years with a population of perhaps 5000 anticipated in five years. As is the case with most of the other cities in this study, many of the downtown residents and those who are moving in are seniors. Currently, 23.2 percent of residents in the Golden Triangle area are in the 45–74 age bracket, and 11.2 percentage aged 55–74. The importance of seniors to the cultural life of Pittsburgh is as major as it is elsewhere. Over 55 percent of the audience of the Pittsburgh Symphony is 55 and older. The Symphony builds its seniors from audience to “super patron” in a time span of 4–5 years. They do this by investing in their audience in what they refer to as a reciprocal relationship in what is essentially the model of an American private university or college. The success of this approach is indicated by the fact that seniors are 90 percent of the super patrons. The 50+ age group, of course, has the time, education and desire to learn and be engaged that makes activities in addition to the concert of interest to them. Pre-concert lectures and discussion groups are important elements in building the commitment to the Symphony of this cohort of the audience. The earlier model of the Symphony working to maximize ticket sales and revenues in the short run led to a weak identification of seniors with the organization and was not successful in the longer term. Subscriptions had been declining since the 1980s until the new approach was adopted and have been increasing since 2005. This modification of a cultural institution’s approach to its audience is vital for continued success in gaining the necessary commitment of time and money from this growing component of the population. Pittsburgh is fortunate in that it has two major Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes – Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh. The former has been in operation since 1992 and the latter only since 2005. The Carnegie Mellon program has 1700 members with 500 on a waiting list. The membership fee is $40 and class enrollment costs $50 per semester and entitles one to take as many classes as one wants, with there being two sets of offerings each academic semester and with classes being one two-hour meeting per week. Faculty offer courses on a pro bono basis. In addition to classes, there are trips, luncheons and occasional lectures. Seniors taking the classes form their own social groupings for hikes, and so forth. At the recently established University of Pittsburgh lifelong learning program membership is over 500. Seniors pay $225 for as many 5–8 week courses as they can fit into their schedule as well as auditing two regular University


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courses. They also receive discounted tickets to local cultural events. Students often say that this program “saved their lives,” after moving from a fast-paced work life to something quite different. Both Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh are Osher Foundation programs. This gives them an initial grant to get established and then, if successful, an endowment of $1 million. Philadelphia Recent developments for Philadelphia have been far less dramatic and identity challenging than has been the case for Pittsburgh. Long overshadowed by the financial power of New York and the political status of Washington, Philadelphia has had to be creative in trying to carve out a place for itself. From the perspective of this study, what the city has going for it is a very populous and dynamic downtown area. Downtown has several meanings for this city. One is the few blocks surrounding City Hall (the city center), another expands this a bit in all directions – from the Schuylkill River and Delaware Rivers and a few blocks to the north and the south, and a third extends it a few more blocks north and south. The populations for these versions of downtown are 20 000, 57 000 and 90 000. A bit larger still is an 8 ZIP Code area that houses over 160 000 residents. The movement to the downtown area began in earnest a decade ago with passage of the tax abatement act in 1997. For Philadelphia the primary issue now is not how does one enlarge the downtown population but rather how does one create the spaces that will be attractive, or continue to be so, to the young professionals and seniors on whom the economic future of the city depends. According to a recent residential survey of the city center, 88 percent of residents had an undergraduate degree and 47 percent held advanced or professional diplomas. Another survey found that city center households were smaller, more affluent, childless and increasingly retired. Over 25 percent of these residents are 50 and older. Of condo owners, 24 percent identified themselves as “retired.” Between 2000 and 2007 the number of condos that were sold for prices greater than $1 million rose from 10 to 115 (Central Philadelphia Development Corporation, 2008). The linkage between residence and culture is made explicit in Philadelphia. The major, large institutions such as the Philadelphia Art Museum, the soon to be relocated Barnes Collection, some theaters, and the Kimmel Hall, home to the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, are situated along William Penn Parkway south-east to City Hall and then south along Broad Street, renamed Avenue of the Arts. This is a very attractive location for new residential construction, and building on Avenue of the Arts must have a cultural component included in the structure. For

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example, in the Symphony House development, the first floor is occupied by the Suzanne Roberts Theatre. While much of the downtown gentrification area residences are aimed a younger, professional population, projects such as Symphony Court are priced as high as $500 000 and more, and are attractive to relocating seniors. The culture and arts scene in Philadelphia is similar to that of many other cities in this study. Younger audiences tend to support smaller theater and music venues, such as the annual Fringe Fest, while seniors support the larger, mainstream “high” culture entities, such as the Symphony, Kimmel Hall, the museums, and so forth. The city’s economic development plan has focused on “eds and meds,” that is higher education institutions and health care. These are skilled worker industries for which high quality cultural institutions are, as noted above, essential. This base, combined with a growing population of relatively healthy, wealthy and well-educated seniors, suggests a return to financial health after the current economic crisis is past. In addition to the impact of the culture and arts sector, and the seniors who support it, on the city’s competitiveness, the immediate economic impact is also very positive. In a recent study by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance it was demonstrated that activity in the sector generates about 40 000 jobs, half of which are through direct expenditures on cultural events and half through expenditures by the audiences on restaurant meals, hotel rooms and retail. One dollar of expenditure by local government on culture generates $5 in local tax revenues and the same expenditure by the state government brings $2.50. This picture is darkened somewhat by the fact that since the canceling of the Office of Arts and Culture by a recent mayor the direct link between culture and economic development has been weakened. This is reflected by the weakness of support for cultural institutions by the local business community, in spite of vocal lip service to it. The third element in our approach, that of seniors and intellectual activity, is reflected by the activities of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institution at the downtown campus of Temple University. Membership in Temple’s OLLI is 700 seniors of at least age 55, each of whom pays $240 per year and is entitled to take as many courses as he or she wants. Membership was 300–400 until 2005 and then it grew rapidly. In the current economic situation growth in membership has slowed, however it is anticipated that as the 55 and older population in the city grows in the future, so will membership in the OLLI. Temple offers 60–70 courses in the Fall and Spring semesters and 30–40 during the Summer. Those who teach are Temple faculty as well as retired professors from Temple, Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania. Not only is no one paid for teaching, each must also take out a membership for the opportunity to teach a course.


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Temple OLLI courses tend to be similar to the regular course offerings, in that they last 14 weeks and meet between one and two hours per week. There are other intellectual and educational opportunities for seniors in the Philadelphia area, but the OLLI at Temple suggests the vitality and strength of learning activities in the city.

FINAL COMMENTS There are four issues that have had, and will continue to have, their impacts on city responses to aging. The first is the embrace many cities have given to the creative class – young, educated, imaginative workers in certain industries and activities that are thought to be vital to the future economy of all cities. This has generated a policy emphasis on making the city congenial to this cohort of the population, to the detriment, as we have seen in the cities of the North-west, of housing and other policies that would be attractive to the mobile senior population that could also have a very positive impact on the city’s economy. A second interesting factor is the impact of the availability of water to sustain economic and population growth. The architectural association, Architectook, asked architects in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to imagine their city in 100 years’ time. New Yorkers were concerned about the impact of global warming on sea levels and on the size of Manhattan Island; in Los Angeles covering viaducts so as to create an integrated urban space. Most interesting was the response for Chicago. There the architects saw the growing lack of water from the Carolinas through Texas to Southern California generating large movements of people to the Upper Mid-west where the Great Lakes contain two-thirds of the available water for the continental US. So the ambitious growth plans of Atlanta and Tucson, and perhaps even Nashville, among other cities will have to be reconsidered. When the welcome mat is no longer put out to seniors who wish to relocate, their residence will be attracted to university/college towns and larger cities in the Pacific North-west, the Upper Mid-west and North-east. Seniors in Sun-Belt regions who have the financial resources and sufficient mobility will also be inclined to join the movement northward. Those who remain in the Sun Belt will increasingly be those who are most likely to impose financial costs on the city and state in which they live. Many of the plans for new residential developments, expansion of OLLI and other learning programs, and the health of a city’s cultural and arts institutions have been put on hold if not shattered. The third issue is an empirical one: do seniors actually move into the city

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center, as we have suggested, so there is a positive consequence of aging? We can gain an understanding of this from a study done by William H. Frey, of the Brookings Institution (Frey, 2006, especially Part II). The first thing to note is that aging in place dwarfs the migration of seniors. Only 5 percent of seniors move their residence each year, in comparison with 30 percent of young people and less than 2 percent of 55 and older individuals migrate across state lines in comparison with 4–5 percent for the young cohort. Second, migrants to the city counties do tend to have more education and higher incomes – college graduates earning more than $50 000 per year – than do non-movers or those who move to the suburbs. Third, while the numbers of migrants to city counties may not be large, as we will see in the next chapter, the population of the city center of a city with a population of a million or more is, at best, in the tens of thousands. So a city does not need massive flows of seniors to sustain the rejuvenation of the residential stock of the city center, to enrich the culture and arts life of the city center, and to make its lifelong learning programs popular and vital. A few thousand over several years will do just fine. This is precisely what we have noted in the US cities discussed in this chapter. Finally, there is the important issue of public transportation. Excellent systems of transportation have been a feature of most of the older cities of the North-east and Upper Mid-west. However many cities of the Sun Belt, from the Carolinas to California, have ignored public transportation, at least until very recently. Many of these latter cities succumbed to the pressures of the automotive sector, in all of its manifestations, to put their faith almost totally on the passenger car and multiple laned freeways. The classic case is, of course, Los Angeles where a functioning surface rail system was dismantled under these pressures and the city and its traffic became the subject of short stories and the butt of late night comedy television. Atlanta has an underdeveloped subway system and Charleston has nothing more than an inadequate bus system. Charlottesville lacks a good transportation system, primarily due to lack of cooperation between the city and the county. However, in recent years some cities, in particular Denver and Portland, Oregon, have made great strides and their efforts are being examined by many other cities in an effort to develop their city centers, to provide priority sites for new residential and retail development throughout the city region, and to allow seniors, among others, to have access to the amenities of the city center. Central to these initiatives is a frontal attack on urban sprawl. Portland has led this movement with its land use policies and has had an efficient and popular light rail system in place for several years. Currently, Denver is implementing its FasTracks initiative to expand greatly its light rail system and to put it in a system of rail–bus connections


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and park-n-ride facilities throughout the urban region. When completed in 12 years, the system will have 122 miles of new light rail lines, 18 miles of rapid bus lines, 57 new stations and over 21 000 parking places at park-nride locations (Rtd-fastracks, no date). One of the most enthusiastic supporters of FasTracks is the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, seeing in it the potential to enable seniors to gain access to their events without the use of an automobile.

6.

Urban economies in the EU (ex Italy)

There is a sharp contrast in policy approaches toward an aging population between cities in the US and those in the EU. The pervasive active engagement of US cities has just been elaborated in Chapter 5. Among cities in the EU there is a much greater variety of response or even of awareness of the existence of positive consequences that may be achieved. This is in part because in many instances the responsibility for policy is shared by the city itself, and other metropolitan or regional governmental bodies. But it is also because of conditions, social philosophies, public institutions, family relations, and other things that create a clear distinction between urban policies on the two sides of the Atlantic. In this chapter we will examine both the lack of policy in many EU cities and the policies that several cities have adopted in response to this demographic development. It is commonplace to note that European societies and families are structured and behave differently from their American counterparts. The US is usually portrayed, in comparison to Europe, as a highly mobile society with individualism at the forefront, with weak social networks and with the sense of a long-term family homestead almost non-existent. This may all be true but it is clear to us that the impacts of globalization, of an increased role for market-based decision making, of workers increasingly footloose as they chase job opportunities all over the continent or indeed the world economic space, and of incomes generally rising over time, will result in these differences being reduced, and that European social and family structures and behavior will move closer to what is found in the US. So we argue that it is vitally important to view the economic consequences of an aging population in a dynamic context that will change significantly during coming decades and, in fact, may never return to the traditional European model. Many European young workers will find employment in cities or countries far from their parents, for many of them their parents will become “healthier, wealthier, better educated and more mobile,” and when their parents enter the final period of their lives and they become reliant on care-givers it will likely be the case that their children will hire others to do these tasks rather than undertake them themselves. Private long-term health care and retirement communities will become growth 100

Urban economies in the EU

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industries in Europe just as they have in the US. If we accept this vision of the European future, it then becomes clear that cities and urban regions will have to accommodate their policies and economies to this emerging reality. There is, of course, no single “European model of society.” History, religion, culture, topography, demographics, economic system and success, and many other factors generate a differentiation among regions of Europe that dwarf those that exist in North America. It may be, as was just suggested, that there will be a slow convergence between the two continents but one should expect that there will always be substantial differences between the two. Within Europe the existing differences are long-lived and substantial. Scholars from Max Weber and R.H. Tawney to Fernand Braudel have analysed these differences and have found their own sources for them. More recently the difficulty the European Union has had in coming to unified positions with regard to important public policy issues such as ex-Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and the recent financial rescue effort have displayed in great publicity the consequences of these differences. We should expect no less when the issue is policies toward an aging population. For this reason we have divided the European cities into five categories: Scandinavia, Northern Continental, United Kingdom, France and Central Europe. All such categorizations are by necessity artificial and more or less forced, but one always hopes that they do capture something of importance. The factors that are sympathetic to our categorizations are things such as residential contracts and ownership, expectations about family relations, the value placed on education and learning, public support for transportation and cultural institutions, assumptions about mobility, and so forth.

CITIES WHERE THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE The first group we will examine contains two cities where little if anything is being done, specifically, Bergen and Lisbon. In both cities officials said that they were not devoting any attention at all to the positive consequences of aging. In Lisbon, the city apparently does nothing for seniors outside of social services with the exception of attempting to attract seniors from other countries to visit the city on holiday. In Bergen we were told that no one there, or even in Norway, was looking at positive consequences of aging. Again, tourism draws seniors from other countries and attracting them is pursued with vigor. Other than that, seniors are seen almost solely as a source of “costs of aging.” The Norwegian social

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services sector is quite advanced so these costs are considerable. Local governments are largely responsible for home care and long-term care, while the basic hospital system is maintained by the national government. However, residential ownership, rather than renting, is very high, both for Europe and even for the Nordic countries, so one would anticipate there would be significant movement into a city such as Bergen, although the city’s excellent bus and rail transportation give access to the city’s cultural assets to seniors who do not live in the city center.

SCANDINAVIA Malmö Malmö, Sweden, is one of the most interesting EU cities we visited, from the standpoint of our research project. The city has become well placed to experience the effects of an active senior population with completion of the Öresund bridge-tunnel that gives the city direct rail and road access to the cultural assets of Copenhagen. In its own right, Malmö has a fine symphony and a lively theater scene. The University of Malmö, formerly a branch campus of the University of Lund, is now an independent campus and is growing rapidly. The much larger University of Lund is a 30 minute train ride away. As a consequence, the city has actively promoted “learning for life” programs. So seniors in the city are richly supplied with cultural and educational opportunities. What is most striking about Malmö is the way it has used a new residential development, West Harbor, as a focal point for seniors. Planners have taken advantage of the typical pattern of young people flocking to the city, families with children then moving to a house away from the center, and then seniors giving up the house and moving to an apartment in the center. In West Harbor the philosophy was “sustainable housing” by which is meant effective intergenerational housing. This has been tried in many places but it seems to have been particularly well done here. Developers were not very interested in building rental units, and much preferred to supply condominiums or apartments for purchase. The city government encouraged developers to supply a mixture of units for sale and for rent. The showpiece for West Harbor is the widely celebrated 25-story apartment building by the architect Calatrava, Turning Torso. This is nested in a set of 2- to 4-storey buildings that range from detached housing to small and large apartments. In Sweden residential ownership is significantly higher than it is in continental Europe, so the potential for seniors to relocate their residence is accordingly higher. Fully one-third of the units have


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been purchased by those who are 55 years and older; the rest are rented, many by younger people with or without families. In this way neither population is ghettoized and has the opportunity to become familiar with the lifestyles and aspirations of the other. One suspects that seniors are far more willing to support additional expenditures for education if they know school-aged children and have daily contact with them than would be the case if they were isolated in a “senior living” center. A city in Sweden can welcome seniors more than would be the case in many other places because health care, as well as many other social services, is paid for by the national government and a large population of seniors does not entail a large local tax burden for the municipality. In fact the city now provides services to seniors on a 24-hour basis. In recent years the retirement age has been lowered, but there is discussion currently about the need to raise it from 62–63 up to 65–67. This is a policy change that would be beneficial in most countries but seems to have a better chance of being adopted in Sweden than in, say Germany, Italy or France. So Malmö has fewer constraints on a policy of making it a “senior friendly city” than is the case elsewhere. Malmö and other cities in south-eastern Sweden actively encourage residents of Stockholm to use the area for summer homes, in part so they can gain the consequent tax and expenditure revenues, and then to move there permanently upon retirement. Working from the other direction, a new residential district is being developed between Malmö and Copenhagen, Hyllie. This is apparently very popular for investors as it should be very attractive to individuals who will work in high wage Copenhagen and live in (relatively) low tax Sweden as well as, of course, to seniors who will find the location very attractive as it is on the train line that links the two cities. Copenhagen During the past half-century the population of Copenhagen has declined from 700 000, to 540 000, and this population is becoming younger. The city has expanded as it absorbed smaller peripheral municipalities while many smaller, older apartments have been combined to make far more attractive residences. Many seniors have moved out of the city center into health care apartment complexes or to be nearer to their children, but there has been a migration in the opposite direction as well. The senior component, 65 years of age and older, has diminished from 25 percent 15 years ago to about 11 percent in 2009. The city subsidizes the rent of 4400 apartments for seniors and provides 4000 nursing home apartments, so the lower income seniors are apparently well accommodated.

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The distribution of income in Denmark is more egalitarian than is the case in most of the other EU countries, so the share of the population that is super rich is not as large as elsewhere, but then a larger share of the seniors are relatively well-off. One of the factors that has resulted in this well-off population of seniors being less interested in moving to the city center than is the case elsewhere is the excellent transportation system that allows seniors to live throughout the metropolitan area and yet to have easy access to the cultural and other attractions of central Copenhagen. The rail system extends into the province of Skåne in southern Sweden, and to cities such as Malmö and Lund. In the Copenhagen–Malmö region several large housing developments and new cities, such as Hyllie, are being built and planned on sites with access to the rail line to the city center. Thus the catchment area of seniors that has a positive impact on the cultural, educational and retail institution in the city extends far beyond the city itself. As the experience of other cities will make clear, cities can benefit from the seniors who are native to and reside in the city center; they may attract seniors from other regions of the country or from other countries; or, as is the case here, they can benefit from seniors who have an efficient and affordable rail or bus ride of an hour or so. All of the Nordic countries have adopted the same model for adult or continuing education. At the end of the 19th century, bible study groups were established for farmers. Then the “hogskolen” (colleges) program was established with courses but with neither exams nor grades. Then the political parties entered the field and expanded the course offerings to aspects of agricultural technology, and other practical topics. More recently the course offerings have expanded to all aspects of the arts, public policy issues or problems, and other aspects of traditional study. A substantial majority of students in hogskolen courses are 50 years of age and older. A catalog of courses is mailed to all adults in September and 25 percent of adults in Denmark participate. In addition there are “popular universities” at all regular Danish universities. The government recognizes the positive linkage between educational/intellectual activity and sport and movement exercises, and senior health and wellbeing and lower social costs for health care. The healthy, wealthy and well-educated population of seniors is referred to in Copenhagen as “Grey Gold” – seniors with money – and they are very important to the vitality of the institutions of the cultural and arts sector of the economy. As was just noted, the Grey Gold population comes to cultural events from a 60 mile radius, so Copenhagen does not need to have a Grey Gold in its city center. Thousands of seniors in Denmark are members of Aeldresegen (Cause of the Elderly), an organization that


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organizes trips to cultural and other events. It is specifically designed to increase the audience of theater, music, art, dance and museum events. While these cultural institutions do not have special programs for seniors, they just come and audiences are almost all dominated by the 55 years and older population.

NORTHERN CONTINENTAL Geneva Geneva is distinctive as a civil service town, given that it is the seat of so many international organizations. In common with most national capital cities it is an artificial urban region since it functions independently of the general economic situation in the world. It does not have to compete with other cities for headquarters functions and a skilled labor-force as there are natural forces of clustering among these international organizations. Thus it should not be surprising that we found Geneva to be different from the other EU cities in its experience with seniors. Its cultural life is dominated by these entities and cultural institutions are supported more for reasons of prestige and organizational social life than appears to be the case elsewhere. As a consequence their dependence on seniors, resident or tourist, is as strong as it is in other EU cities. Of course, many of the civil servants are above the age of 50 and do count as seniors. But the life of cultural institutions is never as precarious and in need of marketing, audience development and fundraising as it is in other cities. Lifelong learning is offered by the University of Geneva through its University of the Third Age program. Currently it has 2348 members, of which 40 percent are in the 60–69 age cohort and 40 percent are in that of 70–79, with an average age of 72. Seventy-three percent of members are female (University of Geneva, 2009, p. 2). The program offers special series of lectures, for example ten lectures on Calvin on the anniversary of his birth over the entire year, individual lectures and guided tours within and beyond the Canton for a small fee to cover expenses. Foreign language conversation groups are formed based on the interest of members. Individuals pay an annual fee of 30 Swiss Francs. The main feature of the impact of seniors on this city is the tightness of the local housing market. We were informed that residential availability is only 0.05 percent of the total housing stock of the city. Hence, there is almost no mobility on the part of seniors. The Canton has responsibility for provision of housing, and housing for seniors has increased by 16 percent during the past five years. Most of this housing is for seniors

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who are in need of social housing or assisted living units, rather than for middle-class seniors. City agencies, such as the Housing Department, see no benefits from aging and are totally focused on the cost side. One initiative that is expected to gain strength in the coming years is the use of seniors to assist in provision of social services to other seniors. This reduces the cost to the local government and also engages healthy seniors in a way that makes their lives better, healthier, and longer. One target is to have 20 percent of home care done by other seniors. There is also a nascent initiative to get seniors to do additional voluntary work, in generationally integrated housing units, with groups other than seniors, such as families with children, working single women, and so forth. It is recognized that these initiatives not only reduce costs and afford seniors better living, but that the quality of services provided to those in need is also improved. The primary policy concern in Geneva with regard to seniors is focused on the city’s participation in the World Health Organization’s Agefriendly Cities program, mentioned earlier. In its own report on this initiative, Geneva takes the WHO’s definition of aging as people who are 60 years of age and above and closes it at age 91. While Geneva is a beautiful city, officials recognize that in recent years it has become less agreeable, more traffic congested, less civil, increasingly insecure, and with increasing isolation for many of its residents (City of Geneva, 2007, p. 7). While the report seeks to speak to both the youngest and the oldest seniors, its program is primarily aimed at seniors who are not the healthy, welleducated, wealthy and mobile seniors of whom the US Census Bureau and the Commission of the Euroepan Union wrote. The issues dealt with by Geneva in its approach to seniors is one of ameliorating difficulties they face with regard to public transport, housing, health, social exclusion and participation, and citizenship. Munich Munich is similar to Geneva for its low level of perception of positive benefits from seniors. The principal issue is again that of mobility of seniors and their ability to move from a residence in a suburb to an apartment in the center. Here, however, it is the nature of housing contracts that causes the difficulty. Most people rent rather than own apartments, and there is a rental contract for that apartment. If one moves to an identical apartment in the same building, a new contract must be written, in which case the rent will be increased substantially, and there may be a higher periodic increase in the rent. This is a powerful stimulant for seniors to remain in the apartment in which they are living rather than to move to one in the city center.


