Does aging-friendly enhance sustainability? Evidence from Hong Kong

Does aging-friendly enhance sustainability? Evidence from Hong Kong

Qian, QK (TU Delft Housing Quality and Process Innovation)
Ho, Winky K.O. (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
Ochoa, J. Jorge (University of South Australia)
Chan, Edwin H.W. (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

2019

The aging population is one of the demographic changes in the 21st century. World Health Organization defines an age-friendly city as a place that has an “inclusive and accessible urban environment that promotes active aging.” It receives considerable attention in the field of gerontology and contains important aspects of sustainable urban development. Unfortunately, there have not much research that addresses the relationship between aging-friendly and sustainability. There is a need to modify the market mechanism to achieve environmental objectives while striking a balance between social and economic considerations. This paper aims to empirically examine the integrated relationships between the dense urban environment and the social and emotional needs of the elderly in the Hong Kong context. The on-street survey was conducted in eight districts in Hong Kong to collect the opinions about aging-friendly criteria and sustainability indicators. It utilizes principal component analysis and multiple regression technique to unveil the mask of their intrinsic relationship. The empirical results suggest how the aging-friendly factors have impacted the economic, environmental, and social sustainability to a certain extent. Notably, two key findings were revealed from the empirical results. (a) “Outdoor Spaces” is consistently found not to be a planning factor that can enhance three types of sustainability, irrespective of the age groups in Hong Kong; (b) “Community Support and Health Services” is regarded as a significant factor, with the exception of economic sustainability (age group ≤60).

aging-friendly
economic sustainability
environmental sustainability
Hong Kong
principal component analysis
social sustainability

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8b0c2ef1-b77e-41bb-9cbc-bd3d60a6b127

https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1930

2020-02-14

0968-0802

Sustainable Development, 27 (4), 657-668

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

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© 2019 QK Qian, Winky K.O. Ho, J. Jorge Ochoa, Edwin H.W. Chan