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Mobility for those who own their houses is also reduced in relation to the situation in the US because while US houses are often mass constructed to homogeneous standards, European houses are more likely to be one of a kind with features. US houses are to a great extent designed for quick sale when the owner has a job change or simply wants a change in environment. European houses take much longer to sell and hence seniors may have a difficult time if they wish to move at short notice. The view one gets in Munich is that there is a good deal of pessimism with regard to the consequences of aging. If people live longer and better lives, as the US Census Bureau forecast, in Munich this means that they will probably also have longer periods of decline in which they will impose burdens on society. The typical situation for a senior will be one of an active life until about age 85 and then about three years of care. It must be remembered, however, that if individuals live longer lives they will be paying taxes to support social services of the community and making contributions to health and retirement programs for a longer period. If the political system were more rational and took a longer view than is usually the case, seniors would be understood to have given to the city the revenues they demand when in their declining years. In both Geneva and Munich the issue of retired immigrants was raised. The perception in Munich was that immigrants tend to resort to home care, perhaps in accord with the traditions of the society from which they migrated. This makes them less reliant on expensive health care facilities. However, in Geneva the experience was that immigrants were often alone and isolated from friends back home, who after all may have died themselves, and with children who, given the current job situation, may not be in a position to extend much home care to their parents. In this latter case, immigrant seniors may be a considerable burden on the local government. However, in this study we are focusing also on positive consequences so we get a net contribution. Even though the American movement from suburban house to city center apartment may not be as common in European cities, the latter invariably have public transport systems that are far more useful and used than is the case in US cities. This being the case, even though seniors in Geneva and Munich may not move their residence into the city center, public transportation makes the urban goods – education, culture, shopping, restaurants, and so forth – accessible to them. So rather than a 15 minute walk or a short taxi ride to a concert, theater or museum, seniors in European cities, including Geneva and Munich, can take a bus or tram. In each case there is a presumption that seniors can be active and can make the positive contributions to the local economy that we have suggested are potential.

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Hamburg Hamburg is distinctive in that the city and the Land, or region, are identical territorially. Munich is a city that is situated in Oberbayern which is a province of the Land Bavaria. So administratively Munich has an easier time when it comes to policies and relations with its peripheral districts. As a consequence of this political structure Hamburg also has a better understanding of the movements in and out of its territory. However, metro region-wide coordination of transportation and other services is a bit more difficult, since it involves the Land of Hamburg plus contiguous länder. This situation has the effect of throwing a different light on some of the issues we are examining. The population of Hamburg has been growing since the year 2000, after a long period of decline. This population is aging slightly, but city officials do not see an aging population to be a problem. Aging is taking place in the periphery at a much higher pace, largely due to the migration of younger people to the city. In these areas an aging population is generating a series of financial and social problems. While it is true that residential prices are higher in the city center than in the periphery, this demographic change suggests to seniors that the price appreciation of these residences should be much higher than for those in the periphery. This is an additional factor that draws seniors into the center. Housing in Hamburg provides us with a situation that gives us a new insight into policy. The nature of rental contracts tends to limit mobility as it does in Munich. But of those who do move, half move into rental units and half purchase a residence. Within the city only 20 percent opt for rental units. This city preference for purchase comes up against a lack of suitable housing and forces some seniors to stay where they are or to move to an outlying district. One recent development of interest is Hafen City. This is a district of apartment and condominium units in the harbor area. The price for the units is 4000–6000 euros per square meter – about double the price in outlying areas. Around 50–60 percent of those who are moving into this area are from outside the city region and 20 percent are from other countries. These high priced residences are attracting a relatively wealthy population of seniors who are attracted to the urban amenities of one of Germany’s major cities. What this tells us is that a city does not have to limit itself to the existing population of seniors, but can through investments in urban amenities attract the wealthy, healthy, educated and mobile seniors that they have identified. To a significant degree, the senior population of Hamburg is similar to that of Germany as a whole and indeed northern Europe. This makes it much easier for a city to create conditions that will give it a senior population that can make


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a positive contribution to the city’s economy as a counter to the cohort of the senior population that creates net economic costs. Hamburg’s future plans include a renaissance of the city center and while there is not yet data to indicate the success of this initiative, it is clear that this population of relatively healthy, educated and wealthy seniors will be a strong contributor to its success. Educational activities for seniors are particularly strong in Hamburg. While there is an office of the city government, Seniorenbildung (Adult Education), the far larger program is offered by the Volkshochschuler (VHS), or local colleges. The Adult Education courses tend to be selforganized, often seniors teach other seniors, but the program is small and not growing. This is in part due to the lack of interest in the recent government that reduced the budget. In fact, senior services now are allocated only about 2 percent of the social policy budget. However, the current Senate has a Green Party member responsible for social policy and there is some expectation that lifelong learning will be the beneficiary of increased attention and funding. Since adult education is included in the social policy envelope, education and sport are considered to be directly related. Hamburg officials strongly support the notion that mental and physical activity are vital for a healthy senior population and that this reduces social and health costs to society in the long run. Education and sport are also seen as means of reducing the social isolation of seniors – getting them out of their residences and into the community. However, the senior population of Hamburg is significantly composed of immigrants, especially of Turks. They came to Hamburg as guest workers in the 1960s and 1970s in the expectation that they would soon return home – most of them stayed. It is typical of this population that in their senior years they retreat to their ethnic community and lose their ability to function in the German language. It is a challenge of social policy in Hamburg, and other German cities, to work to counter this isolation. This is an example of a senior population that has the potential to impose net costs on society. Rotterdam Rotterdam is distinctive among other cities we visited in Europe for its characteristic landscape of contemporary architecture and spatial transformation, as a result of land made available after bombings during World War II and more recently of a reurbanization program that was completed in the 1990s. The economy and the urban space of city used to be tied to the activity of the harbor. A decline in the harbor-related economic activities had negative impacts on employment opportunities and on the number of

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residents. The Strategic Plan intervenes in both these directions, setting the target of attracting new residents to the city and, in order to promote the urban economy, focusing on “creative” and leisure activities, on education and the medical industries. In the harbor itself, along with its renewal, the localization of all kinds of higher value services (such as legal consultancies) is privileged. Moreover, the harbor area is a prospective residential district, although the availability of pier areas for conversion is still low, because of the high cost of restoration and because many areas are still in use by the port. In addition to the harbor, the municipality of Rotterdam is focusing on the regeneration of several areas of the city to accomplish the objective, mentioned in the Strategic Plan, to create an attractive residential city. Rotterdam has a relatively low population density (2889 inhabitants per sq. km land vs. 4467 in Amsterdam) and housing density (1385 per sq. km land vs. 2262 in Amsterdam).1 The 12 housing projects planned for 2013 are based on the regeneration or extension of existing districts, in order to limit the use of peri-urban territory and keep residents concentrated for safety and integration purposes. This could avoid the risk of the “hole in the doughnut” effect. The municipality set a typology of residential areas according to three concentric areas: metropolitan, quiet metropolitan and suburban. In the central area of the city, housing is targeted to seniors and 1–2 person households (young high-skilled workers), with availability of parking garages, care of green space and the presence of urban facilities (transport, restaurants, shops) and trying to bring people in the streets round the clock. A “gentrification” effect in those central districts is explicitly pursued (Gemeente Rotterdam, 2007). In this central area, the municipality is planning 1500 houses especially targeted to seniors (in 2005 the number of flats for independent elderly persons was 11 500, 4 percent of the housing stock). The apartments will be adaptable to any kind of residents, with built-in home automation features; the municipality requires compliance with this kind of specification from the housing corporation. The city is actually performing badly in attracting a senior population (out of 21 500 arrivals in 2004, only 2890 were in the 40–64 age cohort and only 736 new residents were 65+), while approximately 40 percent of the citizens leaving the city were in the 25–39 age cohort and the figure of seniors (65+) leaving doubled the figure of those arriving. Seniors live in most of the city, but especially in the south-east and north-east areas; they are frequent users of the downtown, thanks to the very efficient mass transport network. Senior citizens have not been moving into the city, and most of the former port workers are aging in place; this component of the residents are not highly educated (the rate of low-educated residents is double the national average), so we do not expect them to be propulsive


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in the dynamics we anticipate in Chapters 3 and 4. In the Netherlands retirement is compulsory after 65 years (raising this age to 70 is currently being discussed) and there is a significant gap in income before and after retirement, as the Dutch pension system is based on an old age pension of 70 percent of a person’s former wage. The income after retirement consists of this national pension plus a work-related part that employees have built up during their working life; this often results in a low pension income for low-income workers and women. As the city has always been characterized by education, as well as by the harbor, the inflow of young people is significant, but with only a few of them becoming permanent residents of the city. At the same time, many people born in Rotterdam live elsewhere: only four in ten natives of Rotterdam are still living in the town, thus the majority lives elsewhere, usually in surrounding but close municipalities. The city is also characterized by a very significant impact of foreign immigrants: half of the resident population, or their parents, were born abroad. It is possible to distinguish between a community of citizens from South Eastern Asia, who are said to be fully integrated and nowadays Dutch-born for the third or fourth generation, and a more recent immigration from Northern Africa and CentralEast Europe, who are still facing integration issues. The management of the upcoming aging of this significant part of the population is going to be one of the future policy issues of the city, dealing with integration between different generations and cultures. If properly planned, and with its peculiarity as a “playground” for architecture, the city could benefit in the future from unique characters of diversity and vitality among European cities. Vienna We discovered that Vienna has some of the most effective, interesting and far-sighted programs for seniors of any of the cities we visited and studied. The head of the Office of Senior Affairs had worked a dozen years ago with youth groups for labor unions. He found that both youth and seniors could be put in four categories, each of which accounted for 20–30 percent of the total relevant population: (1) active and satisfied, (2) active and dissatisfied, (3) inactive and satisfied, and (4) inactive and dissatisfied. Category 1 took care of itself and required no effort on his part. Category 4 was composed of individuals who lacked money, information and mobility and was the most difficult of the four from the standpoint of the city; he saw his primary task with this category was to enable them to stay in their home. His other tasks were that of making category 2 individuals satisfied and those of category 3 active. He did this primarily by facilitating their participation in cultural and educational activities.

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There is some relocation of residence from the suburb to the city, for the usual reasons, but not as much as there is in the US and some northern EU cities. Vienna has grown territorially but most of Vienna’s seniors have lived there all of their lives. Their parents purchased houses and apartments in the reconstruction after World War II, then the city expanded to incorporate these villages into the city, so it is the city that moved rather than the seniors, so to speak. Relocation by seniors is difficult as the housing market is structured similar to that of Munich – rental contracts usually involve a considerable increase in payment whenever a move is made. Vienna is composed of 22 districts, of which 10 are in the inner part of the city. District 1 is the downtown area and this is given over almost entirely to commercial buildings, tourist attractions, and very expensive apartments. Sixty percent of Viennese live in public sector housing, with all social groups being represented in each district – workers, bureaucrats, professors, and so forth. Housing units used to be organized in Blocks, with a house master, monthly meetings and parties. This structure was very much in the social democratic spirit, but it was destroyed when the conservative government was in power in the 1990s. Each of the districts, having originally been a village, has its own museum of local history, library and college – or Volkshochschule. The Volkstheater also offers performances in outlying districts. So seniors can participate in educational and cultural activities without leaving their district, although many do use the excellent municipal transportation system to go to events in the center, such as the Statsoper and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. So, as is the case with most EU cities, there is no boom in residential construction in the city center, whether led by seniors or others. There are 80 theaters situated throughout the city with 14 000 subscribers, over half of whom are seniors – this figure rises to two-thirds in the outlying areas. Through the Quartett program, seniors can purchase tickets to four performances at any of the city’s theaters. Since most of Vienna’s seniors do not have credit cards or use the internet, Quartett tickets may be purchased at any theater. They have also become popular as gifts. Buses are provided for seniors, and taxi fares are subsidized so the fare for seniors is the same as a ride on one of the city’s trams. The city also works to provide lighting, bathroom hours, stair carpeting and myriad other things in the various venues so as to make cultural activities congenial and accessible to seniors. It must be recognized that the category 4 people, those who are inactive and dissatisfied, pass most of their time in their apartment with entertainment provided by television and radio. The city sees its task as that of providing a port of entry to education and culture for seniors in all categories. In Vienna, participation in cultural


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activities is very strong in the 50–75 age group, with activeness in intellectual and physical activity extending beyond age 80. While volunteerism is not as popular as it is in countries to the west, many institutions, local history centers, museums and libraries, do use seniors as docents. One of the more popular ones is a program in which seniors can serve as helpers to city archeologists in site excavations. Apparently volunteering is not seen as a threat to employment but rather as an activity that make union jobs more successful. Educational opportunities for seniors can be found in both the University and the 30 local Volkshochschuler. While not many participate in University courses, seniors do have free tuition, and have for decades but for a three-year hiatus of conservative government, and may enroll in courses if they are academically qualified to do so and if there are seats available. Actually, when a course enrolls fewer than the required five or six students, seniors who have put themselves on a list will be called to take the course so that it has enough students to be offered. These seniors are known as “butterfly” students because of their mobility. Some professors also take courses to the seniors in Senior Centers. The Centers also offer sports activities for residents of all ages: school age young people during after-school hours, adults in the evenings – and seniors during the day. Of Vienna’s 80 400 residents aged 80 and older and 320 200 aged 60–80, 30 percent are engaged in these activities.

UNITED KINGDOM Birmingham In neither of the two English cities studied is the residential relocation to the city center very powerful, perhaps because of the identification residents here have had with the countryside. More than in other countries the city here is taken to be a place of work and the countryside a place of leisure. It may also be the fact that living in an apartment is less attractive here than it is elsewhere. At any rate, until about 1990 all of the residential relocation in Birmingham had been outward. By this time there were only 20 000 residents within the ring road that defines the center of the city. At that moment in time the center town residential development Symphony Court was completed. There was much negative comment about it initially, but the ensuing years have shown Symphony Court to be a success. The current Birmingham plan is building on this success with 10 000 additional residential units to be constructed by 2011. Many of these units are rather small and are suited primarily for young people and single professionals,

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but about 25 percent of downtown residents are seniors. Seniors are also attracted to the Mailbox development in the city center and to a residential, boutique and restaurant area close to downtown – the Jewelry Quarter. Relocation to the city center is hampered by inadequate transportation, a lack of accessible clinics, and a shortage of other such amenities. Most of the seniors who are capable of providing a positive economic impact tend to live in the towns just a mile or two to the west of downtown, and are actually more likely to have a second home in Spain or Portugal than to move to an apartment or condominium in the city center. The cultural scene in Birmingham is very attractive to seniors and is vital in getting them to move to the city center or even to spend much time there. The city has seen the familiar pattern of culture leading the way, then restaurants, shops and hotels, and finally construction of residential units. While not as challenged topographically as Pittsburgh, the post-war construction in Birmingham resulted in the compartmentalization of the downtown space by multi-lane express highways and one of the challenges for recent planners is to make the downtown space attractive in spite of the transportation infrastructure. The jewels in the crown, so to speak, of Birmingham’s cultural sector are Symphony Hall and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). The audience for the CBSO is 80–85 percent aged 50+, and its database of 70 000 who have requested that they be included on the list is 60–70 percent aged 50 and older. Participants are removed from the list by death, relocation or infirmity – but never from lack of interest. The office of external relations is pursuing development of a pattern of participation that is explicitly similar to that of the Pittsburgh Symphony – investment in the audience. They too have a 4–5 year progression from initial attendance to increasing levels of financial support, with perhaps a bequest at the end. During this period it has been found that individuals become less self-interested and more interested in the process of the events – public lectures, series of events, and so forth. Surprisingly, however, cooperative events with other cultural institutions, such as the IKON gallery, have not been as successful as they have been in other cities we have studied. At the other end of the age distribution, the CBSO Learning and Education Department has a list of 36 000, 90 percent of which are children and young people. This is an explicit initiative to get individuals familiar with classical music early in life on the theory that they will then be more likely to return to it when they are seniors with fewer demands on their time and money. Currently half of the CBSO funding is public, two-thirds of the rest is ticket sales, and the remainder is private contributions by individuals and corporations. The director of external relations expects to see the public


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funding diminish in the future so building a base of support today from its audience of largely senior individuals is crucial for the financial health of the Symphony in the years to come. They are soon to begin a campaign to raise an endowment of £20 million. CBSO musicians have contracts for 228 days of work per year, and the orchestra can ask them to do a variety of performances. This allows the orchestra to give concerts in outlying districts, in schools and before diverse audiences, including participating in the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. We did not have the opportunity to explore the lifelong learning activities of Birmingham’s seniors, but it is clear that they are an essential element in the vitality of Symphony Hall, Town Hall, the CBSO and other cultural institutions in the city. While the relocation of residence to the downtown area is not as robust as in most other cities, this movement is picking up speed and with the demographic changes that the future will bring one should anticipate that Birmingham will find this to be an increasing phenomenon. Sheffield The relocation of seniors from houses in the suburbs to residences in the city center is no more advanced in Sheffield than it is in Birmingham, but it too is beginning to accelerate. The relocation tends to be from throughout the region rather than simply from the immediate suburbs. Seniors, aged 50–80, tend to live a mile or two west and southwest of downtown in the Ekersol Road and Broomhill areas in both houses and apartment buildings. Access to the city center is difficult due to the way in which the tram lines were laid down. In the post-World War II period Sheffield was a steel and coal town that was very left wing in its politics. The tram lines were designed to connect working class areas in the north and east to the city center, with middle and upper income residents left to their own devices. Furthermore, Sheffield is an urban space of valleys that create distinct communities that are somewhat isolated. As a consequence the areas where these cohorts reside have become supplied with retail, restaurants and cultural institutions so that there is a rather weak linkage between the city center and the middle and upper income population. Between this area and the city center are the University, student housing and a very youth-oriented stretch in West Road of bars and night spots, further inhibiting direct access. While movement is beginning to develop from the region to the city center and this is stimulating new residential construction, apartment and condominium units, many of the existing units are rather small with

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limited closet space. These are of greater attraction to younger professionals, singles and students, and less so to seniors. The newer units tend to be more expensive and it is these that are being sold to migrating seniors. This has not yet taken off, and the result is a relatively low population density in the city center and little street life after work ends. Sheffield is the fourth largest city in the UK and the largest with no symphony orchestra. The Halle orchestra comes from Manchester every couple of weeks and the Liverpool and foreign orchestras also include Sheffield in their schedule or tour. Performances take place in City Hall, built in 1932 and recently refurbished. The audience for classical music is primarily 50 and older, and also declining in number. There is no discount for seniors. The classical music audience was 800 during the last season, down from 1800 in the 1980s; City Hall’s capacity is 2200. From this we can see clearly the consequence of poor transportation combined with housing that is not very suitable for seniors. Furthermore, since Sheffield does not have its own orchestra it is not possible to build the audience by means of concerts and other promotional activities in the communities in which the seniors live, as is the case in Birmingham. Without a large and active community of seniors the cultural sector has a difficult time. The official who manages City Hall wonders whether is it rational, in light of these handicaps, to keep trying to develop the classical music audience or simply to give the public what it wants and to maximize revenues. Lifelong learning has had a long and checkered history in Sheffield, but is currently in decline. A century ago, Oxford University began to offer classes in Sheffield. They were successful and, in response, the University of Sheffield was established and Oxford withdrew. Until 15 years ago this activity was fairly robust, with participating seniors generating 1800 course enrollments. Since that date British policy has shifted strongly to meeting workplace and employer requirements and to skill development among ethnic and working class populations, and lifelong learning has been reduced as a priority. Today course enrollment in lifelong learning programs in Sheffield has fallen to 600, with about 300 individual senior students involved. The funding scheme in the UK is that the government gives £700–800 to the university per student, and the student pays an additional £125. Without a subsidy from government, there is little incentive for a university to develop and sustain a program in lifelong learning. This activity can probably only be redeveloped if it is seen less as a responsibility of universities and education bureaucracies and more as a social and human resources activity. This would, however, diminish the academic nature and identity of lifelong learning, and this is generally thought to be something that ought to be avoided at all costs – at least in countries other than the United Kingdom.


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Other similar programs in Sheffield include PROBUS, a society for retired professionals in the west end of town where occasional lectures are offered and the University of the Third Age in which individuals design their own courses and programs. There is very little lifelong learning activity beyond this.

FRANCE We have decided to give extended coverage to policy regarding aging in France, because the French usually devote considerable effort to public policy, because the structures of government are so clearly articulated, and because we have two French cities, Lyon and Nancy, that are included in this study. We have just examined two German cities, but in Germany so much power is devolved to the sub-national länder that national policy in areas such as social policy is less well developed or dominant. The aging of the population has been discussed in France since the 1960s, when the Rapport Laroque (1962) first gave recognition to the phenomenon, highlighting the increasing number of seniors to be expected in the following decades and the rise in the life expectancy as an effect of the progress in health care. The Rapport Laroque raised several issues on the basic economic and living conditions of the elderly living in the first post-war decades (especially pressing was the need for adequate pensions and housing), but also demanded a cultural turn towards the preparation of the future generation of seniors for their life after leaving their jobs and all the related engagements, and for a new relation to social networks. It was of great importance to raise the issue in the public debate and to the policy makers. In more recent documents, it is clear how the issue is still discussed in the country, for the medical and social aspects, but more interestingly from the point of view of urban planning. In a document of the Fédération Nationale des Agences d’Urbanisme, the President of the Fédération writes that the demographic evolution is reflected “in a growth of the number of seniors, citizens 60/70 of age, autonomous, healthy, with great availability of time and good income” – seniors consuming specific goods and services, with special attention on mass transportation and public facilities, the presence of commerce and leisure, the general urban amenities, and the quality of space (Fédération Nationale des Agences d’Urbanisme, 2007, p. 2). In the same report it is pointed out how the expected trend for France will be a movement of seniors (young retirees) to the Southern regions or the Atlantic or Mediterranean Riviera, with a concurrent loss of population in the urban agglomerations, in the Paris region in particular. This

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is highlighted in its negative consequences, as the urban areas will lose a significant number of active consumers, especially those belonging to the baby-boomer cohorts, and their direct and indirect induced employment. Hence, in our framework, the need for those cities to be more attractive towards the senior generation. The country is nevertheless facing the aging of the population, albeit to a lesser degree than many other European countries, as the imminent retirement of baby-boomers born from 1946 to 1962 still needs to be managed. Individuals aged 60+ comprise 21 percent of the population, and at the national level we can take note of two relevant initiatives – the “Semaine bleue” and the projects supported by the “Fondation de France.” The Semaine Nationale des Retraités et Personnes Âgées (National Week of Pensioners and Seniors) is held yearly, with the aim of informing the population of services for seniors as retirees and of their potential contribution to society. Started in 1951 as a fundraising event to support lower income elderly citizens, in recent years the “Semaine Bleue” has seen the involvement of local communities with local events and a national competition for the best projects for seniors. In addition to this, the “Fondation de France,” a private body supported by citizens and enterprises, promotes projects for the elderly, to give value to their participation in society and to favor the conditions for aging in place, supporting volunteering organizations and the presence of services, transport and meeting places in both urban neighborhoods and rural villages. Despite its well-known centralistic institutional structure, offices and agencies in charge of seniors are lodged at the different levels of government in which France is organized: regions, départements, arrondissements and municipalities. At the regional level there are the socially-oriented activities of the CROSMS (Comité Régional de l’Organisation Sociale et Médicosociale), in charge of policy orientation and research on handicap, social diseases, youth and seniors. At the provincial level (Département) operates the CODERPA (Comité Départemental des Retraités et Personnes Agées) agency, a consulting body aimed at organizing working groups on: vulnerability of senior citizens, home health care and education of professionals, personalized elderly-care programs, assistance to elderly in condition of marginality, housing of aged population, information and communication, and aging and handicap. At the local level the CLICs (Centres Locaux d’Information et de Coordination Gérontologique) are set up as social and medical structures, providing information for the retired and aged population. The CLIC offices are managed by professionals in gerontology and elderly care, providing support for senior citizens and their relatives. Now we will turn to our two cities, Lyon and Nancy.


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Lyon While Lyon may not be properly thought of as a “southern” city, it has always been linked powerfully to the Mediterranean world and has served as a linkage or point of access between the north and the south of Europe due to the commercial importance of the Rhône River. Its rich tradition of the Renaissance and its architecture and the Catholic religion also give it a place in Southern Continental Europe. Lyon itself is not an aging city, as it is attractive to young people moving into the city for its academic and cultural institutions, employment opportunities and its strategic location close to both the Alps and the Mediterranean sea. The Agence d’Urbanisme pour le Développement de l’Agglomération Lyonnaise published an Atlas for the Urban Area of Lyon (INSEE, 2007), where aging is a major issue of reflection and concern. The city of Lyon is part of the Département du Rhône (Rhône-Alpes region is divided into eight départements), characterized by an average age slightly lower than the rest of France. The citizens aged 60 and over are actually 19 percent of the population (vs. 21 percent in France). The demographic perspectives for the next decades suggest that the aged part of the population will grow rapidly, by almost 50 percent by 2030. According to the projections of the Agence d’Urbanisme, in 2012 the population 60+ will exceed the population younger than 20 years of age. The Agency classifies the elderly population in three classes: ● ● ●

60–74, the first years after retirement, considered to be spent in a fully active life; the Agency defines this specific cohort as “seniors”; 75–84, with the actual beginning of aging and a growing need of health care; 85+, with a major impact of health care and assistance (“grand seniors”).

According to the demographic projections, the two latter classes will be growing more rapidly in France than will “seniors.” In the urban area of Lyon, seniors 60+ made up 19 percent of the population in 2007; they will be 25 percent in 2030 compared to 24.8 percent of young citizens (0–20 years old), when the older cohort will be greater than the youngest one. This phenomenon is caused by the natural demographic trajectory, but also by a lack of relocation; 77 percent of 60+ did not change their household in the 1990–1999 period and 87 percent did not move outside their municipality (this figure is higher for the 60+ cohort than it is for the entire population, whose ratios are 45 percent for household and 63 percent for the municipality). On the other side, if one

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considers the attractiveness of the city of Lyon according to the different age cohorts, in the period 1990–1999 only 10 percent of family groups moving into the city have a retired person as the recipient of the primary income. Eighty-five percent of elderly citizens in Lyon are located in the urban area, the rest in the peripheral rings; 95 percent of 60+ citizens live in their residence, thus the importance of supporting age in place. Transportation is essential for seniors to access services, social and entertainment activities, and to keep themselves independent. Seniors in Lyon travel less frequently by car (43 percent of travel, vs. 59 percent) and walk more frequently (46 percent vs. 29 percent) than the population as a whole. This emphasizes the importance of the availability of services, stores and activities in their neighborhood. Surprisingly, mass transport is poorly used, albeit Lyon has a very efficient one – strengthening the access of seniors to mass transportation could be an issue for policies at the urban level. As to the allocation of money, INSEE (2006) provides data for the national level; the expenditure seems to change according to homogeneous trends for the different age cohorts. The quota of total expenditure on food and beverages constantly grows with age (it is 9.8 percent for under 25 and is 20.5 percent for 75+), as does that for health care, home furniture and insurance, while clothing and transportation have the opposite trend. The expenditure for culture, entertainment, hotels and restaurants is relatively constant, with a peak in the 55–74 group, especially for culture and entertainment (up to 9 percent of the personal budget). In general terms, a two-person household in the 60–69 age group spends 2 percent more on these items than the average family; moreover, it is expected that the babyboomer generation, retiring from 2006 on, will exhibit a broader structure of expenditure, obviously depending upon the price of goods and services and general economic performance. The case of Lyon offers a good example of how seniors could be involved in educational activities. The Université tous ages (University for all ages) is an original French model, initiated during the 1970s, to bridge the cultural gap of many citizens who retired very early after the effects of the oil crisis. In Lyon, UTA is a service offered by the University of Lyon, promoted by the Regional Council with the aim of keeping citizens socially active and involved in social networks in their neighborhoods. More than an educational project, the UTA is intended to be a stimulus for pensioners to avoid loneliness and isolation, after losing the social networks of their work and professional activity. Differently from many other cases (for example in most Italian cities), faculties of UTA are regular staff of the local university, assuring a level of teaching comparable with “normal” courses and providing job opportunities for academics.


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While the University of Lyon manages the activities, UTA is fully functioning on self-financing, thanks to the fees paid by participants to the courses (65–70 euros); UTA reimburses to the University of Lyon the cost of its administrative staff and professors. UTA is self managed, thanks to the voluntary work of students, and offers 130 courses and lifelong learning programs lasting 25 weeks and attended by small groups (with extra fees). If one considers that UTA counted 9600 students in 2006 (80 percent of them being retired) it is clear how the administration could keep the yearly fee relatively low. The average student’s profile is constantly changing, with an increasing number of them being university degree holders and owning a personal computer; thus students are more and more asking for active engagement, including meeting in research groups (working on archeology, local history and Internet). In 2007, in the Lyon urban area approximately 26 000 citizens aged 60+ were involved in a voluntary association and were responsible for some activity, 160 000 were involved in the associative life as regular members and 110 000 took part in the associations (and supported them). Senior volunteers in Lyon prefer to undertake activities considered as high value added, especially with intergenerational purposes. The support of children in primary school is very popular, while assistance for other seniors is less significant. Since Lyon is also a university town, some seniors offer lodging to students, as an opportunity for intergenerational interchange. Nancy Nancy is in the north-eastern French region of Lorraine, department of Meurthe et Moselle. Formerly specialized in heavy industries (iron and steel) and a destination for immigrant flows from France and Mediterranean Europe in the post World War II period, this urban economy has undertaken a restructuring towards ICT since the mid-1970s. Of the 258 000 citizens living in the metropolitan area of Nancy (Grand Nancy), 16.8 percent are 60 years old or more; this figure is expected to rise to 25.7 percent in 2030 (Communauté Urbaine Grand Nancy, 2008). In particular, projections for the municipality of Nancy and its metropolitan area show how the share of the senior population will remain almost stable in the municipality (rising only from 15.6 percent to 17.7 percent in 30 years), while it will almost double in the metropolitan area (17.6 percent to 32.2 percent during the same period). This does not actually show a movement of seniors from the city center to the periphery; rather it is the effect of the aging in place of the baby boomer generation that currently populates the suburban areas, almost homogeneously populated, who

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will move into older ages in the near future. The Agence d’Urbanisme is instead working on a study of a phenomenon for the moment revealed only qualitatively: a general trend of seniors moving from the metropolitan area to the city center, looking for a residence closer to commerce and medical services. The city organizes an annual event to welcome new citizens: with new immigrants, seniors moving from the villages are the majority of new residents. Moreover, 60 percent of the senior citizens in the Department Meurthe-Moselle are residents of the city of Nancy. In addition to the downtown, the semi-pedestrian area around the Parc de la Pépinière, the central Place Stanislas and the Vielle Ville, the city has two areas in which regeneration programs are being undertaken. In the north-western periphery, a district of large anonymous residential buildings is being regenerated with the construction of smaller houses, accessible for all ages and with proximity to stores and services; here the expected effect is making the area more attractive for former residents. More aimed at attracting new citizens is the regeneration in progress in the area between the Canal de la Marne au Rhin and the river Meurthe. The area facing the canal-port has been regenerated, with apartments reserved for social housing or made available to the market, pursuing the diversity of wealth condition and age cohorts. The district now has public green areas, sports and leisure facilities, areas devoted to enterprises and commercial activities and the attractive contemporary architecture of the Centre Régional des Musiques Actuelles. In the same area other cultural and educational institutions were established: l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure en Génie des Systèmes Industriels and the Ecole Européenne d’Ingénieurs en Génie des Matériaux; while some are newly built, many former industrial buildings have been restored and an additional restoration project is expected in the near future. The area is thus attractive thanks to the new buildings and functions, the restored waterfront and the vital river port, but also for a fast tram line connecting the neighborhood with the commercial district, the city center and the railway station. The expectation of having seniors as a substantial component of new residents in the area is supported by figures on household owners in the Nancy downtown and metropolitan area. More than 70 percent of seniors in the Grand Nancy area own their house; this share is 51 percent in the city center; 40 percent of the apartments rented in the city are actually rented by seniors, which demonstrates the existence of consumption capacity and wealth of this cohort of the population. After the publication of the “Rapport Laroque,” Nancy was one of the first cities (with Grenoble) promoting structured initiatives in 1971 aimed at confronting the effects of the aging of the population. The first activities were based on a geriatric approach, coordinated with the medical centers,


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in order to prepare citizens to face their older ages from a cultural and medical point of view. The organization of projects and initiatives is led by the Office Nancéien des Personnes Agées (ONPA), started in 1971, with the aim of initiating and promoting activities to meet the needs of younger and older seniors. Seniors in Nancy have the opportunity to join the ONPA itself, with a 5 euros yearly fee, or one of the 21 Foyers, seniors clubs diffused in all the city’s districts (the 21 Foyers are managed by senior volunteers). In 2007 the number of participants was 1232 for the ONPA, plus 2349 for the Foyers. What is most interesting is that almost half of the seniors who joined the ONPA in 2007 are residents of the metropolitan area of Nancy: this means that the Office is effective in offering services beyond the city itself, but also that senior citizens are sufficiently mobile and have ready access to the public transportation network. Among the different services are: sport activities, like exercise in the swimming pools, walking in the city, dance, and so on; cultural activities, for example language courses, reading groups, movies and so on; laboratories for memory training and healthy living; computer training, with courses and a weekly “internet café”; plus a number of leisure and socialization events, like one-day tours in the countryside or longer vacations, also abroad. All the projects require participants to pay a fee, according to the kind of activity proposed and the facilities required. The ONPA hosts the JANUS group (Jeunes Ainés Nancéiens Utiles et Solidaires – but also the Greek divinity), a group of 30 senior volunteers active since 1997, working on behalf of other senior citizens in the preparation of retirement, reduction in their isolation, assisting caregivers, giving help with regard to housing problems, and giving them assistance with new technologies. As the core group of this organization is aging, a different attitude towards volunteering by the new generations of seniors is emerging, with less involvement of new volunteers; this is also occurring with regard to the seniors volunteering to manage the Foyers, where an effective generational change is still missing. As anticipated in the first chapters of this book, the upcoming generations of seniors demonstrate unprecedented characteristics, which will force local administrations to reconsider the activities proposed and the role itself of older citizens.

CENTRAL EUROPE While the other cities in this chapter have been situated in Western Europe, we wanted to include two cities in Central Europe, Ljubljana and Bratislava, largely to give a feel for differences between them and the

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cities in Western Europe. The demographics of Central Europe are quite different from those of the rest of Europe (Kupiszewski et al., 2005, p. 17). In the first place, this is a part of Europe that is projected to be declining in population rather significantly during the next four decades, from 73 million inhabitants in 2005 to 60 million in 2050. As a consequence, the old age dependency rate will grow in this region from 19 percent to 53 percent during this period; the young age dependency rate will be almost constant; the total dependency rate will almost double from 42 percent to 76 percent. Most importantly the very old dependency rate will rise from 4 percent to 15 percent – this is the population in which most of the experiences for health care and long-term care are concentrated. The costs of aging will be very burdensome on these societies; hence the need to try to capture some of the potential benefits that attach to this demographic cohort. Ljubljana Ljubljana combines the benefits of being the capital and the largest city in Slovenia (cultural institutions, businesses and work opportunities, tourist attractions and so on) with a strategic location in the enlarged European Union, a relatively small size, and the presence of amenities in the city center and in the surrounding areas. In 2008, 17.5 percent of citizens in Ljubljana were aged 652 or over (47 000 people from a total of 267 760) – the city has an impact of elderly lower than many other European cities presented in this chapter. This is a common trend among the group of countries that joined the European Union in 2004 and 2007 – a younger population, still facing the risk of a rapid aging caused more by emigration than by natural trends. The range of policies of the City of Ljubljana for the senior population can be divided according to the sectors of activity: housing and aging in place, education and intergenerational linking. The most important housing policy instrument for seniors is supported by the Public Housing Fund and ensures accommodation for older citizens. In Ljubljana, 82 percent of households live in apartments they own; some policy instruments apply to any owner: ●

Rent–purchase of apartments, apartment-owning citizens aged over 65 can sell their apartment to the Public Housing Fund and purchase a lifelong insurance with monthly rent payments and preserving the right to occupy their apartments; in the city, 15 percent of households are single-pensioner – in this cohort the Housing Fund realized only one rent–purchase: often elderly citizens want to leave


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their belongings to near relatives or are more connected with the religious institutions. Affordable accommodation loans for the renovation and maintenance of the common parts of residential buildings. This policy is intended for all owners, among whom are also elderly people.

Other policy instruments apply to citizens living in apartments owned by the City of Ljubljana or the Public Housing fund (6 percent of households live in social housing): ●

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Replacement accommodation. Older tenants may exchange their apartments when it is unsuitably located in the building or the building itself has an unsuitable position (due to movement impairment, health reasons, and so on) and in cases where they would like a smaller apartment (often to have lower maintenance costs). Agreement to sublet accommodation. Older tenants may be given agreement to sublet part of their accommodation to their caregivers.

Connected with the availability of housing, the activity of day centers for the elderly is intended to prolong the individual’s chance to live in his or her own home. For some years daily care was mainly carried out in homes for elderly residents, but since 2005 the city has promoted nonprofit organization projects to develop day centers. The Ljubljana City Pensioners’ Association is in charge of setting the program for the day centers program. The centers offer services ensuring active inclusion in the social environment and the maintenance of their physical and intellectual performance. The centers have become contact points for getting in touch with other organizations that deal with older people’s problems and for connecting with younger people. The municipality supports the educational activities in Ljubljana through several organizations. Classes and workshops in the Ljubljana City Pensioners’ Association and the Ljubljana Intergenerational Society for Quality Aging; Society for Education of the Third Age study circles, that include more than 4000 actively participating in 225 study circles where participants are co-responsible for the teaching; universities and professional excursions and research work in the Society for Education of the Third Age. The University of the Third Age was founded in 1986 and now has more than a thousand members taking from two to eight hours per week of classes. It also has a counseling service for an active later life. Moreover, seniors are involved as volunteers and can take part in projects to train as cultural mediators in Slovenian museums and storytellers in schools, hospitals and other social institutions.

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The municipality promotes intergenerational linking to foster the quality of social networking of vulnerable older people. The Ljubljana City Pensioners’ Association and the Red Cross Association have individual pensioner volunteers who visit the elderly at home or in homes for the elderly. The Anton Trstenjak Institute and the Ljubljana Intergenerational Society for Quality Aging are developing a network of personal partnerships with isolated older people and intergenerational groups for quality aging. Such institutions also promote training for volunteers, mentors for study circles and intergenerational groups. Among other initiatives, the Institute offers a ten-hour course for preparing on quality aging after retirement; citizens are invited to attend one year before the retirement age. Bratislava For the meeting in Bratislava, the Department of Social Affairs organized a table with at least six people from different offices; with this participation and coordination it is clear that seniors are a focus for the municipality, not only in the elaboration of policies, but also in the administrative routines. As to the cultural, sport and educational activities, the 18 districts of the city have activity and cultural centers (day centers) for seniors. Senior centers offer socializing opportunities, dance classes, music listening, reading centers and handcrafts, and organize events, excursions and visits. The participation in the activity is free of charge and funded by the tax revenues in the district: some of the more developed or industrialized districts might have a larger budget and a wider set of activities. Frequently, private sponsors, large enterprises or other actors interested in lobbyism, support the initiatives. More specifically for the cultural areas, the Gallery, the Museum and the Library and Information Center in Bratislava are owned and managed by the local authorities and offer a 50 percent discount to seniors for all their activities. Among the cultural events organized in the city, some are specifically targeted at older citizens, but they tend to participate as an audience in a wider set of events: the attendance is usually by whole family groups, but seniors count for 20–30 percent of participants, according to the event. Public transportation is free for citizens aged 70 years or more, even if the legal retirement age in Slovakia is 62 for both men and women. The municipality, in cooperation with private sponsors, is actually developing a card-based system to grant access to city services and amenities to residents – with fee options and discounts according to different target groups. The system will then allow the administration to collect statistical data on the users of services and the attendance at events


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and to have more accurate information on the initiatives ongoing in the city. In the sector of Education, the University of the Third Age (Univerzita Tretieho Veku) of Comenius University offered study programs in 30 courses with 1792 students in 2007/2008. Courses are taught in a three-year program, with 14 three-hour lectures per year, with a final test and a certification. The University of the Third Age in Bratislava has an independent budget and does not receive funds from the university, the municipality or other local agencies; students pay a 50 euros fee per course per year and this covers all the expenses; additional funds are raised with the participation of European programs (for example Grundtvig, which could not be used to cover staff costs). Faculties are regular university professors, who are in charge of preparing the courses and study plans: from archeology to journalism, from law to history of the fine arts or astronomy. Students must have completed high school (25 percent of them hold a university degree) and be 50 years old or more (90 percent of students attending classes are pensioners); 89 percent of the students are women, which is typical in central-eastern Europe as usually men work longer or women did not have the opportunity to complete their studies in earlier ages. The University organizes all ranges of collateral initiatives, such as excursions, venues at opera and music events (after history classes), exercises and gym activities, summer schools in the countryside. Bratislava is one of the cities involved in the “55+ Travel” project, which involves ten European countries, with contact persons in each destination and travels organized according to groups of seniors and suitable to their needs. This is the best indication of the magnitude of the proclivity of seniors to occupy their time and money in travel that generates jobs and retail sales in cities throughout Europe. In Slovakia, the peculiar pattern of the distribution of the population, generally more equally distributed than in other European cities and countries we visited, is a consequence of the socialist planning: according to government decisions, firms and urban areas were equally spread in all the country. When many industries collapsed, many citizens moved to Bratislava from the countryside looking for job opportunities. In the same period, many young Slovaks moved to Bratislava for education and then abroad; this phenomenon reduced its impact after Slovakia joined the European Union, but in the countryside there is still an effect of younger adults leaving behind their elderly parents as they seek opportunities for employment in the European labor market. In the last 15 years, the city has had a trend of population growth, partly the result of many citizens returning from abroad. The housing availability tended to suffer from the pressure of the new immigrants and the lack of an appropriate public

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housing policy. After the Revolution in 1989, the property of apartments, formerly owned by the government, was converted to private ownership; the residents, now owners, became older, and gave the property rights to their children. The lack of housing availability had the effect of forcing two or three generations to live in the same apartment; as the elderly occupants are those more at risk, the municipality started building seven senior houses, with 1000 beds available – although the Social Policy Department currently reports 2000 applications. Approximately 2 percent of the yearly budget of the municipality is devoted to social facilities and seniors. The city had two phases of expansion, in the post-World War II years and in the early 1970s. This resulted in the urban area developing along the two shores of the Danube river: the historical district and its surroundings in the north, and the residential district of Petrzalka in the south. In the historical center residents are former owners (eventually old citizens), institutions and offices and the higher income population. The Petrzalka district, a neighborhood of tall anonymous residential buildings, was built in the 1970s as a satellite area for the families and now is a former-baby boomer district almost entirely privately owned. Although the buildings are not at all attractive, this area is now a strategic localization, as it is very close to the city center (a few stops on public transport or a walk over one of the bridges crossing the Danube), housing is still relatively cheap and the river banks are actually benefiting from a regeneration project; moreover, Petrzalka has a recreational area, a large shopping mall and a railway station connecting both to the central station of Bratislava and to the close “twin” city of Vienna, in Austria. Thus, as the population ages and provided that the involvement of residents in maintaining their safety and the local social network continues, this area could see its attractiveness and economic value rising in the near future.

FINAL COMMENTS The cities discussed in this chapter outline a “European” approach to the aging of the population that appears peculiar from the point of view of local institutions and seniors. From the local vantage point of the administrations and institutions, we surveyed different levels of awareness of the possible positive consequences we propose in this book: from cities where this is clearly not an issue to those that welcome seniors as desirable residents, such as for example in the regeneration of waterfronts in Malmö (with a successful inflow) or in Rotterdam (where the inflow of seniors is still actually lower than what was expected). Some cities are finally more pragmatic: provided


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that a growing number of gerontologists point out the correlation between an active aging and a lower incidence of later life diseases, municipalities are actively promoting the physical and intellectual engagements of their senior citizens (this is the case for French cities and Milan, for example). As to European cultural institutions, local officials seem to be less engaged than their American counterparts in involving the senior audience. One reason might be that in Europe cultural institutions receive generous transfers from the governments, so they need to be less active in marketing. Nonetheless, it is clear how seniors are almost everywhere the majority of the audience: among others, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra seems to have the most active approach. Another discourse applies to the educational institutions. Access to lifelong learning for EU seniors has to be done at the local level. Programs at the national level and by the European Union are primarily focused on the acquisition of workplace skills for adult workers. The policy targets are: increasing the supply of skilled labor, reducing poverty, integration of immigrants and reducing the marginalization of early school leavers (Commission of the European Communities, 2007, p. 3). These are, of course, worthy targets, but in a period of limited funding support for senior educational programs that are not related to the workplace have a very low priority and funding for them disappears. Thus the importance of institutions like the University of the Third Age; in Lyon and Bratislava, among others, we had the opportunity to have a closer look at these organizations, typically European. UTAs are public bodies, organized in strong collaboration with the local universities, auto financed thanks to the (usually very low) fees paid by the thousands of senior students enrolled every academic year – and thus relatively independent from local government or European funding. They have a large positive impact on the participants, fostering their intellectual engagement and socialization, and an economic impact on the finances of universities (and on the job opportunities for faculties) and through the several collateral initiatives organized. In a period of cuts in public expenditure for universities in many countries, this is an opportunity worth exploring. From the citizens’ side, visiting the cities allowed us to draft a profile of European seniors. Provided they will be “healthier, wealthier and better educated” in common with seniors in the US, there are still some differences emerging between EU seniors and their US counterparts. First, European seniors have a very different approach to relocation of residence. As we mentioned this is an effect of culture and habits (in the Southern Mediterranean regions in particular), but it is also the consequence of particular regulations of the housing market (like in Geneva or Munich). In the more northern cities we visited, by the way, there is

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some first evidence of a greater number of movements, though only to very attractive areas, recently restored, like the waterfronts mentioned in Malmö, Hamburg or Nancy. In a society less willing to change residence (or where this movement is not possible or economically convenient), the efficiency of the public transportation system is crucial to grant access to amenities, shops and socialization. Most of the European cities are very efficient, sometimes with transportation systems reaching wider regions (and thus a larger number of potential users of urban amenities), such as in Munich or in Copenhagen. Finally, there is a growing number of seniors engaging in voluntary work, serving the city or available for the care of older elderly. This might have a strong (direct and indirect) economic impact on the finances of every city and on the quality of urban life – thus also an impact on the general attractiveness of an urban area. There is not a general model for this issue, as every city seems to be experimenting with different approaches to adult volunteers and the attitude towards non-profit work is still very countryspecific. We will discuss this further after presenting the Italian cities.

NOTES 1. Data for year 2005. Source: Centrum voor Onderzoek en Statistiek (2006). 2. Official documents in Slovenia specify 65 years as an “administrative” limit that sets the access to rights and services for the senior population.

7.

An examination of Italian urban economies

As we noted in our discussion of the OECD’s data in the introductory chapters, in Italy the current and projected senior share of the population is one of the highest among developed countries. This is the effect of the combined trends of low fertility and the increased average life expectancy. For the former, in Italy the share of population aged 0–14 is expected to decrease from 14.1 percent in 2007 to 12.9 percent in 2050; as to the latter, the life expectancy at birth, currently slightly above 78.8 for men and 84.1 for women, is expected to reach 89.5 for women and 84.5 for men in 2050 – in 1920, life expectancy at birth was 54. In 2009 the share of population aged 65+ is 20.11 with a significant increase over earlier decades: the 1980 population aged 65+ was 13.1 percent and slightly higher in 1990, 14.7 percent – after the mid 1990s the Italian population started the fast aging trend we can observe nowadays. It is for this reason that we are including a separate chapter on Italian cities. The demographic situation here is certainly a forecast of what other cities in the EU will, to some degree, experience in the coming decades. The fiscal consequences for the national government and the costs and benefits for the cities can offer a window into the future for these other cities and can demonstrate the urgency of adopting policies today that will generate a consequence that will be closer to the positive benefit that is depicted in Figure 4.3. Italy is a country with well-known regional disparities: the divide is particularly evident between northern and southern regions and is related to economic performance, asset endowments and demography. National averages do not capture these peculiar regional differentiations. The share of population aged 65+, for example, differs from 15.9 percent in Campania to 26.8 percent in Liguria. Piedmont, Friuli–Venezia Giulia, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria are also well above the national average. In some southern regions the 65+ population is at least 18 percent of the total – Puglia, Calabria, Sicily, Sardinia – as is also the case with the Alpine region Trentino–Alto Adige. This is reflected in the differences in the average age of the resident population: in Campania the median age is 39, while in Liguria it is 47 – an eight-year gap between the “younger” 131

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and the “older” regions. Here the north–south gradient is clear, even with some exceptions. In most of the northern regions the mean age is above the national average of 43 (excluding 41 in Trentino); moving to the south, the age decreases in the younger regions in the south (for example, Puglia and Sicily, 41). The average number of children per woman has consistent differences, with some regions above the national average of 1.41, probably thanks to the higher quality of services (1.59 in Trentino–Alto Adige and 1.56 in Valle d’Aosta), others probably with the impact of immigration (1.49 in Lombardy, 1.45 in Veneto and Emilia Romagna). Some southern regions have a low fertility index – this is especially the case for Sardinia (1.12), Molise (1.15) and Basilicata (1.21), where we expect a lower inflow of immigrants from abroad and some impact of younger cohorts of Italians leaving these still marginal regions – but Puglia (1.31) is also below the national average. The fertility rate, thus expressed, shows how the aging of the population will probably also affect the regions that nowadays have a lower percentage of seniors in the population. As we discussed in the introductory chapters, there is a growing concern with regard to the burden of the new demographic structure (and the expected structure in the next decades) on the finances of national and sub-national governments. Furthermore, in the Italian case, the impact is a consequence of three factors acting simultaneously (Golini and Iacoucci, 2003): (1) a demographic change, with the growing number of elderly; (2) a change in the welfare system, with a longer retirement period (but also a longer part of the individual life devoted to education); and (3) a different structure of intergenerational transfers, related to how working age citizens are asked to contribute to the support of other age cohorts. The unprecedented intergenerational transfer in Italy, from the younger to the older cohorts, will hardly be sustainable even in the near future and will necessitate major reforms. A redistribution of the fiscal burden and transfers is a complex political problem since it involves taking away resources from one generation to give more resources to another. The general aging of Italian elites in every sector goes beyond the objectives of this book,2 but we can mention two examples. First, in Italy the mean voter, considered crucial in determining the outcome of elections, is currently 47 years old, and will be 57 in 2035; only a consistent inflow of young immigrants could change this trend – or lowering the minimum age for voting to 16. Second, Italian labor unions are still in a prominent position in political discussion: but the mean age of union members is 44 (4 above the European average), and at least 50 percent of them are not currently working. Moreover, a great number of precarious working positions in which the younger generation is currently employed are still not represented by, or are ignored by, national labor unions. These examples,


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among other factors, suggest that that substantial reforms are very unlikely to be introduced in the near future.

A PROFILE OF ITALIAN SENIORS In Italy, the cohorts of people retired since the last decade constitute a critical “innovation” compared with the previous cohorts of seniors. They spent a great part of their life in the period of economic boom after World War II, participated in mass education and in ever-improving life and health standards. Following a typology proposed by E. Finzi (2010), we could group Italian seniors as: ●

●

●

●

●

●

Poor retirees: 7 percent of people aged 64+, with poor economic and cultural endowments, few social relationships and uncertain health conditions; in this category the males and residents in southern regions are over-represented. Marginal austere: 19 percent of the total, with low income and poor interest in leisure, recreation and socializing activities; a “traditional” approach to consumption that is essentially “austerity” – while they do not lack in social relationships, these tend to be confined within family. They are usually women, who live alone in small and medium-sized towns. Serene retirees: 35 percent of seniors, with medium income, participating mainly in family relationships and occasionally traveling or being involved in voluntary activities; this group is represented especially in the north-eastern and Adriatic regions, and in some central-northern areas of Umbria and Tuscany. Active adults: 28 percent of the total, with medium-high income, well educated and still engaged in professional activities, and with a sophisticated demand for cultural, recreational and travel activities. Wealthy youngsters: 8 percent of seniors, with high level income (but lower education compared to the active adults) and strongly oriented towards leisure, travel, technology and care of health and appearance. Wealthy unhappy: 3 percent of seniors, who have a high income but a low interest with regard to socialization and recreational activities.

If we consider this taxonomy, cities will be populated in the near future by cohorts of seniors with at least 4 out of 10 being strong consumers of leisure and culture, with another 35 percent being occasional consumers that can be better involved thanks to appropriate policies. This could be

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an opportunity for wise medium–long-term policy making at the urban scale. This is confirmed by research published by the Istituto di ricerche sulla popolazione e le politiche sociali of the Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Menniti and Tintori, 2006) on the quality of life of 65+ citizens in six Italian cities (Milan, Mantua, Rome, Teramo, Lecce and Palermo); this research demonstrates a positive correlation between the level of education and the level of active engagement. The other side of the coin shows a senior population facing financial difficulties, especially in the 60–64 cohort, in the phase intermediate between work and retirement, where 41.5 percent of respondents in a survey by Censis and La Repubblica (Censis, 2008) complain of an insufficient income. This share reaches the lowest value in the 65–69 age cohort (24.6 percent), and then stabilizes around 34 percent for 70+. The results of this survey show a clear positive correlation between the (declared) health condition and the availability of a sufficient income: the better the perceived health the lower the share of respondents lamenting an insufficient income (only 16.2 percent report their health condition as “very good”). Controversial for the hypotheses in our research are the results of the section of the survey by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Menniti and Tintori, 2006) devoted to the decisions of seniors regarding mobility and change of residence. While 12 percent of respondents consider their neighborhood not suitable for seniors’ needs, 19 percent consider the city not very livable in (noisy, poor in parks or pedestrian areas), 23 percent lament a lack of safety and 82 percent of respondents refuse to consider the opportunity of relocating. In some cases this is related to wealth, but it is primarily the consequence of a strong affection for their birthplace (or the birthplace of their children) and the desire of living as close as possible to their grandchildren. Furthermore, many seniors living in the largest urban areas have already experienced a major movement in their life, eventually leaving their original region in the south of the country during the Fordist decades. After considerable integration efforts, with a consolidated social network in the new city of residence and loose ties with the area of origin, they are less likely to move elsewhere. The wealthier among them eventually own a second house at the seaside or in the mountains, where they spend long vacations, especially in the summer, preferring it again to their area of origin, to which only a few return at the end of their professional life. When seniors become grandparents this effect is eventually more strong: contemporary Italian society assigns a crucial role to seniors for the care of new generations of children, as almost everywhere in the country the essential services for families are lacking and the traditional breadwinner family organization is giving way to the unavoidable occupation of both parents.


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Moreover, a growing number of young well-educated Italians are moving abroad in search of decent working conditions, from which we could expect some impact on a growing number of seniors, whether couples or singles, who will probably be more flexible in their decision of movement, not being involved in baby care with their children being abroad. According to the Eurostat Labour Force Survey, in 1999 the share of Italian university educated residing abroad was 2.3 percent, compared to 1.1 percent of French, 0.6 percent of Germans and 0.8 percent of Spanish. Data are more consistent for internal migrations, showing a flow of residents from southern to northern Italian regions: in 2004, 120 000 moved from south to north, while only half moved in the opposite direction. What is most interesting from our point of view is that a growing part of Italians leaving the southern regions were in the youngest cohorts with medium (36.3 percent) or high (13.1 percent) educational attainment.

POLICIES IN ITALIAN CITIES The set of services offered by public bodies to the elderly can be summed up in three categories: ● ● ●

services provided in elderly care facilities and rest homes (“residenzialità”); services provided for the aging in place and the care of elderly at their residence (“domiciliarità”); services intended to promote activity, entertainment and socialization.

As our focus is on active seniors and their economic impact on the city, we will consider only the latter: the policies implemented at the urban level for the active and healthy part of the senior population. Law 328/2000 “Legge quadro per la realizzazione del sistema integrato di interventi e servizi sociali” has recently started a redefinition of social policies, distributing functions at the different administrative levels, concurrently with the general decentralization (or “devolution”) of competences in discussion during the last two decades, which entails a reform of a section of the Italian Constitution. Thus, for each level, a specific policy instrument is defined: a national plan for the national level (“Piano nazionale degli interventi e dei servizi sociali”), a regional plan elaborated by each regional government, and a plan for each precinct, an aggregation of municipalities within the provincial level defined according to the provision of social and health care services.

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Table 7.1

Expenditure for elderly care in the Imperia precinct, 2007

Activity

Total expenditure (Euros)

Support of non-self-sufficient citizens: handicap Support of non-self-sufficient citizens: hospices, day-hospital Support of non-self-sufficient citizens: their domicile Active aging Source:

Users

Per capita expenditure

411 276

46

8940

723 021

183

3950

1 332 795

4544

293

95 690

1333

72

Distretto Sociosanitario n. 3, Imperiese, 2008.

According to the first survey of the Italian cities, policies especially targeted to active aging are generally lacking (as are special offices for aging in the administrations), thus the policy for the aged has to be derived from the framework of plans outlined above. We have to recognize that offices and policies for the aged do exist, but generally the policy instruments (and funds) are the same for both the active and the non-self-sufficient aged population. Thus, since the funds are barely enough for the health care expenditures, the policies for active aging are generally under-financed. As an example, in Imperia (a province of the Liguria region), the plan at the district level outlines several policy guidelines, one of which is for active aging (generally socialization activities and support of voluntary organizations involving senior citizens). Those activities involve 1333 people with an average per capita cost of 71.79 euros. In Table 7.1 we compare the expenditure for active aging with other aging-related activities provided by the district. The data summarized in the table demonstrate how the expense is unbalanced towards care-giving, probably underestimating the importance of active aging as prevention of future need. We surveyed similar conditions in other cities in our sample. This is indicative of the general policy approach towards seniors: the regional and local policies mix the active and non-active aged population, generally ignoring the former and concentrating their efforts on the latter. This is in spite of recognition of the link between active aging and higher standards in health quality and a postponement of the moment in which care is needed. It should be noted, however, that in the cities we surveyed the offices for health care and social policies are experimenting with initiatives for active


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aging, which we will survey with some examples later in this chapter. The discussion will start with Liguria and north-western and north-eastern cities; then we will follow the aging “gradient” moving southwards to the Italian “Mezzogiorno” and the islands. In the north-west of the country on the shore of the Tyrrhenian sea, Liguria, the most aged region in Europe, is experiencing a constant decline in population (47 percent of households do not have children), with 40 percent of residents being retired. Here the general aging in place is combined with the very peculiar environment of the region, which has for decades attracted people seeking second homes. This movement especially affects small towns where people from abroad or Italian cities (Turin and Milan in particular) establish their second homes for vacation and then decide to move there after retirement; in the bigger cities of Liguria, however, seniors are generally original to the place. Sketching the trend in a very simple way, when seniors move to Liguria in early retirement years, they enjoy local amenities and provide economic benefits, mostly spent on building recreational activities. As they get older they become no longer self-sufficient and thus they need the intervention of the local health care system. The burden on municipal and regional welfare is much higher for seniors who moved from abroad, who cannot rely on the assistance provided by long-term relationships and relatives. On the other hand, the age in place of elderly citizens in Riomaggiore, one of the famous Cinqueterre towns, has relevant positive effects (Visetti, 2008). With four out of ten residents aged 70+ and an average age of farmers and tenants of 76, the town and its environs are perfectly maintained and attract tourists from all around the world. Seniors living in the town benefit from a wide variety of recreational and cultural activities (conferences, concerts, and so on), and their health is monitored with periodical check-ups performed remotely via mobile phone. Concurrently, the small town has also become attractive to young couples and these changes have reduced the incentive for young residents to abandon their village: a growing number of childbirths have been reported in the last few years. Our survey includes 14 Italian cities, including two, with which we begin, in which the consequences of aging, and the material related to them, is less well developed than is the case in the other cities. Imperia In 2007, 24.91 percent of the resident population of Imperia were 65+, while 12.66 percent were 75+; if we consider a larger area (the precinct, see above) the share of 65+ rises above 26 percent and of 75+ above 13 percent. Here the natural demographic balance is negative, partially compensated by the

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migration balance, with some seniors moving into the area for climatic and environmental reasons (eventually into their second home bought decades ago) and with immigrants looking for job opportunities in the port industries and especially in the expanding medical and elderly care sector. Except for these cases, the seniors living in the city have probably spent all their life there; as we will see, this is likely to be a common situation in almost all the country. As we have seen above in this chapter, in Imperia the projects for active aging are administered by the social policy department, responsible also for the care of those who are non-self-sufficient elderly, handicapped, and so on. With the funds available, the municipality hosts a seniors club, managed by the local seat of an Italian pensioners’ association, AUSER; the club had almost 600 users in 2007 and offered social activities, some conferences, dance and music. The municipality also organizes travel (with participation fees defined according to the income of participants) in collaboration with private tourism agencies. Excursions last between one day and not more than one week, and involve cultural, religious and wine- and food-related visits. The groups travel in the great majority of cases by coach, even when destinations involve a drive of several hours. The role of group-leaders seems to be fundamental, being sometimes a volunteer senior who is known personally by participants. Savona In Savona, the municipality is responsible for the provision of social services and the organization of the precinct. Agencies external to the municipality are generally utilized for the provision of projects for active aging. Senior clubs are managed by the local branch of a pensioners’ association (AUSER). Volunteers organize a wide range of activities, from excursions, to art classes, to exercise and entertainment, and seniors access the clubs and the programs with a very low yearly fee, 6 euros. Summer vacations to the mountains or thermal resorts are organized by tour operators specialized in tourism for seniors. In the city, adult volunteers are active in local associations not connected with the municipality. Their role is recognized and the involvement of seniors as volunteers is promoted in collaboration with local associations: citizens approaching retirement are recruited and involved in training and other activities in the volunteers’ network. Cuneo Cuneo is the capital city of the province of Cuneo, in the Piedmont region. The city is one of the smallest in our survey (approximately 50 000


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inhabitants), with a minor endowment of assets especially in educational institutions (the local universities are actually branches of the University of Turin), but the economic strength of the area is recognized, with a longterm specialization in manufacturing industries (especially in agro-food and mechanical). Moreover, the province has the highest employment rate, the highest participation of women in the workforce in Italy, good immigration flows – some of the most important factors counterbalancing the negative effects of aging. Moreover, the town has a very favorable location, surrounded by mountains and relatively close to the Liguria Riviera and France – unfortunately, the city has very poor transportation connections with the major Italian and French towns. Seniors 65+ are 23 percent of the resident population and one out of three to four citizens (29.2 percent) is in the 60+ cohort: a significant part of the population lives in the city center and in some of the small villages in the surrounding countryside (but still under Cuneo’s jurisdiction). As is the case in other Italian cities, in Cuneo there is poor movement of residents to/from the city center: thus, most of the seniors living in the city have been living there for decades. There is some movement, on a seasonal basis, for those owning a second house at the seaside or in the mountains; the municipality also organizes recreational activities for those spending the summer in the city (“e. . . state in città”). Recently some areas of the city center have been regenerated in order to transform them into a “natural” shopping mall, competing with the growing number of malls in the countryside. With the weekly market in the main square of the city, there is a certain vitality in the streets. In addition to the central areas of the city being within walking distance of most residents, there is also a system of public transportation in the downtown that connects to the surrounding villages. For topographical reasons (the city is localized on the top of a flat hill in the confluence of two river valleys), the availability of public transportation is essential to make the city center accessible for seniors living in the countryside. The support of socialization and active aging dates back to 1970, with the organization of senior clubs – eight in the city central and peripheral districts, managed by the municipality and associations – which are by the way becoming less popular for the new generations of seniors, who are expressing a demand for more sophisticated services and activities. In 1987 the city instituted a “Commission for the Third Age,” aimed at coordinating the activities for seniors managed by the municipality with those promoted by the associations. More recently, the municipality set up an office for seniors, part of the social policies department. What is distinctive about Cuneo, compared to most of the Italian cities we visited, is that participation in all the activities offered by the

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municipality is subject to a substantial fee, whereas in many other cases services are provided for free. While the cultural/educational activities are left to the initiatives of seniors and some associations (there is a University of the Third Age), the activity of the office for seniors is especially targeted on healthy aging and physical activities. Walking groups are organized with a monthly schedule, once or twice a week, with a defined itinerary and a group leader. For more intense exercise, yoga courses are offered with weekly 90-minute classes, and training with one hour twice a week – seniors pay a 105 euros fee for each course. Again as a consequence of a change in the profile of seniors, while thermal vacations are becoming less popular, there is a growing number of participants in organized visits to the rest of Italy and to the countryside. Seniors pay market prices to participate, and even though there is the option of a reduced fee according to income, this option is actually exploited by a minor number of participants. The second main policy stream of the city is related to voluntary activities. In the past, free time and volunteering were devoted to activities organized by and for the church. Now seniors are participating in associations and cooperate with the municipality in a set of activities, from providing support for other senior citizens or for children to initiatives involving volunteers in the management of the city. Notable is the activity of groups of seniors who are in charge of the maintenance of the river park of the city: from gardening to general surveillance to creation of informational materials. Seniors are also “employed” as tour guides for visitors to the city and participate in schools giving classes on history, traditions, and so on. Cuneo, in this aspect, could be compared to the French cities of Lyon and Nancy, where we had information on an ongoing change in the preferences of seniors with regard to their activity as volunteers: less willing to serve in elderly care, they seek activities that can involve them to a greater extent in civil society and keep them intellectually engaged. Milan This very international city is considered the economic capital/ headquarters of Italy. It is the seat of several multinational corporations, and hosts a wide range of industries, from ICT to the well-known fashion and design enterprises. Thus, the city has high comparative levels of GDP per capita and still attracts a young population who attend its seven academic institutions, and high skilled workers from the country and abroad. Not denying the attractiveness of the city, surveys by Urban Audit or by Legambiente et Il Sole 24 Ore (2008) point out serious problems related


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to the high density of population and buildings (and as a consequence the scarce availability of open public space, among the lowest in Europe) and to the pollution, again among the highest in Italy and Europe. Milan has a population of 1.2 million within its municipal boundaries and 3.2 million in the metropolitan area; the economic region of the city is estimated to be of at least 9 million. Population is aging in the city according to the general trend followed by Italian cities, even if the inflow of young students and workers might lower the impact of natural demography; as a matter of fact this is not registered in the official statistics of residents. Aging in place is thus the feature characterizing the city, not far from other Italian cases, as we will explain further in this chapter. In the residential buildings owned by the municipality, seniors are 40 percent of the total residents, whether they had an apartment assigned decades ago or have had access to them more recently according to the selection criteria. Households owning their dwelling are 64.5 percent of the total for citizens aged 50–64 and 66.2 percent for those aged 65–74 (L’Istitute nazionale di statistica (Istat), 2001); families generally tend to stay in the same apartment for as long as possible, thus only a few families move, except those owning a second house. During the 1990s, in the city the number of upper class residences and the buildings devoted to offices grew significantly, as a consequence of the shift of the urban economy toward services. This is reflected in a strong suburbanization trend, with a growth of the residential areas in the suburbs, and in the emergence of suburban districts barely connected to the city by public transportation. Most of the residents are thus commuting by car (with an average journey to work of 27 minutes, according to Urban Audit), while the risk of isolation of seniors living in those neighborhoods is concrete, considering also that among the one-person households in the city, 45 percent are citizens 65+, and most are women. There are some experimental social housing initiatives, where seniors are involved as a tentative intergenerational differentiation of the resident population; they are at a very early stage, but several projects are in progress towards realization, most of them supported by the Housing Foundation of Cariplo, a local bank. The “Associazione MeglioMilano” and the Province of Milan promoted an intergenerational project, trying to give support to seniors living alone and accommodation opportunities for university students in need of accommodation in Milan. Since 2004, over 200 cohabitations have been realized, with a senior offering accommodation in her/his apartment and a student paying a low rent and offering help for housekeeping and courses, and overall reducing the feeling of loneliness of the elderly cohabitant. The success of this initiative, compared with similar ones in other Italian cities, consists probably in how the association supported

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the cohabitation, providing formal and legal assistance, but also following step-by-step the selection of prospective cohabitants, even with the support of a psychologist. The Department of Social Policy of the municipality has a service for the elderly, who are conventionally defined as those citizens aged 60 or more. The prevention initiatives for active aging have been conducted since 1994 with the creation of recreational and socio-cultural centers, 28 in the area of Milan. They are managed by self-organized associations of seniors, with the municipality providing the seats and paying for some of the activities with a yearly expenditure of 600 000 euros; the municipality supports the centers with 15 professionals, in charge of supervising and coordinating the activities with the seniors managing each center. We personally visited one of the centers, in a relatively wealthy neighborhood in the eastern area of Milan, a center with 1083 seniors associated and approximately 300 daily users. The management of the various activities (from dance or language classes, to recreation and entertainment, to the organization of travels and a weekly fiscal assistance service) involves at least 50 elderly volunteers, who take on various responsibilities and services in the center. The activities not supported by the municipality are funded by the revenues of a café, open to users seven days a week and managed by elderly volunteers. Thanks to the variety of the services offered, the center has emerged as a meeting point for seniors from different wealth conditions and education levels; the most active (and probably well educated) have taken over the management of the center, while others are mostly attending leisure activities; we visited their library (with a collection of 3000 books, managed by an 80-year-old volunteer) and during our meeting a group of women was watching an opera DVD in a specially equipped room. The centers in Milan have more than 15 000 users, from 100 to 1500 users per center, with an average of 4500 users daily. In some cases, the establishment of a center has been promoted in the framework of wider regeneration programs, and has offered the opportunity to restore buildings or promote social cohesion in neighborhoods affected by social pathologies, promoting interaction among generations and different ethnic origins. Promoting a better quality of life for seniors in order to postpone their health care needs is explicitly among the targets of the municipality. To show the impact of the centers, the officer of the municipality compared the data for the elderly 75+ at risk during the summer (from the effects of high temperatures) with the elderly users of the centers: only 60 out of 5000 users aged 75+ are considered at risk, versus a general 20 percent rate. It is not clear if the participation at the centers depends on the well-being of seniors or if there is also some positive feedback from


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being actively engaged; what is most impressive is how many seniors are willing to engage in active volunteering, even facing responsibilities and bureaucratic tasks (such as the compulsory insurance or the drafting of the yearly budget). As the definition of the urban region of Milan is not precisely defined, we considered a few initiatives at the provincial level, in particular the network of 98 social centers for seniors, with 42 000 users, part of the ANCESCAO association (Associazione nazionale Centri Sociali, Comitati Anziani e Orti). Also the 98 centers in the Province of Milan are self-organized by senior volunteers, with the support of the provincial government for the seats and other services, and a central office for information based in Milan, also managed by senior volunteers in accordance with an agreement between the Association and the Province. The centers are meeting and socialization points for seniors and promote initiatives from culture to health care (for example yearly health screening and check-ups for the elderly population) to computer classes and assisted internet points. The volunteers we interviewed admit that the profile of the younger generation of pensioners is changing, as the average educational level rises: as computer classes are becoming less popular (new pensioners are already trained on the computer for their former job), meetings and discussion before and after attending theater plays are more frequent and also the entertainment is changing (from the traditional “briscola” to the more fashionable “bridge”). When working in the framework of “satellite” suburban towns, in the periphery of Milan, a center has a positive impact of the quality of life of citizens, providing socialization opportunities (sometimes also intergenerational links) in otherwise “dormitory” districts. According to data from the Chamber of Commerce,3 in 2008 Milan was the seat of 1200 businesses related to cultural activities, most of them (1065) in the movie industry (production, distribution, and so on), 53 theaters and concert halls (10.8 percent of Italy)4 and the others in archives, museums, libraries and those related to the local environment. According to a survey on the audience of the “Piccolo Teatro,” one of the most important drama theaters in Milan, the average spectator is 53 years old, female (65.7 percent), lives in the city (52.3 percent), and attends 6–10 events in a year (45.3 percent are subscribers); almost 70 percent of the audience uses public transportation to get to the theater, with its three venues situated in a very central area of the city. According to the survey, one out of three participants spends the evening out, having dinner after the theater, with an average expenditure of 20 euros. According to the Chamber of Commerce, 6.5 euros on average should be added to this for transportation. The economic impact is evident:

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attendance supporting the theater (almost half are subscribers, thus attending the events quite regularly) and having an indirect economic impact on other local activities with expenditure on goods and services after/before the cultural event. Turin Turin is well known for its history as a one-company town. The city, after being the first capital of Italy, saw a rapid growth in its industrial fabric in the first half of the 20th century, a specialization in the automotive sector (Fiat) and a massive inflow of immigrants. The population of the city grew by 100 000 in the 1960s, with a development of several peripheral districts – and satellite towns – rapidly built in order to host the new residents. This trend stopped after the crisis of the 1970s, but most of the immigrants, having moved there from southern Italy, settled with families and children and, approaching the age of retirement, decided to remain in the city. Turin is facing the aging of a large part of its population; most of the initiatives are thus intended to favor aging in place. The municipality is organized in services devolved to its districts (like many other cities in our Italian survey): while the central administration sets the general guidelines, districts can manage autonomously a financial endowment distributed according to statistical criteria. On top of this the municipality has a Council of seniors (“consulta dei seniores”), a consulting body involving at least 40 associations (pensioners, volunteers, cultural and recreational associations), and an Office “initiatives for the Third Age.” Starting from the projects promoted by the Office, in the “anno d’argento” (“silver year”) framework a set of initiatives are organized, from sports to culture and evenings out. For example, a number of restaurants (listed in a brochure distributed by the municipality) offer fixed price menus (10, 15 and 26 euros) for citizens 60+: for every senior, two persons can join and take advantage of the reduced price regardless of their age. In collaboration with the city’s theaters, cinemas, cultural associations and the Cinema Museum, seniors can have reduced price access to café concertos, movies, music performances and theater plays; events are scheduled yearly and again publicized by the municipality via brochures, the internet and so on. As to cultural events non-specific for seniors, the city has prominent cultural institutions, like the abovementioned Cinema Museum, several theater seasons and the RAI5 Symphony, among others. With Milan, Turin organizes a major initiative, involving both cities, with the organization of a joint live music program, MiTo – Settembre Musica. From a survey by Fondazione Fitzcarraldo, the average age of the audience


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is 46 years of age; 23 percent are 60 years old and over, 20 percent are 50–59 and 21 percent are 40–49. This means that the senior cohort and the upcoming group could count for more than 64 percent of the participants. The educational attainment of the public is that 53.5 percent hold a university or post-graduate degree and 38 percent have completed high school. Clearly this population is quite different from the poorly educated workers who came from the south during the prime years of the automobile industry. It is interesting to note how the different age cohorts could influence the elaboration of the program, with their specific preferences: among older cohorts, classical music and dance are clearly the most popular. Among the initiatives, sports and physical activities have a prominent role, with programs throughout the year, involving the SUISM (“Scuola Universitaria di Scienze Motorie,” a graduate and post-graduate level school preparing sports trainers and professionals in physical sciences), culminating with the “Giochi d’argento” (“silver games”), in their eleventh year in 2008–09. The games have a large number of participants, citizens 60+ being presented with a certificate of their physical ability,6 and include competitive and non-competitive sports, like swimming, chess tournaments, cycling or canoeing, golf or tennis. When it comes to the district level, projects for active aging are dominant in the budget of social services, that nevertheless also have the responsibility for the care of non-self-sufficient elderly, the handicapped, those having chronic diseases, and so on. As we mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, with the greatest part of the budget having to be devoted to “mainstream” services, only a small slice is left over to active aging. Even facing this lack of funds, districts have been able to organize a network of “spazi anziani,” seniors clubs, offering a range of activities (computer classes, reading groups, exercise) and with a growing self-organization by senior users, women in particular. Moreover, in collaboration with the associations of volunteers, aging in place is favored with services of housekeeping, maintenance of apartments owned or rented by elderly citizens, and laundry. The possibility of a decent aging in place is made harder for many seniors who cannot rely on relatives living in the city (for example when their family network is in their town of origin) and the unavailability of their children. Even the decision to hire a professional caregiver may be difficult, or the management of everyday shopping. In order to face these specific needs, some associations (in particular the association of former Fiat and Telecom Italia employees, two companies with an established presence in the city) promoted a project involving almost 70 seniors selected and appointed as “tutors” for a number of non-self-sufficient elderly citizens.

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Venice Venice is one of the major tourist destinations in Europe, but beyond this tourist function the city has its indigenous population, living in the most popular central neighborhoods, but also in the Lido area and in the districts on the mainland (Mestre in particular). In 2006, citizens aged 65+ were 25.7 percent of the population: 25.5 percent of them lived in the historical center; the number of 65+ vs. children 0–14 was well above the national average: 2.26 in Venice, compared to 1.41 for Italy and 1.39 for the region in which it is situated, Veneto. Seniors in Venice tend to remain in the city and spend most of their time there: among other things, most of them do not own a car or even drive, since it is unnecessary for those who live in the historical center. In addition, we should consider those who bought an apartment or moved from other Italian cities and from England, Germany and the USA, who have the highest impact on the real estate and related industries. We surveyed in particular the districts Lido and Mestre: the impact of tourism and the peculiarity of the historical center make it hardly comparable with other cities in our sample. The Lido area, made popular by the “Festival del Cinema,” grew in the 1960s as a vacation area due to its long sand beach on the Adriatic: from the outset, the policy target has been that of transforming the area into an elite holiday destination. Apart from tourists, resident seniors are mostly indigenous. The municipality, organized in its sub-municipal districts, promotes cultural activities, free for senior citizens: classical music performances, conferences, reading and writing classes, excursions, dance. The local seat of the AUSER pensioners’ association is very active, promoting among other things the University of the Third Age, with the usual range of classes, from dance to computer, from languages to handcrafts. The interaction with the amenities offered by Venice is more evident when reading the program of a history of art course, with guided tours and conferences at the “Biennale.” Seniors pay a fee for every class they decide to attend: for example for the 2008–09 academic year, the history of art course is 50 euros for 27 hours and the computer course is 140 euros for 24 hours. Most of the excursions programmed for this year have also had a cultural target: seniors primarily visited art exhibitions, from “Out there. Architecture beyond building” to Palladio and Turner. The importance of seniors as an audience for cultural institutions is clear in this city. In Venice we had the opportunity to interview the manager of an important local theater – the Teatro Goldoni, in the historic district. Data on the audience is not available for tickets sold at the box office, while it is possible to classify subscribers according to the age cohorts. Subscribers are seen as very important, as they assure funding and their


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presence to a cycle of plays. A subscription costs from 253 to 286 euros; young subscribers can access a reduced fare (182 euros), but only approximately 3 percent of subscribers are under 29 years of age. From the box office, it is possible to distinguish among full price tickets (15 percent of total), young (3 percent) and free entrance (1 percent); the rest of the tickets sold on average are reduced fee, and according to the management of the theater at least 80 percent of them are seniors. The theater also has promotional initiatives for the Lido and Mestre districts, with a reduced price ticket for both the play and the transportation: again, about 80 percent of users are aged 60+. Events are also organized in the districts: in Lido, among the cultural initiatives, the “Lidoteatro” theater season, in its 20th season, presents a program of local professional and amateur companies, with about 250 senior subscribers. Volunteer associations are very important in Venice: they are active in social matters (from the support of children and families to care of the elderly), but also in entertainment and culture (for example the preservation of traditional local handcraft work). The municipality, through its social policy department, has initiatives to promote the formation of networks among non-profit organizations. In all the districts of the city offices have been opened to the citizens to inform them on the services offered by volunteers, and the activity of specific associations. Moreover, prospective volunteers can visit the offices and be informed on the opportunities to be involved in voluntary activities. What is interesting from our point of view is that seniors are recognized for being a prominent part of the volunteers; the managerial positions, for example, are almost exclusively managed by retired citizens. Padua Padua is a mid-size town in the Veneto region, with one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the country. The city attracts a vital young population, which nevertheless does not appear in the official statistics7: the number of 65+ vs. children 0–14 grew from 1.99 in 2004 to 2.03 in 2007 – and this quota is higher in the central districts (2.62), where there is also the highest number of single-person households (53.5 percent of the total, vs. 40.7 percent average in the municipality). According to a survey by Fondazione Zancan (2007), during 2005 the municipality spent 22 million euros for social policies, about 104 euros per capita. What induced us mostly to including Padua in our survey has been the existence of a specific office for active seniors: the “Ufficio attività creative per la terza età” (Office of creative activities for the Third Age), with a yearly endowment

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of approximately 1 million euros, not including the cost of the staff. The initiatives for seniors include: ●

●

●

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two-week summer vacations (mountain, lake, seaside), with 3000 participants every year; exercise, physical activities and sport classes for seniors (swimming pools, working groups, orienteering, aqua gym, exercise in the park, and so on); in addition, special groups are organized for prevention or care of specific age-related diseases; cultural, artistic and handcraft laboratories and classes, with meetings once or twice per week, exploiting various spaces of the municipality when not used for their main scope (for example primary schools in the afternoon); in various areas of the city, seniors have the opportunity to rent a small field (40 square meters) and grow produce and flowers by themselves. This is a common initiative in most of the Italian, and many European, cities: what is interesting in the case of Padua is that the municipality provides the seniors with specific training on farming and ecological matters – and then brings young students from neighboring schools for a visit to the fields; intergenerational activities: for example, seniors are involved in the schools’ activities as storytellers – again, this is also found in other cities, but in Padua participants have the opportunity of attending a training program on reading techniques by a professional actor.

The experiences of the staff of the Office confirm the link between education and income and cultural consumption: while the lower educated are largely attending excursions and entertainment activities, the middle class, more educated, has an active approach to culture and in the wide range of activities offered in the city might choose those organized by the municipality for their lower costs. There is still a minor part of the population, those with the highest income level, that is generally not interested in the initiatives of the municipality: some of them might be in the “wealthy unhappy group” (see p. 133), others may express a more sophisticated demand for culture. Seniors in Padua are also involved in voluntary activities serving the municipality, such as surveillance in museums and parks and maintenance of green areas. Workers–volunteers are assigned to their district, in order to strengthen the involvement with their neighborhood: while in most cities the involvement of seniors is totally on a voluntary basis, in Padua volunteers’ work is recognized and they are offered, for example, a free swimming course or free participation in a summer vacation offering. All residents in Padua of 55 years or older have access to a “silver card”


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with reduced prices for selected services and retail, such as a reduced price at the movies on specific days of the week or a 10 percent discount on taxi rides. The availability of public transportation is very important for seniors when they become less confident in driving, even in a small-sized town like Padua. Data on the monthly tickets for public transportation in the city reflect the demographic composition of the city users (Comune di Padova, 2007): out of 16 830 subscriptions in 2007, one-third are students, one-third are ordinary adults – and one-third are seniors. Udine Udine is the main city of Friuli, one of the two geographical regions composing the Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a self-autonomous region in the north-east of Italy (see Trieste below). The city is in a strategic position, close to the Alps (and the border with Austria) and the northern Adriatic shore with some popular destinations for summer tourism. The area surrounding Udine has many of the traditional features of the “Third Italy”: an “industrialized countryside” of small and medium-size enterprises and industrial districts specialized in agro-food, furniture, wood and metal handcraft, among others. The southern area of the region, now progressively oriented towards tourism, was involved in industrialization programs during the years of Fascism, first, and again in the 1960s, with larger firms in paper production, metal fabrication and shipyards. Farms in the countryside and wine production complete the picture of still one of the wealthiest regions of the country. The resident population in Udine is slightly below 100 000: 24.5 percent of them are 65+ and 12.4 percent are 75+; an interesting figure in the city is the high share (15.47 percent) of 65+ citizens living alone. Immigration is counterbalancing the aging trend: in 2006, more than 60 percent of migrants were in the 15–39 age cohorts (Comune di Udine, 2006) and the average age of foreigners is only 30.37 years. The impact is more clear if we consider the share of foreigners in the total population for specific age intervals: immigrants are 15 percent of the citizens under 15 years of age and are 17 percent of those in the 15–39 interval. The attractiveness of the city for young immigrants could be a key factor in moderating the negative effects of the aging of its indigenous population. Due to the large number of single elderly living in the city, the municipality is active in proposing initiatives to prevent the isolation of elderly citiziens. “No alla solitUdine” (No to loneliness) is a project connecting the municipality, the public health care and social services and the voluntary associations for the management of a toll-free number providing services such as: information about social and health care services; delivery of

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medical certificates and drugs; daily courses and home maintenance; legal consultancy, and so on. As the services are provided by associations of professional volunteers, they are provided at a minimum cost for the administration, while the results have a large impact: in 2006 the office managed 2710 dossiers, 95 percent of them successfully executed, in 2007 the dossiers managed were 3435. As with many other Italian cases, active seniors have a prominent role in the associations, being the largest (and most affordable) part of the volunteers. Beyond the regular cultural programs organized in the city, with the leading institutions of the “Castello” for the exhibitions and the local theater, there are special initiatives during the summer (“Udinestate”). During the summer a program is organized that is specifically for seniors (“Bell’età”): three locations in the city have been chosen as meeting points for a program including movies, dance evenings and concerts with conversations with the performers. These initiatives benefit the citizens offering them opportunities to spend evenings out, offer an attraction for tourists visiting the area and keep the streets vital while the city is emptied during the summer holidays: a positive economic impact is possible, even if never measured, especially on cafes, restaurants and so on. For the audience of cultural events in Udine, we can refer to a specific survey (Bortoluzzi et al., 2006) on a cycle of plays by Jan Fabre presented in May, 2005. The survey was conducted with questionnaires distributed to the audience at the end of each performance. As to the socio-demographic aspects of the audience, the educational attainment was related to the decision to be consumers at a cultural event: at least 51 percent of the audience held a university or graduate/professional degree. While the senior cohort was less important than in other analyses we surveyed (10.9 percent of the audience was 55+), the cohorts that will be seniors in the next decades represented one-third of the audience (33.6 percent were in the 40–54 interval). It is clear how the participation in a cultural event was the opportunity for a longer visit or was part of a larger tourism/cultural activity. One-third of the audience traveled from outside the region to attend the event: out of those, roughly 5 percent planned a 1–3 days or more stay. The economic impact on local commerce and tourism industries might be substantial. As to socialization programs, the most developed initiative is the creation of the seniors club, where seniors can gather and participate in recreational or cultural activities or just socialize. In some cities (see Turin above or Bari below) the municipality provides one or more locations (depending on the size, accessibility and geographical characteristics of the city) and appoints third-sector organizations to manage the center and organize the activities. In Udine the “Salotto d’Argento” (“Silver living room”) center evolved towards a self-organized autonomous management when a group of strongly committed seniors emerged with their own proposals. Here an


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association of seniors constituted for the purpose has been appointed for the management of the club. Even if it is still at a very preliminary stage, the initiative seems to provide the best results in promoting the involvement of seniors while minimizing the expenditure of the municipality, which can in fact rely on volunteering by seniors themselves. The senior club in Udine offers cultural activities (for example courses of foreign languages, music, drawing) and opportunities for exercise or other physical activity (for example dance, swimming); seniors also use it to organize one-day excursions and vacations. Moreover, the center is a stable meeting point, open every weekday, where even the less socially active senior could have an alternative to spending the entire day at home, maybe watching television. The access to the center and related activities is usually free of charge: some cultural initiatives may ask participants for a contribution that, according to our interviews, does not restrain the participation of senior citizens. “Salotto d’Argento” in Udine has currently more than 1000 users. Trieste Trieste is situated in the most eastern region of Italy, was a theater of conflict during World Wars I and II (to mention only the last century), and became part of Italy only in 1954. Because of its border location and it being one of the largest ports in the northern Adriatic, the city has a deep cosmopolitan character, with a mix of ethnic and religious groups, among whom the most important are still the Slovenian, the Jewish and the Orthodox communities. More recently, after World War II, the city was the first destination for the Italian refugees leaving the regions assigned to Yugoslavia (Istria and Dalmatia): as a consequence of this inflow, in 1956 the city reached its demographic peak with more than 285 000 inhabitants. In the last decades the trend has been the opposite – in 2004 the population was 210 000, with a 0.7 percent average yearly loss in the decade 1994–2004. But two figures brought Trieste to our attention: according to a survey by Fondazione Civicum (2009), in 2007 the city had the highest share of 65+ and 85+ residents among all Italian cities (28 percent and 4.4 percent respectively) and at the same time the highest expenditure in services provided by the municipality to its elderly citizens (433 euros for every 65+ and 460 euros for every 85+).8 One of the most interesting initiatives we found in Trieste was the creation of the “Marenzi” center. A disused building owned by the municipality (previously a day-care center) was restored and is now used as a seniors club and meeting point for the neighborhood. After the failure of a public competition, open to non-profit organizations, for the management of the

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center, use of the building was given to four associations for the purpose of starting a project for seniors, with the technical assistance of the municipality. The center opened in the summer of 2004, with the four associations and a group of 20 volunteers, with a rich program of activities and an average daily attendance of 40 users. The center had 137 particpants in 2006 (Comune di Trieste et al., 2007), 40 of whom actively engaged in the management of the activities, which are concentrated on three general targets: the associations and organizations active in the district (for example with intergenerational meetings); the seniors living in the district (meals, art classes, handcraft laboratories); the city, with the proposition of the beneficial model of the center and the availability of trained volunteers for the start-up of analogous experiences. The regeneration of the center suggests the role (even if indirect) of seniors in the revitalization of areas of the city; when involved in the management senior volunteers can be a powerful resource for the city and have a positive direct impact. While more than 9 percent of the families in the city are senior couples, in 2004, 37.7 percent of citizens 65+ in Trieste were living alone. Many cities face the problem of informing seniors on initiatives and opportunities. Even if the share of the aged population using computers and the internet is constantly growing (also thanks to courses organized by regions, which usually provide huge contributions to seniors to help them buy a computer), municipalities frequently print and distribute brochures and use local press to disseminate information. Trieste is experimenting with a free-toll phone number seniors can ring up for information on events and initiatives, but also when looking for medical or legal suggestions, or even when they feel lonely and just want to talk with somebody. Here the Province of Trieste promotes the initiative in the summer months from June to September, in a wider framework of programs involving the seven municipalities of the small province (“e. . . state insieme”). A private body managed the call center, while the Province promoted a survey of at least 500 cultural and entertainment initiatives organized by both local administrations and nonprofit associations. With ongoing changes affecting the traditional Italian family model (with two or three generations living very close to each other), the loneliness of elderly citizens is a growing problem for many cities, especially in the summer. A simple phone call might help in bringing seniors citizens to the events, socialize, make the streets more vital, with all the positive effects we put forward in the introductory chapters. Bologna Bologna is well known for its long tradition as a university town. The city is in one of the most economically vital areas of the country, with a strong


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industrial fabric and is a crucial infrastructural node for the north of the country and for the high speed connections between Milan and Rome. Infrastructural connections have been the opportunity for a major project which is reshaping the city, divided by the railway and the station, which is now being restored and will enable the creation of a new centrality, with a project by Arata Isozaki and others. Close to the station is the newly built seat of the municipality, with three modern buildings where all the general offices of the city management have been concentrated, while recently most of the functions have been decentralized in nine districts. The local university attracts students from the countryside and other Italian regions; nevertheless, students are not counted as permanent residents of the city and most of them are concentrated in the very central area, close to the University and often renting apartments that would not be considered acceptable by residents. Thus, on December 31 2008, 26 percent of residents were 65 years of age or more (almost 100 000 citizens) and 8.9 percent were age 80 or more (a cohort which is expected to grow in the next years, with two-thirds of them being women), and elderly citizens were distributed almost equally in the neighborhoods, with a higher absolute number in Navile, in the northern area of the city and Savena, in the south-east. If we follow the definition of city center/periphery given by the municipality,9 it becomes clear that there is not a concentration of seniors in the center; instead, the 65+ cohort seems to have a greater presence, in relative terms, in the peripheral districts (27.5 percent in the periphery vs. 21.7 percent in the center in 2008). When we compare data for the nine districts in 1995 and 2005, dividing the seniors cohorts into 65–79 and 80+, two different but compatible trends could be pointed out: (1) a strong decrease in the 65–79 cohort with fast growth in the 80+ cohort for 1995; (2) a slow growth in both groups for 2005. The former characterizes most of the districts (six of nine: Navile, Porto, Saragozza, San Vitale, Santo Stefano, San Donato), and suggests the aging in place of residents, without intergenerational substitution, which is partially caused by the overall demographic structure, but also by net outmigration of young pensioners; the latter is typical of three districts (Borgo Panigale, Savena, Reno), where both cohorts are growing, with a faster growth for the 80+ cohort. As in other Italian cities, the general framework for the public provision of services for seniors is stated in the “Piano di zona per la salute e il benessere sociale,” which is renewed every three years and is now in the 2009–2011 phase. When dealing with the elderly, the Plan clearly distinguishes between the provision of health care (or economic support) to dependent aged citizens and the promotion of healthy and active aging. For the former, the municipality itself is in charge of assistance and

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support, organized by centralized offices. The latter, delegated to neighborhoods, is targeted at promoting the active participation of seniors in public and social life. The municipality thus supports a number of cultural and leisure activities, organized through the activity of social centers, the University of the Third Age, the church and so on. In the city, seniors clubs have been active since 1974 and today they number 35, distributed in all the districts and self-managed by associations of seniors volunteers (Ancescao), while districts are in charge of the general administration. The “Piano di zona per la salute e il benessere sociale” then promotes the participation of seniors in cultural activities and volunteering. Among the Italian cities we visited, Bologna is the most active in promoting healthy aging through a common framework of initiatives intended to foster the physical activity of seniors. The city is in fact the national coordinator of the Healthy City Network, promoted by the World Health Organization to diffuse local healthy living policies, integrating prevention, education, socialization and the protection of the environment. The leading project is the week of “Percorsi del cuore e della memoria,” during which citizens are invited to join a set of outdoor initiatives intended to train both body and mind: walks, bicycle rides and dance, with meetings, conferences, memory training and so on. As a follow-up of the week, in two urban parks, the municipality prepares paths equipped with signs with suggested memory training and exercises. The initiative has been an opportunity to make accessible to all several green areas of the city; moreover, 200 seniors have been further involved in a health screening program in collaboration with the local medical university. The conjunction of the cultural/social aspects with the health care ones begins with a two-day program of courses, seminars and conferences, “L’età dell’oro,” organized by the municipality and local associations with the support of private sponsors (mainly local enterprises, wholesale and retail sellers and a bank foundation). “Le età dell’oro” is also the title of a book of 80 pages published by the municipality, the local public health care district and several other sponsors and organizations, containing suggestions for healthy aging and a directory of initiatives, associations, facilities and courses available in the city for the physical and cultural activity of seniors. The book has been distributed free to the senior citizens in the city. Florence In some areas, typically well known vacation areas such as the Italian Liguria riviera or the countryside in Tuscany, seniors are leading the restoration of old towns and fostering some economic sectors – eventually


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overcoming the depopulation of residents and the abandonment of marginal areas. In other cases, even if their economic impact is not direct, they are considered to be crucial in preserving the life quality in certain urban areas. This is the case of the Sorgane neighborhood in Florence. In the 1960s this was a peripheral expansion area for the working class and middle class, but with very high building standards for apartments. In 1966 Florence was hit by serious flooding and Sorgane was one of the main destinations of people evacuated from the center – citizens more marginal or belonging to lower classes, as the wealthier moved to their own apartments and those richer in social networks found hospitality elsewhere. This brought a period of difficult integration, lasting a couple of decades: in the meanwhile old and new residents aged, their children grew up in the neighborhood and naturally developed a feeling of belonging. This led to a general regeneration and in the most recent years the district has become an area desired by prospective resident families, thanks to the high standards in safety and maintenance of the public space. Seniors have a prominent role in this process as “sentinels” for keeping the neighborhood safe and as actors in a social network providing mutual help and support, even helping individuals and families economically. The problem here is the failure to introduce a concrete intergenerational change – the actors involved in these social networks are actually seniors in almost all cases, while the commitment of younger generations seems to be lacking, although recently a first attempt at an intergenerational project was implemented for the maintenance of green areas managed by the municipality. The average resident of the district is characterized by a very high participation rate in local associations, some with the church; consumers’ cooperatives have a central role in the network, not only for retail, but also for promoting voluntary or cultural initiatives. Moreover, local associations organize a wide range of entertainment and socializing activities: sports tournaments, vacations, and so on. This is considered to be typical of central-northern Italian regions like Tuscany or EmiliaRomagna and has been described among others by Putnam’s (2002) work on social capital. In addition to the average seniors, during our interview there emerged a “freelance” seniors group, with a higher income and education: former teachers, professionals, physicians and so on. This is the group animating and supporting cultural associations and the University of the Third Age, with the highest cultural consumption and available for volunteering, for example in schools, helping the integration of immigrant children and families. In our survey Florence and Venice are cities inundated with international tourists: the historical district of those cities is increasingly populated around the clock by visitors – with all the consequent noise, difficult accessibility by car, and so on. There is no surprise

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if seniors in Florence, even if wealthy, decide to live in a peripheral, more quiet area: a quite good transportation system allows them to visit the city center. . . even if most of them admit that they travel there only if really necessary! The projects aimed at favoring the socialization and active participation of seniors are also promoted by the municipality, organized in its districts at the sub-municipal level. The main actors are, as in other cases, seniors club, where cultural, recreational (for example daily excursions or vacations) and voluntary activities are promoted. Among other projects, in Sorgane, the “PASS” project is an internet point for seniors, with assistance provided by a tutor. As in many other cases, this is interesting for the multi-level character of the initiative – the project has been proposed by an association of seniors (Ancescao, active at the national level) in cooperation with the municipality (the initiative is hosted by a senior club) and financed by the Regional government of Tuscany. Associations are also involved in the organization of specific recreational and socialization initiatives, such as special events for Christmas and New Year’s Eve, programs for the summer, including initiatives especially organized in the seniors clubs in order to host the elderly citizens who spend the summer in the city. When cities are devolved in districts, civil servants’ offices at the district level are organized according to the municipal level, with different departments in charge, for example, of urban planning or the environment. While the initiatives for the elderly (from active seniors to the health care) are under the social policies department (which are frequently governed, at the district level, by “commissions”), it is recognized how the positive collaboration among commissions is crucial. During our meeting in Florence we had access to the programmatic activities of the social policies commission, where it is stated how many initiatives have been organized involving, among others: culture, sport, environment, education, youth and territorial policies. Bari The capital city of region Puglia, Bari is one of the most vital cities in southern Italy, having a longlasting specialization in professional services, commerce, and being the seat of a large trade fair (“Fiera del levante”) and of two important academic institutions (Università di Bari and Politecnico di Bari). In recent years the city has undertaken a significant program of transformation, in both the built and social structures. As to the former, an intense utilization of European funds (from the Urban project), has made possible the regeneration of the historical center (“città vecchia,” facing the sea) – a district of narrow picturesque roads formerly quite


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unsafe and inaccessible but now attractive for residents and tourists, with cafés, restaurants and shops. The rest of the city’s waterfront, a long line of buildings from the 1930s, completes the scenery of the city. The old historical center, with the waterfront area and the late 19th century area at the back of it (“Murat”) constitute the city’s downtown, the location of many commercial and governmental offices and populated by a wealthy population of professionals and storekeepers. Along the Adriatic shore the city then spans to the west with the semi-peripheral “Libertà” district, more popular, and areas occupied by the fair and seats of manufacturing enterprises; and east to the city center, the “Madonnella” district, multiethnic, with a strong presence of immigrants and several social pathologies. With regard to the social transformation of the city, it is worth mentioning the election (22 June 2009) of Mayor Emiliano, a former magistrate, elected by a left wing coalition and supported by personalities from the civil society – many of them actually involved in policy making (foremost of them is the elaboration of the Strategic Plan for Bari and a wider surrounding area of several municipalities). The demographic situation in the city with regard to seniors is that 24.26 percent of citizens were 60+ in 2005, although the regional figure is slightly lower. What is more interesting for the years to come is that, according to data from the municipality, 28.9 percent of the resident population in 2007 were in the 40–59 cohort – the seniors of the next decade. As in many other Italian cities in our survey, the main policy option implemented to favor active aging and socialization is the organization of seniors clubs. In the city, the first experiment started in 1993, recovering buildings discarded by the army. From a model with a single, large club in the city center, the recent decentralization of services organized by the municipality is promoting the opening of centers in the various districts (the second center has been opened recently in the “Libertà” district). This is intended to offer a meeting point close and accessible that could allow the elderly residents to maintain the social networks developed at the neighborhood level. As to the responsibility for activities/organization and the management of the centers, seniors clubs in Italy follow two general models: (1) a quasi self-organization of the center by senior volunteers, with the municipality providing the seat and some financial endowment, or (2) a fully organized service provided by offices of the municipality or by mandate from a private organization. In Bari, seniors clubs follow the latter: the two centers are managed by a cooperative (after a public competition), with the municipality providing only the building. As an example, the financial endowment for the management and the activities in the new senior club is approximately 42 000 euros per year. Citizens 65+ have free access to all the activities, which include recreation, handcraft, singing,

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music classes, and so forth. In Bari, we visited a seniors club with a sewing laboratory with classes and among other things they produced dolls which were then sold to support a Unicef project. The center also provides, on a weekly basis, some medical services and legal/fiscal consultancy. The University of the Third Age in Bari is self-organized by the association (AUSER) and has considerable potential. In the city the University has four locations; the last, established four years ago in a peripheral district, started with 60 students and now has more than 220. Classes are given in public schools’ buildings (high schools, and so on) and sometimes the University’s classes have been included in the “standard” program of some school. Students pay 68 euros per year plus 20 euros if they want to be involved in physical activities; teachers are only volunteers, but a small payment is offered to the younger among them. Subjects span a very large set of themes, from graphology to memory techniques to conferences on Dante Alighieri or the recent economic reforms of the government; language classes or courses related to the main issues of current public debate are the most popular. As for the participation of seniors in the wider cultural life of the city, in Bari we have data on the local drama theater and on a cultural initiative of the municipality. The local theater, Teatro Piccinni, is a vital cultural institution, offering an attractive program and related activities. Here the impact of seniors is less evident – and this group has no specific reduced fee, as the explicit policy of the theater is directed towards the involvement of future generations. According to the managers of the theater, 10 percent of the audience are 20–30 years old, 20 percent are 30–40 while approximately 25 percent are 50 years old or more. The impact of seniors is lower than elsewhere, but if we consider that 45 percent of the audience is in the 40–50-year-old cohort, we realize how seniors will be crucial in a decade or two. The municipality organizes a cycle of events to bring live music to all the city’s districts, especially in the periphery (in the initiative, “Musica in periferia”), using schools, local auditoriums, even hospitals, as sites for performances. For this cycle of 54 events the participation was at least 6000. Similar to the data from the theater, a minor part of the audience (10 percent approx) is in the seniors cohort; but at least one-third of the audience is already in the 45–65 group – thus the foreseeable impact in the next years for these citizens moving into older age groups. Palermo Palermo has fewer seniors than any other city we surveyed: the population 65+ was 16.4 percent in 2007, and this figure will not grow rapidly in the next decade, as the 55–64 group represents only 11.9 percent of


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the resident population (Mulè, 2007). While the fertility rate in the city can support a natural demographic growth, the city is suffering from a constant migratory outflow, with a loss of more than 6400 citizens who moved elsewhere in Italy in 2007. A portion of those are simply moving to the municipalities within the metropolitan area (56 percent are moving to another municipality within the province of Palermo (Città di Palermo, 2007)), but the movement to the northern Italian regions discussed in the introduction of this chapter has a continuing impact. Most of the initiatives promoted by the municipality tend to support seniors with a lower income: vacations, for example, are available for citizens (55+ or 60+ according to the program) with low incomes and favoring those living alone. Seniors can access all of the activities of the social centers for no fee, on the model of seniors clubs in the other cities: one managed by the municipality in Villa Tasca, others in the eight districts of the city, financed by the municipality with yearly projects. Citizens 55 years old (women) or 60 years old (men) and more, can apply for “work integration”: after a selection, seniors are hired by the municipality and work for a small hourly wage in libraries, elderly care institutions and schools for a maximum of two hours per day and 150–180 hours per period. As the municipality selects the candidates according to their income and family, we suspect that this initiative is more intended to increase the income of pensioners than it is to support their active involvement in society. In Palermo we have a survey on the audience of the local theater, Teatro Massimo, from a customer satisfaction analysis conducted in 2001 (Morelli, 2002). Data show how 48 percent of the audience is 50 years old or more (28 percent is in the 51–65 cohort; 20 percent in the 65+ cohort); on the other hand, the younger public (19–28 years old) is only 17 percent of the total. Similarly with what was found for the Milan–Turin initiative, approximately 50 percent of the audience hold a degree and 40 percent attained high school; more than 20 percent of the public are teachers, 18.5 percent are professionals and almost 19 percent are retired persons. The number of graduates is expected to rise in the near future, as is the share of retirees, thus the impact of this older and well-educated cohort will be greater. Cagliari The capital city of Sardinia, Cagliari, follows the general trend of the region with a very low fertility rate (as we mentioned, Sardinia has the lowest fertility rate in the country). The younger generations, those with the highest educational attainment in particular, face serious difficulties when looking for a job in the region: when they do not move to other

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Italian regions or abroad, they live for a longer period in their parents’ home, get married later and have fewer children as a natural consequence. The number of foreign immigrants (1.53 percent in 2004) is low in comparison with other cities and does not have its usually positive impact on this statistic. While Cagliari still has an important manufacturing and service industry related to its port, the city (and the region) is seriously affected by a poor internal infrastructure endowment and is penalized by a relative isolation from the rest of Italy. This also has some effects on the older generations when their children move elsewhere on the island or outside Sardinia. The city is organized at the sub-municipal level in six districts, two of which have a further division of two sub-districts. The department of social policies in the city has the role of coordinator (as seen in the case of Bologna, for example), with the initiatives being implemented at the district level. Among the different areas of the city, two are particularly interesting for their demographic profile. In downtown is the historical center, where the average senior is proudly independent and spends all of his/her life there. The built environment varies in quality and in levels of maintenance, according to the income of the owners: citizens with a wide array of incomes live in this district. Moreover, the apartments are not always suitable for seniors or desirable for younger prospective residents: old buildings having no elevator or garages, with parking not easy in a central pedestrian area of narrow streets. More peripheral, the fourth district is populated by a considerable group of senior citizens. The neighborhood was a residential expansion area of the city built in the late 1950s, with high standards of apartment, inhabited by wealthy citizens. Nowadays, seniors living in the district have more sophisticated demands, including cultural activities. At the same time, the area is registered as the one with the highest incidence of lone elderly and age-related diseases. Looking at the city and the municipalities surrounding it in its larger urban area, there is a constant movement of population from Cagliari to the smaller neighboring towns. Despite some support programs from the municipality, young couples actually prefer moving to the peripheral districts looking for cheaper apartments: it is not uncommon to see their parents also moving outside the city to live closer to their children. The strategic plan for the larger urban area foresees huge transformations in the city, in the port area and the waterfront in particular where there will be room for new residential and service (retail, sport, entertainment) buildings: also the availability of some areas previously used by the Navy will offer new opportunities. The specific location of the new apartments is still not determined – and there is no mention of the senior population at all. As to the ongoing projects, the city is now promoting


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the regeneration of the built environment on a smaller scale (for example restoring squares or single monuments, in the historical center in particular); in the meantime regeneration is also promoted at a social level, fostering the vitality of neighborhoods with fairs, antique markets and so on, in all the city’s districts. Seniors in Cagliari are a very active audience for cultural and leisure activities organized by the municipality and the districts: from events organized during the religious celebrations to the Third Age Olympic games. Events organized by the administration or local associations are publicized to the prospective seniors by the districts, using general means (that is press releases) but also contacting individually a number of citizens included in lists compiled for this specific purpose. In collaboration with the local public transportation authority, the participation of seniors is facilitated by providing specific transportation services. Finally, all 65-year-old citizens receive a “senior card” which grants access to a network of cultural institutions and shops where seniors can have reduced prices and other facilitations.

CONCLUDING REMARKS There are three issues we would like to highlight after discussing the Italian cities. The first clearly differentiates the Italian sample from most of the other cities we visited and is related to the movement of seniors and the impact on the housing market. In Italy there is traditionally a very limited movement of residence during a lifetime: this is related to the high percentage of households owning their house and is probably also an effect of culture and habits. Only a small proportion of seniors actually change their residence in later years and movements might interest only those owning a second house (but not registered formally as a change of residence) or seniors from abroad choosing to spend their later life in Italy. Nevertheless, in many cities, such as Florence or Cagliari, seniors have a prominent role in preserving the built environment and the safety of their neighborhood, eventually affecting the attractiveness of certain areas of the city. A second issue has to do with the role of seniors in the non-profit and voluntary organizations. In many cases we have been told that voluntary associations could not survive without elderly citizens. Clearly pensioners have more time than others that could be devoted to voluntary work: but beyond this, there is a diffused desire to be involved in society – and this is demonstrated by a growing interest in those initiatives involving seniors in the management of their town, as we saw in Cuneo or Padua, for example. Another aspect of the involvement of seniors emerges when they

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become active in promoting initiatives for other adults, as in the management of seniors clubs in cities like Udine and Turin. In both these aspects the economic impact could be wider than expected. Third, the participation of seniors in cultural events has been evident in most of the cities we visited. Their importance in the financial support of cultural institutions emerged to a larger extent than we expected. Moreover, they are an affordable audience because of the large number of free initiatives promoted by the municipalities to vitalize the cultural life of the city: a large audience that contributes to the vitality of the streets and makes the city more attractive for residents and tourists. We also see great potential in the University of the Third Age, which will probably see in the near future the participation of seniors with a growing educational attainment – thus having more sophisticated demands and interests and eventually willing to pay higher fees. What is more striking is that we could not find any connection with the local universities: following the example of European cities like Lyon or Bratislava, this could represent a possible development path.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

http://www.demo.istat.it. And is thoroughly discussed in Boeri and Galasso (2009). http://www.mi.camcom.it. If we consider the theaters not registered as private businesses, this figure is 105. RAI is the Italian national broadcasting company. Among the other positive implications (like the involvement of a younger generation of students or young graduates), the collaboration by Turin in the SUISM allows the municipality to offer medical examinations and certification at a reduced price. In order to favor the largest participation of seniors, even those with lower incomes, the medical costs may be a critical disincentive. This issue had been pointed out when we interviewed senior volunteers in other cities, where for example the University of the Third Age proposes sports activities. 7. This will be the case of other university towns in our survey – Bologna in particular. Students actually move into the city from neighboring regions and eventually the rest of the country, but they do not change their official residence. Nevertheless, after finishing their studies, a number of them might decide to rest in the city, according to employment opportunities. Though not always recognized, the presence of an important university seat could counterbalance the aging of the local population, with the inflow of young students from other areas. 8. As already pointed out before, these figures hardly represent the expenditure for active aging, as they also include the treatment of diseases and care of non-self-sufficient elderly, that could represent the quasi-totality of the financial effort. 9. http://www.comune.bologna.it/iperbole/piancont/schede/quartieri/quartieri.htm.

8.

A look to the future for policy makers: best practices

In this chapter we will pull together some of the best practices that have been implemented by the 40 cities we have included in this study. While some of the cities have yet to introduce policies that will enable them to capture the economic benefits that are potentially available to them, most have seen these benefits and have acted accordingly. It is true, of course, that the structures and systems that are in place in the US and the EU are quite different, but it is our contention that similar pressures are being exerted, in this increasingly open and globalized economic environment, on all urban economies and that those in the industrialized world will have to adopt similar policies. This may be true in most areas of public policy and it certainly is true when it comes to aging of the population. After our review of best practices we will highlight some instances in which cities have not been successful, for one reason or another.

BEST PRACTICES Our review will begin with some observations with regard to the three issues we highlighted in our analysis: relocation of residence to the city center, participation in the cultural and artistic life of the city, and engagement in intellectual and learning activity through lifelong learning and other programs. After this we will focus on some more general areas of relevance. Relocation of Residence While this has been primarily a phenomenon that has characterized US cities, we have noted that this is also found in some EU cities. The primary benefit to the city is that there is an increase in the educated, active and affluent population in the city center that in some cases rather dramatically increases both the demand for apartment and condo residences and retail sales. Clearly, this population is also the key to participation in cultural and learning activities. So this is a very desirable population that 163

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is responsive to congenial living conditions and the lifestyle that gives one access to the array of urban amenities. In Europe, most city centers are already being used for commercial, corporate and high cost residences and there simply is no opportunity for senior residential relocation. The housing that is available is often most attractive to younger professionals for whom smaller apartments are acceptable. Furthermore, where the transportation system is well developed, as it is in most EU cities, there is less need for seniors to move into the city center. However, Malmö and Hamburg are examples of cities that have created attractive residential options in close proximity to the city center, with architecturally impressive structures with good transportation options, and that are attractively sited on a body of water. In both instances half or more of the new residents are from outside the metropolitan area. Nancy has also been very much engaged in attracting seniors to its city center. This has resulted in making this area attractive and lively, and the city has also undertaken urban regeneration programs in areas on the banks of the river Meurthe. These projects include construction of a wide array of urban amenities, from green areas to cultural and educational institutions. This is supported by the movement of seniors from the suburban districts to the city center and the areas of regeneration. This is clear evidence that cities can create living situations that are attractive to these desirable seniors who can have such a positive impact on the local economy. City officials must then work aggressively to advertise these residential options to seniors beyond the immediate limits of the urban region. In Nancy the city organizes events to welcome and to integrate the new residents into the city and its services and amenities. Due to the fact that many US city centers have been in a condition of secular decline, there has been more space for construction of residences that would be attractive to seniors, and also a greater urgency that such an initiative be undertaken. As a consequence, in US cities local officials generally have done much to make city center living attractive to seniors. Atlanta has done this with its Mid-town district, as have Nashville with the Gulch, Philadelphia with its Avenue of the Arts and other city center residential areas, Milwaukee with its four Livable Communities for All Ages, and Charlottesville in the area between the University of Virginia and the Historic District. In each of these cases, the city government was active in developing and promoting its central district. In some cases this required zoning changes or development grants; in others the city had to make investments in transportation infrastructure, pedestrian pathways, green areas and parks, and aspects of public security. As was noted above, while these investments are required to make the center district attractive


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to seniors, they also benefit all residents and improve the image of the city to outsiders. Seattle has gradually replaced much of its substandard downtown housing through renewal projects that include both middle and upper income residential options. With improved bus transportation the downtown area has been linked with the University of Washington area. Key to this effort has been construction of a condominium building with units priced at $600 000 and up. This has been so popular that two other units are under construction. This effort has been largely market driven with private developers responding to the need, although the city administration has been the prime mover behind all of these efforts. Portland has been similarly aggressive in developing its residential options for seniors. The Pearl District, South Park and South Waterfront are all areas that have been developed in close proximity to the cultural amenities of the city center; for those that are not within walking distance the city’s excellent transportation system integrates residence and amenities. All of these initiatives in cities of the EU and the US have been undertaken with substantial leadership and support from city officials and have been done in full recognition of the benefits to urban vitality and economic competitiveness that are derived from having a large and actively engaged population of seniors in the city center. In a large number of southern European cities in our survey (essentially Italian), movement of seniors is very little or absent, for a set of cultural and legal reasons discussed in the previous chapters. Nevertheless, in some of those cities local policy makers recognize the role played by senior residents in preserving the quality and safety of their neighborhood: a group of citizens living daily in the public urban space close to their house and frequently embedded with a sense of belonging, after eventually having spent a lifetime there. In Florence we found a peripheral district where the preservation of the quality of life had a positive impact on the attractiveness for prospective young residents; we expect a similar trend in the periphery of Bratislava. In other cities, the establishment of senior clubs helped the regeneration of buildings and neighborhoods. Thus, when market or cultural conditions do not favor the movement of seniors to the city, administrations should be very active in keeping those who already live there. Participation in Cultural and Arts Activity Some of the cities in this study that have been most effective in developing the linkage between their cultural sectors and the city’s senior population are Denver, Vienna, Nashville, Philadelphia and Birmingham. In each of

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these situations the cultural institutions have worked closely with local government to reach out to seniors. Denver’s efforts in cooperation with banks in neighboring states have extended the reach of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts far beyond the limits of the urban area. This is a creative example of what can be accomplished to draw an audience from cities in other states hundreds of miles distant. Vienna is the city that has done the most to bring culture and the arts to seniors who live in all parts of the city. This is due to the location of the city’s many theaters and performance centers in all of the city’s 22 districts and to the excellent and inexpensive public transportation system. Its Office of Aging is one of the most active in the cities in this study. A long history of social democratic government has helped to shape the culture of the city and its government to value seniors for the contribution they can make to the city’s social and economic life. Through the Quartett program purchase by seniors of a set of four tickets for performances at any of the city’s 80 theaters makes theater attendance a hassle-free experience. Detailed attention was also given to the physical space of theaters to make them welcoming to seniors. Birmingham should be studied for the aggressive way in which its Symphony (the CBSO) and Symphony Hall have developed their audience and, from this, development of the donor or contributor base. The center city has an inherently weak drawing power for many, although districts near to Birmingham’s center, such as Jewelry and Mailbox, are attracting residents, including many seniors. The cultural institutions have been used consciously as elements in developing the residential attractiveness of the city center. The Symphony has been very imaginative in its program to develop a financial supporter base by getting 70 000 names in its data base, encouraging them to attend performances, and then having them move up the ladder of giving. All arts organizations have to do this but Birmingham seems to be especially adept at it. The Nashville Symphony has taken a similar approach to developing its financial support. Here too, the city government has seen promotion of the arts as an element developing a downtown area that had yet to achieve its potential. Using the Symphony in conjunction with the Frist Art Museum, a somewhat derelict contiguous district has been rejuvenated with high rise condominium and apartment residences. The Downtown Partnership has brought city officials, developers and leaders in the arts institutions together to insure that this developmental movement will be maintained. Neither of these three constituencies can be successful by themselves. Philadelphia’s linking of the institutions along its Avenue of the Arts with residences that are attractive to seniors and the merging of these residential units with theaters and other cultural venues is another creative


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municipal policy. Bringing the Barnes collection onto the extension of this avenue, the William Penn Parkway, is one of many municipal efforts to create a cultural district. The city is situated between two rivers and is easily accessible to seniors who live in the University area to the west and to Society Hill to the east. In between are several residential areas that are attractive to seniors, such as Pine Street and Rittenhouse Square. While Avenue of the Arts was designed to be a cultural district, the borders of this district are very weakly defined. All of these successful efforts to integrate seniors and the culture and arts institutions of a city have focused on the issue of accessibility. Driving an automobile late at night, perhaps in inclement weather, is simply not acceptable to seniors. Either the senior’s residence has to be in close proximity to the institutions or public transportation in a safe environment must be provided or performances and events have to be scheduled during daylight hours. One of the things that is so positive about Birmingham in this regard, is that the labor contract with the musicians calls for a certain number of days of work; this work can be in Symphony Hall or in a hall in the periphery, during the evening or at any time of the day. In many institutions work contracts are more rigid and do not allow for this accommodation to the needs of seniors; in these instances the performance groups are missing out on full participation of one of their most promising and interested constituencies. In EU cities culture and the arts are, of course, linked with a thousand or more years of local architecture, pride in local artists and composers, and the national and/or local patrimony. Hence, the arts are more deeply embedded in city life and in its citizenry than is the case in the US, where the first battle is that of gaining acceptance of the importance of culture and the arts. Another difference is that most EU cities are considered by their residents to be safe for pedestrians although this is not the case for US cities. EU cities are more likely to have pedestrian ways, well lit streets, well maintained sidewalks, and cafes on their streets; in many US cities walking is considered by seniors to be a rather dangerous thing to do. But also some EU cities have programs aimed at bringing cultural events in the peripheral areas: Bari, in southern Italy, is an example. Intellectual and Learning Activity In most communities seniors are engaged in a variety of small, informal, self-initiated groups dedicated to such intellectual interests as play reading, book discussion, public policy and local history groups. Conversely, lifelong learning opportunities in both the US and the EU are organized by entities that are formal, funded and structured, and cater to the interests

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of hundreds or thousands of seniors. Both of these types of intellectual activity have positive impacts on the attractiveness, competitiveness and vitality of the city. So it is in the interest of local leaders to encourage these activities. In the US, lifelong learning has been given an enormous boost by the Osher Foundation, which has funded programs at over 120 universities. As was noted earlier this funding includes a start-up grant, of perhaps $100 000, and then an endowment of $1 million if the start-up effort is successful. Almost all of the cities in the study have an Osher Center and one city, Pittsburgh, has two, each of which meets the needs of a distinctive clientele; this gives evidence of the great interest there is in learning activities among the senior population. Portland, Seattle and Albuquerque are cities that attract high-tech or highly skilled retirees, due to the nature of the local economy. In each of these cities intellectual engagement is quite high, with the principal university in each city having an Osher institute as a key institution, with other options available through that university or others in the city. In both Washington and Oregon the state programs ACCESS and Audit, respectively, enable all residents aged 60 and older to enroll as an auditor on any course at any state educational institution, on a space available basis, for a fee of $5. The University of Washington Extension has courses, lectures, and so on that are open to all 50 years and older. While the Osher Foundation has recently reduced its funding activities, the model it offers should be inspiration to local leaders in city government and universities. An endowment of $1 million generates a stream of revenues of perhaps $50 000 per year. Surely this would not be an amount that a city and its universities should find impossible to generate. The primary need here is for the local leaders to comprehend the importance of a lively intellectual life to the economic life of the city. Most of the lifelong learning programs at universities in the US have linkages to, or partnerships with, cultural institutions, senior residential centers and other local entities. These get seniors out into their community and reduce their isolation. Finally, they give audience and financial support to the orchestras, museums, performance centers, theaters and other cultural institutions once the seniors have exposure to them. With regard to less formal study groups, there are things that city leaders can do to create a supportive environment. Essentially this has to do with the urban culture in which seniors find themselves living. Every city has its social services department and many now have an office of aging; these agencies can promote reading and discussion groups as part of their normal activities. Universities have lecture series and occasional lectures, on local world affairs and other topical societies. Many exist in


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isolation from each other and tend to serve the needs of their own, limited clientele. One of the city agencies could take it upon itself to coordinate and publicize these lectures and to encourage discussion groups around the subjects covered. In many of the cities in this study, once this has been initiated, participants take on the responsibility of administering the group’s activities. University towns, such as Charlottesville, are rich in such activities, as is Academy Village, near Tucson. In Charleston these intellectual activities are linked to the University of Charleston, but the participants administer the program and what is needed is facilitation, rather than initiation, on the part of city and university officials. In this city there is no Osher Foundation program. In the cities of the EU, formal programs, such as the Université tous ages, Università della terza età and Volkshochschule, are the primary vehicles for lifelong learning and intellectual engagement of seniors. As would be expected in a city populated by civil servants, lifelong learning in Geneva’s University of the Third Age program has a membership of almost 2500; the average age is 72. In this anniversary year of Calvin, a very popular series of ten lectures are offered on his work and impacts. Taking advantage of such local interests and events makes lifelong learning all the more relevant to the lives of seniors. But in Lyon, the Université tous ages has 9600 senior students, 80 percent of whom are retired, and offers 130 courses. Here the Regional Council promotes the lifelong learning program, but the Université tous ages is self-financed with the (rather inexpensive) fees paid by students. In Hamburg, education of seniors is linked administratively with sport, in recognition of the contribution each has to a healthy and active population of seniors. Bologna and other cities which are part of the “Healthy city network” also have similar programs. In many societies sport is a privileged activity when it comes to funding, so placing education under its umbrella is probably a wise thing to have done. In Central Europe, Bratislava has 1800 seniors enrolled in 30 courses and in Ljubljana more than 1000 are enrolled. But in Ljubljana there are the local social organizations that support Education of the Third Age, and the city has 225 study circles with more than 4000 participating. The study circles seem to be a particularly imaginative and relevant approach to lifelong learning. In the EU, the objectives of ending the social isolation of seniors and improving their quality of life through lifelong learning have, in many cities, been combined with the growing need to integrate immigrant populations into the social networks of the city. The first tasks are adequate housing and health care, but close behind is instruction in the national language through special classes. This is an important element in the

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programs in Malmö, Lyon, Geneva, Rotterdam and the two German cities. Once in these classes additional information that will assist in their insertion into the life of the city can be given to them. While some cities are hostile to immigrants from other cultures, many of the cities in this study see them as an important element in the opening of the culture of the city to international trade and tourism, as well as a population of young workers and taxpayers. Other General Areas With regard to real estate it is commonly said that what matters is “location, location, location;” when it comes to seniors and their engagement in the life of the city we must conclude that what matters is “transportation, transportation, transportation.” Most EU cities and the older cities of the US North East and Upper Mid-west have long had excellent transportation systems, with bus, trolley, subway and rail lines providing an alternative to the private automobile. However many US cities in the South and the West have given enormous privileges to the private automobile, to the detriment of public transportation. This has led to seniors, especially those who are not wealthy, being isolated in ghetto-like conditions. Recognition of this fact is beginning to motivate municipal governments to invest in public transportation. The recent efforts of US cities such as Portland, Oregon, and now Denver, with its FasTracks initiative, to construct light rail systems are showing other cities what can be accomplished. The benefits of these public transportation systems are becoming clearer every day, as energy prices continue to rise, spatial urban sprawl becomes less viable, the costs to the community of social exclusion and isolation become clearer, and increased pressures on city center residential options become more costly. As was stated above, a good transportation system gives access to the cultural, learning and retail amenities of the city center for the many seniors who cannot afford to live in proximity to them. There is hope in the United States that the current administration of President Obama will continue its pressure for improvements in urban rail transportation systems. Another issue is the involvement of seniors in voluntary organizations. There is a growing awareness in the European Union of their importance in supporting the non-profit sector. According to the European Volunteer Center,1 in the Netherlands 37 percent of citizens in the 60–64 age group do unpaid work (the highest score), followed by 34 percent of those 65–69 and 33 percent of 70–74; in Germany, the share reaches 40 percent for 56–65 and is 31 percent for 66–75; in Italy, a larger part of volunteers belong to the 30–54 age class (41.1 percent in 2003), but this figure rose


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by almost 2 percent from 1995, while for the 55+ the rise was more than 6 percent up to 36.8 percent. Reforms of the pension systems might impact negatively on this, lowering the number of 60–64 volunteers. But at the same time the EU is funding a growing number of programs aimed at recruiting senior volunteers or promoting transnational exchanges, like “SEVEN” (Senior European Volunteer Exchange Networks)2 or “Think Future Volunteer Together”3 among others. Volunteering has been pointed out as one of the most important activities of seniors in many of the cities we visited. In Lyon and Nancy senior volunteers are more and more willing to work in programs in the schools, for example for the inclusion of immigrant children. In other cities pensioners manage senior clubs: they actually volunteer for other seniors, but also have a strong role in the vitality and regeneration of central or peripheral districts. In some Italian cities (Cuneo and Padua, for example), groups of seniors volunteer for the municipality in the care and the management of green areas or museums. Almost everywhere their contribution is recognized as crucial.

SOME FAILURES In addition to best practices, we should note some of the failures in these cities to introduce policies that will capture the potential benefits of a growing senior population. Most of the problems are the result of failure to put in place an effective transportation system. One of the most striking is in Sheffield, where the failure to integrate the affluent, educated seniors in the western periphery of the city into the cultural life of the city center has meant that the music and theater institutions are underdeveloped in comparison to similar cities elsewhere. Without access to the center, seniors have created their own places to pass time, and this deprives the city’s cultural institutions of funding and audience – the lack of its own orchestra, for example. In spite of the fact that Sheffield is the fourth largest city in England, this unfortunate situation means that the “high” cultural life in the city is facing a downward trend. Atlanta’s Mid-town institutions such as the Atlanta Symphony and the High Museum of Art are hampered by lack of access via public transportation, and Pittsburgh’s central city isolation and lack of good transportation links to the population centers has kept the Culture District, and its theaters and Heinz Hall, from achieving their full potential. One of the recurring problems we have seen in the EU cities is the lack of suitable housing in the city center for seniors, in cities in which there

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is new housing downtown. The sentiment appears to be that the wealthy will take care of themselves and that it is low income seniors who need all the assistance; the middle income cohort is left out of the picture. This is certainly seen in the British cities in which much of the new city center apartments are designed for young professionals and students – small and with little closet or storage space. Marx wrote “accumulate, accumulate – that is Moses and the Prophets.” Seniors certainly have accumulated much during their lives, and not all of it is easily discarded. As a consequence, seniors who are very much attracted to the city center find there are very few residential options available for them there. It is interesting to note that during the recent decades the square footage of apartments in Copenhagen has remained roughly the same, but the number of apartments has declined significantly, as individuals have purchased two of the small 19th century apartments and combined them into one. As to the learning activities, and referring in particular to the University of the Third Age experience in EU cities, we noted that the programs have different approaches. One is that followed in Bratislava and Lyon, where the structures are connected with local universities – if not part of them. Though UTAs are self-financed, they still can hire regular university professors and administrative staff. This generates an extra income for academic institutions, in a period of funding shortages, and some employment opportunities for teaching staff. In other cities, Universities of the Third Age are self-organized, teaching is done by volunteers (for example retired professors) and there is no connection with local universities. In Italy, for example, there are “Università della terza età” in almost every town, many of them (83) part of a network of a pensioners’ association, which is a branch of a labor union. Not denying the high contribution of these institutions and their volunteers, more structured programs, involving academic institutions as in the French or Slovak model, could produce a stronger positive impact on both institutions and students. According to the information we had from the UTAs themselves (also available on their websites), there is no significant difference in the tuition fees with their counterparts in Lyon or Bratislava. When the city has attractive cultural and educational amenities, an efficient transportation system and availability of apartments, everything seems to be ready to fulfill the expectations of a “healthier, wealthier and better educated” senior population. In some of the cities we visited, we found a very good endowment of those and other factors, plus a number of initiatives that we did not expect. Sometimes this was surprising, mostly in cities we personally knew well. This raises an important, banal but crucial, issue: communication is important. The more effective is the advertising and diffusion of awareness of opportunities and initiatives, the


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larger could be the number of users and the positive impact on the city. Some cities have efficient means, sometimes very simple: free toll numbers and address books, for example. When cities fail in communicating to seniors and to the wider citizenship, it is sometimes related to scarce coordination among the various departments involved in the management of programs for active aging. This is made easier when an “office for aging” is set up, but this is not necessary. It was evident to us when we stepped into, for example, the office for social policy and we found sitting around the table officers from different departments who also seemed to know each other very well.

NOTES 1. http://www.cev.be. 2. http://www.seven-network.eu/. 3. http://www.cev.be/101-think_future_volunteer_together_(senior_volunteering)-EN. html.

9.

Final thoughts

The thesis of this book, that there are positive consequences for urban economies of an aging population, is clearly contrarian. The discussion about seniors and their impact on society is dominated by assertions that all levels of government will be negatively affected by the fiscal demands that will be placed on them, and on younger working aged taxpayers, as the share of 60 and older individuals in the population increases. As we have seen, researchers have questioned some of these assertions; one example is the asserted inevitability of an increase in health costs as a population ages. Some research has found there to be no such correlation (see Chapter 3). But our focus is not on the national or sub-national levels of government but on that of the city or the urban region. In this final chapter we would like to offer some comments on this issue and on what municipal policy makers can do to gain the maximum benefit from it. The picture that demographic projections of the future give to us indicates the urgency of action. The increasing share of seniors in the population of the industrialized countries, ratio of seniors to working age or employed individuals, and intergenerational fiscal transfers that will be required will cause great stress and conflict as this reallocation of revenues is effected. Seniors will demand, with some justification, that their expectations about their years of retirement and decline be met, having contributed to those of previous generations when they were working and paying taxes, while younger workers will argue that they simply cannot meet these expectations and their own needs and that seniors will have to settle for less. They may also argue that seniors should have created a system in which they established funds that were adequate to cover their future demands rather than put in place, as most countries did, a system using current contributions to cover current demands. Participation in elections by seniors significantly exceeds that of younger people so seniors will have disproportionate clout in the political arena. The final option of younger people is, as we noted above, emigration. If this is the reality in, say, 10 or 20 years, then seniors will discover that the political system simply will not have the financial capacity to meet their expectations. An industrial society composed increasingly of seniors and aged people, with a declining working age population and with inadequate resources to support

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the needs of the population, is neither an attractive nor a stable prospect. Hence, some accommodation and planning today and in the near future will be in the interest of both constituencies. It is clear to governments in all industrialized countries and at all levels that the aging of the population is going to be one of the most dominant issues of public policy for the next four decades and that it will also be one of the most difficult to resolve successfully. We have argued that while the national and sub-national levels of government may well be faced with consequences that are largely negative, at the level of the city or urban economy these consequences have the potential of being positive in ways that are important to the performance of that economy. A central issue, then, emerges: what can and should local decision makers do to capture or to realize this potential? We have demonstrated that the primary benefits to an urban economy of a healthy, wealthy, educated and mobile population of seniors are threefold: (1) relocation of residence to the city center, (2) disproportionate consumption of goods and services of the culture and arts sector of the economy, and (3) disproportionate consumption of learning and education. A fourth benefit, volunteerism in social, political and cultural activities, was noted occasionally but was not fully developed since its economic impacts were less easy to specify. We have been able to demonstrate that as a consequence of these three benefits: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

city centers have been rejuvenated, seniors have lived healthier and longer lives, cultural institutions have been sustained in their audiences and their funding, urban competitiveness has been enhanced, the popular base for a knowledge economy has been broadened, the vitality of city life has been stimulated, and the attractiveness and reputation of the city has been enhanced.

In Chapters 5, 6 and 7 we examined what cities in the US and the EU have done to capture these benefits. As is the case with most issues of urban public policy, a successful venture involves the active participation of a complex of municipal, educational, cultural, business, labor and social organizations, as well as clearly articulated policies, delegation of responsibility and monitoring of performance of each of the actors – in short, the leadership and governance that are required in any strategic planning exercise. Some of the cities we have examined do this very well, while others have yet to establish the needed structures. Furthermore, local leaders must understand the

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value to the city’s economy and urban life of a body of actively engaged seniors. Municipal policy is often undertaken in response to a short-term situation and much of the policy initiatives introduced do not have a life that extends much beyond the term of the current mayor. In many cities an incoming mayor has his/her own policy agenda, one that was articulated during the political campaign that led to an electoral victory; hence the urgency in acting on it. An issue such as policy toward an aging population that will have its effects and demands for decades requires a structure of committed institutions, organizations, government bureaucracies and individual actors from the private sector who can maintain pressure for long-run actions and funding. The OECD concluded that the “most important was building consensus, understanding and support . . . (including) initiatives that involve social partners, non-governmental bodies, other levels of government and the general public” (OECD, 2000, p. 81). If this structure is put in place then there is a link between awareness of the importance of the issue, in this case the long-term impacts of aging, and the body that will be capable of promoting policy actions and of monitoring progress that is being made toward their realization. In some of the cities, especially the smaller towns in Italy, the municipal administration is very effective but it sees aging almost entirely as a question of health care, without a broader context – lifelong learning, participation in cultural activities and relocation of residence. In fact, each of these latter elements has significant positive consequences for the quality of health care and the health of seniors. The same parochial view is found equally in agencies involved in learning, culture and housing. One striking thing is the fact that in most of the cities we studied participation in cultural and intellectual activity by seniors was understood to have a direct impact on the health and longevity of the participants. These seniors require less in terms of health and long-term care services. This in conjunction with the contributions they can make to the economy of the city work to reduce the cost and to increase the benefit to society of seniors, thereby generating the net gain as depicted in Figure 4.3. So while the material presented for some cities is concentrated on lifelong learning and programs to improve the daily lives of seniors, these should not be seen as little more than costs to the city but rather as expenditures that generate substantial benefits. In some cases the benefits, difficult to calculate, may not exceed the costs, but they certainly reduce them on a net basis. It is also the case that many of the programs that have been put in place do not appear to have a direct economic impact on the city, for example the senior clubs in the Italian cities. However, it is clear that these activities, found to a greater or lesser degree in every city, do have a

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positive impact on the notion of “social capital.” These programs create social networks and public participation that work directly to diminish the presence of Putnam’s (2002) notion of “bowling alone.” Isolation of seniors is particularly damaging in its consequences and integrating seniors and immigrants and other constituencies in the fabric of the city has effects that are positive to all in the city. With the population aging during the decades to come, putting in place today programs that will develop social capital over the long run will be investments with a substantial return. The best practices discussed in Chapter 8 can offer many lessons or models for other city leaders when addressing the looming reality of an aging population. “Aging councils” with representatives from 10–15 other interested entities were found in several of the cities. Most often these were put in place by a far-sighted mayor and then maintained by the pressure from the council on subsequent mayors. After a few years of operation powerful interest groups will have been developed, as has been the case in cities such as Tucson and Vienna. In Copenhagen and Vienna organizations have been created to give voice to seniors and to discuss policy initiatives with local government. In other cities, such as Albuquerque and Denver, the mayor has sponsored a summit or conference on aging and has explicitly promoted policies to make the city “senior-friendly,” with the result being establishment of an ongoing commitment to making the city more congenial to seniors – and to capturing the positive benefits of their being resident in the city. Different models are appropriate, or at least most effective, with different city cultures and political structures. Given the success of each of these cities, an effort to find and implement the appropriate model is worth the effort. Municipal leaders must become aware that while tomorrow’s seniors are projected to be healthier, wealthier and better educated than ever before, they are also projected to be more mobile. The endless stream of seniors on package tours to cities and countries far from home has made this clear to all. Beyond this often relatively passive acceptance of tourists on the move, it is easy to imagine a city that is fundamentally indifferent to what makes a city attractive to seniors and that, as a consequence, discovers that it is gradually losing its own senior population, while another city that puts in place the infrastructure, amenities and supportive policies that appeal to seniors experiences an inflow of these desirable residents. When tomorrow’s seniors do make the decision to relocate residence in future years they may be less attracted to Sun Belt or Mediterranean areas with golf and other activities that have been popular with yesterday’s retirees. Their different social characteristics will lead them increasingly to seek out cities with cultural and learning amenities that suit these characteristics.

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There will be new opportunities for cities to become attractive to them – as New York, London and Boston have always been. This new mobility should have more powerful effects and should spread from US cities to those of the EU that have been characterized by immobility, such as the cities in Italy, as the seniors’ children respond to dramatically increased mobility in their working lives, they have higher rates of divorce, and their incomes are, albeit not universally, higher than those of their parents. Most of the seniors who, as a consequence, relocate residence will be limited, through language or preference for food and culture, to other cities in the country of their birth. But as enclaves of retirees of that nation grow in cities or regions of other countries there will be fewer limitations on their choice of new residence. This suggests there will be an increased competition among cities to attract them. The OECD has argued that the need for age-related policies is widely understood but that there is difficulty in implementing the required policy initiatives. Some of the policies may be unpopular with important constituencies if they are not placed in the broader context for which we have argued. The position that is thought to be most productive is a focus on “strategic processes, rather than on a comprehensive strategic framework” (OECD, 2000, p. 81). In Europe the issue always comes down to one of employment – will there be enough jobs for young people and will there be enough young workers to sustain the system? The EU agues that its role should be that of promoting: (1) demographic growth, (2) distribution of the benefits of growth among the generations, and (3) creating jobs for young people so as to create “new bridges between the stages of life” (Commission of the European Communities (2005, pp. 10–11)). Finally, in order to understand the current or potential movements of seniors, we met officials in the departments of urban planning or we analysed the projects for central districts or metropolitan areas, when available. Despite the similarities and differences in approaching the effects of the aging of the population, all our cases have a common feature: every city undertook, in the past few years, relevant urban transformation projects. Some of the most interesting are those for waterfront areas, such as in Nancy, Hamburg and Philadelphia among others: here large investments have been used for the regeneration of former industrial or port areas, transformed into attractive residential and commercial neighborhoods. Sometimes, the waterfront is instead a natural expansion area for the city: Malmö is an example. In other cities, transformations are related with transport infrastructures, like in Bologna or Seattle. Elsewhere, the regeneration has been led by events (for example in Turin and Atlanta for the Olympic games, in Milan in the Expo 2015 perspective, or in Charleston with the Spoleto Festival), or by the introduction of a

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landmark architecture, as in Copenhagen or Milwaukee – even Venice recently had a new bridge built with a project by Santiago Calatrava and in Bologna the new central station has been designed by Arata Isozaki. Some cities could start the renewal after confronting the crisis of leading industries and the shutdown of large industrial plants.1 Finally, most of the cities engage actively in the maintenance and regeneration of their historical districts: this is common in the US and in Europe many projects are funded by the European Union (an example is the mentioned regeneration of the historic district in Bari). For the period 2000–2006 and the second generation of the Urban program, the European Regional Development Fund invested a budget of 728 million euros in 70 European cities (among the cities mentioned in Chapters 6 and 7 those beneficiaries of the Urban program were: Milan, Turin, Rotterdam, Vienna and Lisbon). Urban transformations are a natural driver for changes in real estate values and for the movement of residents, within the city or arriving from outside its boundaries. As mentioned in previous discussion, seniors could be the most attentive group, as has been the case in US cities, along with the young professionals of the “creative class” now mentioned in the strategic plans for every urban area. The diffusion and variety of transformations is itself an ongoing phenomenon that could be discerned from the descriptions of the cities studied, which compose an “atlas” of urban renewal in the most recent years. Our study forces us to conclude that we must go far beyond this focus on employment to maximizing the net gain to society that can be generated by seniors when they live in the sort of supportive communities we have seen in many cities. It may well be that national and sub-national governments will not be the entities that can best take on this responsibility; clearly this is for cities and urban economies to do. But the support from superior levels of government will make their task much easier. The future that can be created will have substantial benefits for all.

NOTE 1. This is hopefully going to be the case for Taranto, in southern Italy, a beautiful Hellenistic city facing the homonymous gulf, surrounded by steel production and chemical plants established during the industrialization programs in the 1960s. Taranto is the most polluted city in Europe – industrial plants in the area are responsible for 92 percent of total dioxin emissions in Italy – and has an impressive impact of deadly diseases in the resident population. Also, the municipality was bankrupted in late 2008. In the city we met an officer in the welfare department, and it was clear that the city has more urgent issues than aging. A further suggested reading is: Vulpio (2009).

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Index “European” approach 129 2008–2010 recession 9 55+ Travel 128 academic institutions 157 Academy Village 81, 169 ACCESS program 74 active aging 50, 136, 137, 138, 140, 146, 154, 157 actively engaged seniors 176 adequate transportation 61 age dependency 21 age distribution 12 Age-friendly Cities 106 Agence d’Urbanisme 119, 120, 122 age-related diseases 133 age-related policies 178 aging councils 177 aging in place 118, 141, 146, 154 aging matters 77 aging of the population 38, 149, 175 Albuquerque 82, 168 Americans for the Arts 59 Amsterdam Treaty 2 Anton Trstenjak Institute 126 Architectook 52 artistic dividend 58 Atlanta Symphony 90 Atlanta 88, 164, 172 attendance at cultural events 56 AUSER pensioners association 146, 158 availability of water 97 average age 131–2 baby bonuses 19 baby boom generation 2 Bari 157, 167 behavior 8 Bergen 101 Berlusconi, Silvio 18

best practices 163, 177 Birmingham 114, 166 birth rate 19 Bologna 153, 170 Bongaarts, John 19 boomer capital of the US 77 boomer generation 52, 81 Boomers and Beyond Conference 80 Bösch-Supan, Axel 3 Bratislava 127, 165, 169, 172 burdens on cities 60 Cagliari 160 Canada 4, 46 care-giving 136 Carnegie Mellon 95 Cause of the Elderly 104–5 causes of poor health 35 CBSO Learning and Education Department 114–15 center city 87 center town residential development 113 Central European countries 22 Charleston 86, 169 Charlottesville 90, 164, 169 Chernichovsky, Don and Sara Markowitz 34 childbirths 137 Children’s Health Insurance Program 35, 45 city and county 90 city center living 164 city center 27, 28, 55, 56, 64, 85, 86, 99, 100, 103, 107, 122, 163, 164 city governments 61 City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra 114 city or urban economy 175 civic engagement 9

187

188


Comité Départemental des Retraités et Personnes Agées 118 Comité Régional de l’Organisation Sociale et Médico-sociale 119 Commission for the Third Age 139 Commission of the European Communities 19 consequences of aging 107, 138 Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche 134 Continental Europe 20 continuing education 104 contribution to society 69 Copenhagen 103, 172 cost to society 69 costs and benefits for the cities 131 costs of aging 102, 124 Council of seniors 144 creative class 75, 97, 179 creative industries 76 creativity 74 crime rate 65 criminal acts 64 crowding out of expenditures 31 cultural activities 8, 93, 96, 133, 138, 144, 151, 154 cultural and artistic life 81, 83, 163, 175 cultural and intellectual activity 176 cultural and learning amenities 178 cultural and leisure activities 132 cultural assets 55 cultural associations 93, 145, 156 cultural component 95–6 cultural district 91, 93 cultural institutions 67, 73, 90, 97, 147, 158, 166 cultural tourism 67 culture and economic development 96 culture and the arts 52, 85 Cuneo 139, 171 defined-benefit 31 defined-contribution 31 demographic change in the EU 23 demographic change 132 demographic futures 20 demographic profile 133, 160 demographics of Central Europe 124 density of population 141 Denver Center for the Performing Arts 78, 99

Denver Rapid Transit Authority 79 Denver 77, 166, 170 Département du Rhône 119 Department of Social Policy 142 depopulation 155 Disability Insurance 33 discretionary time 66 distribution of income 104 downtown area 96 downtown residents 94 Dutch pension system 111 dynamic demographic structure 25 economic consequences of an aging population 100 economic impact of expenditures on cultural activities 58 economic impact on the city 176 economic impact 144, 150, 155 economic potential of an aging population 91 education and sport 109 education systems 26 education 38, 87, 148 educational activities 59, 109, 126 educational attainment 7, 27, 133, 135, 145, 150 educational expenditures 39 educational institutions 139 Elderhostel 57 emigration 25, 174 employment ratio 20 employment 178 Euro zone countries 28 European cities 64, 101, 167 European Commission 3, 37 European Council 19 European model of society 101 European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies 48 European Parliament 18 European Regional Development Fund 179 European sub-national public sector expenditure 41 European Union demographic problem 22 European Union 2, 7, 16, 21, 38, 40, 48, 52, 61, 124, 178 European young workers 100

Index Eurostat Labour Force Survey 135 Eurostat 28, 53 expenditure on education 43 expenditure on health care 34 family support relations 25 Fédération Nationale des Agences d’Urbanisme 117 fertility rate 159 fertility 131 financial burden 20 financial difficulties for governments 47 financial difficulties 134 Finzi, E. 133 First and Second World Wars 13 fiscal burden 16, 26 fiscal consequences for government 31 fiscal consequences for the national government 131 fiscal crisis 32 Florence 155, 165 Fondation de France 118 Fondazione Fitzcarraldo 144 foreign immigrants 111 formal homecare 36 France 12 Frey, William H. 2, 27, 68, 98 Frist Art Museum 92 G7 economies 19 Geneva 105, 170 gentrification 110 German cities 170 Global Age-friendly Cities 50 globalized economic environment 163 globalized international economy 20 Globalqurque 82–3 Golden Triangle 94 golf and other activities 177 Great Depression 8–9 Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance 96 Grey Gold 6, 104 Hafen City 108 Halle orchestra 116 Hamburg 108, 164

189

Hartwig, Joachen 34 health and longevity 176 health care costs 35, 43 health care 34, 154 healthier lifestyles 34, 37 healthy aging 154, 155 Healthy City Network 154 healthy life expectancy 28 higher levels of education 26 highly skilled retirees 168 high-tech boom 73 hogskolen courses 104 hole in the doughnut 64, 110 housing contracts 106 Hudson, Robert 6 IKON gallery 114 Il Sole 24 Ore 140–41 immigrant societies 20 immigrants 18, 34, 132, 138, 144, 160 immigration 149 impact of aging 30, 34 impact of tourism 146 impacts of the costs of aging 39 impacts of urbanization 51 Imperia 138 industrialized countryside 149 infrastructure 160 initiatives for the elderly 156 initiatives for the Third Age 144 in-migration 83 INSEE 120 Institute for Retired Professionals 57 institutions in the culture and arts 67 integration 155 intellectual activity 52, 60, 66 intellectual and cultural activities 90 intellectual and educational opportunities 98 intellectual and learning activity 163 intellectual engagement 37 intellectual interests 168 intellectual 27 intellectually engaged 140 intergenerational activities 148, 154 intergenerational contact 86 intergenerational differentiation 142 intergenerational fiscal transfers 4, 23, 174 intergenerational linking 127

190


intergenerational project 155 internal US migration 52 international migration 54 inward migration 90 isolation of seniors 109, 141, 150, 177 Italian cities 131 Italian labor unions 132 Italian seniors 133 Italy 9 Jacobzone, Stephane 36 Jefferson Institute for Lifelong Learning 90–91 L’età dell’oro 154 labor participation 15 labor unions 16 laws and real estate practices 64 League of Minnesota Cities 46 learning and education 175 learning region 60, 67 learning 8 legal and real estate practices 61 Legambiente 140 life expectancy 28, 33, 34, 131 life-cycle model 30 Lifelong Learning 28, 38, 58, 85, 87, 105, 116, 121, 163, 168, 169 lifelong net contribution cycle 68 Liguria 137 Lindh, Thomas and Urban Lundberg 14 Lisbon Agenda 38 Lisbon 3, 101 Liveable Communities for All Ages 83 liveable communities 77, 82 Ljubliana 125, 179 Ljubljana City Pensioners’ Association 125 Ljubljana Inter-generational Society for Quality Ageing 125 local amenities 137 local housing market 105 local leaders 175 Lombardy 48 long-term care 36, 37 low taxes 26 Lyon 119, 170, 172

macro-economic consequences 47 Malmö 102, 164, 170 Markusen, Ann and David King 58 marriage rates 19 MARTA 89 mass transport network 110 Medicaid 35 Medicare 25, 45 Mediterranean arc 53 Mediterranean 177 migrants 98 migration 72, 153 migratory outflow 159 Milan 141 Milwaukee Museum of Art 85 Milwaukee 84, 164 Mirabella 73 mobility 26 movement of seniors 117, 132 moving abroad 135 Munich 106, 108 municipal policy 176 municipalities 41 Nancy 122, 164 Nashville 92, 164, 166 national and sub-national levels of government 175 National Association of Realtors 62 national economy 4, 25 national governments 1 National Solidarity Fund 44 natural increase 28 Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities 88 negative impacts of aging 31 net cost to society 69 net impact of aging 38 net migration 23, 28, 53 new demographical structure 132 new mobility 178 new urbanism 82, 86 non-self-sufficient elderly 145 Nordic countries 104 Northern and Rustbelt cities 51 Northern European countries 24, 28 number of children per woman 132

Index Obama administration 38 OECD 2, 4, 16, 176, 178 Office Nancéien des Personnes Agées 123 Office of Aging 82, 84, 86, 169, 173 Office of Arts and Culture 96 Office of Senior Affairs 112 Old Age and Survivors Insurance 33 old age dependency 20, 24, 54 ombudsman 87 Oregon Arts Commission 76 Öresund bridge-tunnel 102 Osher Foundation 76, 90, 168 Osher Lifelong Learning Institute 67, 74, 82, 83, 85, 94, 96, 97 Padua 148, 171 Palermo 158–9 Participation in elections 174 Pennsylvania 14 pension expenditures 32 Pew Foundation 68 Philadelphia 96, 164, 166 physical activity 151 Pittsburgh Symphony 94 Pittsburgh 93, 168, 171 planning 91 policies for the aged 136 population growth 51 population pyramid 12 Port Authority of New York and New Jersey 58, 68 Portland 75, 165, 168, 170 positive consequences 174, 176 post-employment years 30 post-WWII baby boom 13 poverty rate 27 President Obama 37 preventive health measures 34 price incentive to relocate 62 Private long-term health care and retirement communities 100–101 private sector 47 private statutory pension plans 32 PROBUS 117 productivity 26, 38 public expenditures 25 public health care system 35, 150 Public Housing Fund 125

191

public pension benefits 20 public security 65, 164 public transportation 98, 107, 123, 126, 149 public–private sector collaboration 73 quality of life 143 Quartett program 112 quasi-market structure 48 Rapport Laroque 117, 122 redefinition of social policies 135 redistribution of the fiscal burden and transfers 132 regeneration 110, 152, 156, 132, 178 regional disparities 131 rejuvenation through aging 69, 87, 93, 99 relocation of residence 61, 64, 92, 112, 129, 163, 175 renewal projects 165 rental contracts 112 residential development 87 residential movement 90 residential ownership 102 residential renovation 87 restoration of old towns 155 resurgence 88 retired immigrants 107 retirement age 3, 17, 103 retirement pensions 32 re-urbanization 110 reverse commuting 73 Revolution in 1989 128 Robson, William 3 Rotterdam 109, 170 satellite towns 144 Savona 138 Schemerhorn Concert Hall 91 Scientific and Cultural Facilities Districts 79 Seattle 73, 165, 168 secular decline 164 Semaine bleue 118 Semaine Nationale des Retraités et Personnes Âgées 118 senior friendly city 103 senior oriented residential areas 84 senior residential relocation 164

192


Seniorenbildung 109 senior-friendly 177 seniors are different 77 seniors club 138, 151, 152, 154, 156, 158, 159 seniors 5, 26, 74, 94, 120, 123, 127, 135, 140, 141, 149, 155, 165, 174, 179 services for seniors 154 share of seniors in the population 174 Sheffield 115, 171 skilled worker industries 96 social capital 9, 156, 177 social housing initiatives 141 social networks 177 social policies 148 Social Policy Department 128 Social Security 25, 27, 33, 36, 45 social services 149 socialization 151, 156, 157 Society for Education of the Third Age 125 Southern Europe 24 southern European cities 165 Spoleto Festival of Opera 59, 85 sports and physical activities 145 Stop Abuse and Financial Exploitation of Elderly 80 Strategic Plan for Bari 157 strategic plan 60, 133, 175 strategic processes 178 structure of committed institutions 176 sub-national governments 39 sub-national revenue 44 suburbanization 141 Sun City 6 Sunbelt 51 systemic shock 8 tax base and tax revenues 68 tax transfer burden 22 tax transfer problem 20 Teatro Goldoni 67 Teatro Massimo 159 Teatro Piccinni 158 Temple University 96 Third Age Olympic games 161 Third Italy 149 Third Non-Life Insurance Directive 48 ticking time bomb 1, 14

Toles, Tom 55 total age dependency 20 total dependency rate 124 tourism/cultural activity 151 traditional Italian family 152 transportation connections 139 transportation infrastructure 64, 164 transportation services 132 transportation 89, 91, 120, 170 Trieste 152 Tucson 80 Turin 145 Turok, Ivan and Vlad Mykhnenko 53 Udine 149 Ufficio attività creative per la terza età 147–8 unfunded mandates 46 United States Census Bureau 7, 25, 28, 72 United States cities 51, 71 United States city centers 164 United States health care system 45 United States states 45 United States 21, 23, 28, 33, 35, 39, 48–49, 57 Université tous ages 120–21 University of Denver Enrichment Program 78 University of New Mexico 83 University of Oregon 76 University of Pittsburgh 95 University of the Third Age 66, 105, 130, 133, 140, 146, 154, 156, 158, 169, 172 University of Virginia 90 University of Washington 74 University of Wisconsin: Milwaukee 85 university towns 90, 98, 153, 169 Univerzita Tretieho Veku 127 urban ambience 55 urban amenities 64, 87, 109, 164 Urban Audit 141 urban competitiveness 26, 59, 90, 165 urban cultural institutions 57 urban educational institutions 57 urban public policy 175 urban sprawl 98 urban transformation projects 178

Index Urban transformations 179 urban vitality 165 urgency of action 174 Venice 147 very old dependency rate 124 Veteran’s Administration 45 Vienna 111, 166 Volkshochschuler 66, 109, 112, 113 Volkstheater 112 volunteering activities 60, 131, 147, 149 volunteering organizations 132, 150, 171

193

volunteers 82, 86, 113, 139, 142, 143, 152, 154, 156, 158, 175 waterfront areas 178 welfare system 132 West Harbor 102 Western Europe 24 Western European countries 22, 28 women in the work force 13, 16 World Health Organization 28, 50, 106 young age dependency 20, 25 younger workers 174

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