Tzuyuan Chao

In this new millennium, cities have become the spotlights and arenas to showcase the achievements and challenges of mankind. With more than 7 billion population living in urban area by 2045, the built environment have to be more user-friendly and sustainable in order to function well. In this chapter, the authors emphasize that planners should always return to the ultimate goal of planning profession, to create an enjoyable place for the well-being of humanity in facing the challenging future. A review of planning history was taken to highlight the key concepts of planning for well-being followed by the modern definition of happy city concept. A practical case-study is conducted in Tainan City, Taiwan, a small developing country, to illustrate how to rejuvenate an overcrowded and unpleasant community by introducing happy city concept and to balance the conflicts between different users. It is believed that well-being and happiness should not be the privilege for certain rich countries and can be delivered with good place-making.

Natural disasters have negative health impacts on patients who need dialysis in affected areas. Severely affected areas are usually rural, with limited basic infrastructure and a population without optimal dialysis-specific care after a disaster. A population-based longitudinal case–cohort study enrolled 715,244 adults from the National Health Insurance Registry who lived in areas affected by a major natural disaster, Typhoon Morakot, in 2009. The observation period was from 2008 to 2011. A total of 13,268 patients (1.85%) had a history of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Of the ESRD patients, 1264 patients (9.5%) received regular dialysis. Only eight patients missed dialysis sessions in the first month after the disaster. Compared to the moderately affected areas, the incidences of acute cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases were higher in patients in severely affected areas. Male dialysis patients aged 45–75 years had a higher mortality rate than that of the general populatio...

In this new millennium, cities have become the spotlights and arenas to showcase the achievements and challenges of mankind. With more than seven billion population living in urban area by 2045, the built environment has to be more user-friendly and sustainable in order to function well. In this chapter, the authors emphasize that planners should always return to the ultimate goal of the profession of creating an enjoyable place for the well-being of humanity to face the challenging future. A review of planning history was taken to highlight the key concept of planning for well-being, which is followed by a discussion of the happy city concept. A practical case-study is conducted in Tainan City, Taiwan (a small developing country), to illustrate how to rejuvenate an overcrowded and unpleasant community and to balance the conflicts between different users by introducing the happy city concept. It is believed that well-being and happiness should not be the privilege of certain affluen...

Urbanisation and population ageing are two critical trends identified in the New Urban Agenda. Understanding the relationship between environment-related experiences and well-being is conducive to achieving an age-friendly urbanism. We argue that place, as a location, a material form and an expression of value, is an essential component of this relationship. Physical and social environments shape socio-spatial experiences and hence one’s well-being, bearing significant implications for the current policy movement of ageing in place. Environment comprises contexts whereby older people develop sentimental and emotive links to the place they live. Such links give rise to residential satisfaction and place attachment, the psychological experiences that highlight the importance of place in ageing. The article calls for research and planning practices to shed light on policies concerning age-friendly urbanism.

Stessa Chao frames her book with the eight domains of World Health Organization’s Global Guide to AgeFriendly Cities, published exactly 20 years earlier. All 10 chapters apply an East Asian lens to a concept conceived primarily in the West and still spreading like wildfire to cities across the Globe. Though ‘AgeFriendly’ has captured the imagination of many city politicians, many struggle to reconcile (even achieve synergies) between ageing cities as a ‘triumph of humanity’ and an imperative to expand their local economies. Stessa Chao and her co-authors (for five chapters) give a great insight into urban planning for both pleasure and purpose – ‘hedonic and eudemonic.’ It is a good read for both social policymakers and urban planners. Her slim and readable volume has qualities of a textbook or reader, and every chapter prefaced by key references to policies, theories and frameworks. Eleven coauthors contribute to the text in various combinations across 10 chapters. Every self-contained chapter is accessible to busy policymakers in search of insights on a specific topic. However, each is also a link in a logic chain which decomposes and recomposes elements of the eight domains with new evidence and compelling synthesis. Chapter 1 sets the global scene and introduces the book and its themes. Chapter 2 reviews the macrodynamic of ageing cities, speed andmetrics. Chapter 3 argues scale matters, identifying how interventions recommended by the Guide to promote an ideal city, are distinguished by space and place and require multiple levels of governance. Chapter 4 gives four exemplars from four continents of strategic planning and plans at a city level; how they intersect with theGuide’sAge-Friendly Checklist and provide a framework for neighbourhood and community planning. Other chapters deal with including the voices of elders, mobility through public transport, walking, isolation and disaster-resilient communities. Five chapters are illustrated with primary empirical research from either Taiwan or Hong Kong. The first of these – Listening to Elders – is most interesting methodologically because (without acknowledgement) it broadly follows the Vancouver protocol, empirical foundation of the Guide, with a quantitative questionnaire survey of elders complemented by focus groups providing qualitative interpretation. As with the other four studies – on mobility, walkability, inclusion and resilience – the results highlight the complex interplay of cultural, social, psychosocial, economic and environmental factors on health, empowerment and wellbeing. Urban sociologists have always been mindful of the fulcrum balancing ‘structure and agency,’ context and personal volition. Here, the authors’ East Asian lens throw new light on these intersections. For example, Chapter 9 From Isolation to Inclusion counters western individualism with the eastern philosophy of Confucianism which ‘prioritises the family unit and values elders with the utmost respect.’ Only Chapter 5 challenges head-on the neoliberal model of possessive individualism which privileges market forces. Chapter 3 on Scale shows how these are present, more or less in shaping each of the eight domains. And Chapter 7 shows how they can be harnessed by the New Urban Agenda of HABITAT III. Indeed, the synergies (and sometimes dissonance) between collective endeavour, market imperatives and individual empowerment, love and pleasure are a silver thread weaving through all the chapters, summarised finally as ‘Make Greying Cities into Silver Cities – From Urban Planning to Urban Governance.’

This paper expands the focal point of glocalization to the non-western context, and revisits glocalization in light of the promulgation of an international policy regime. Particularly it examines how the politics of scale in various contexts assists local pragmatic exercises and institutional organizations in building up an age-friendly city (AFC). The functioning mechanisms of glocalization are conceptualized through a triadic framework incorporating structure (mode of local governance), agents, and strategies. The empirical cases examine how AFC has been promoted in Chiayi City of Taiwan and in Hong Kong, the former two Tiger economies. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the two cases, the paper presents three major findings. Firstly, local policy networks are integral to glocalization in that they govern how different resources (i.e., political commitment, professional knowledge, human resources, communication skills, and financial resources) are synthesized under a local institutional framework. Often local policy networks reveal the fragmentation of resources provided by different stakeholders. Secondly, the case study illustrates two different modes of local governance. The Chiayi case reflects an institutionalized governing framework with both hierarchical coordination between levels of state bureaucracies and the horizontal exchange of information and resources between the state and non-state sectors. Hong Kong reflects a grassroots mode whereby the promotion and implementation of AFC initiatives are prompted among NGOs, charities, district councils, and universities. Both modes reveal pros and cons. Thirdly, academic associations have played a major role in promoting AFC, though the extent to which their advice can shape policy decisions relies much on the discretion and political commitment of district councils.

The environment can be an attitudinal and emotional context for older people to develop place attachment, consisting of place identity and place dependence. Articulating place attachment is essential to enhancing the lived experience of older people and strengthening their capacity to be autonomous and independent. This study extends place attachment research to a densely populated urban area in Asia through a case study of older people's perceptions on environmental factors and place attachment. Face-to-face questionnaire surveys involving 273 community dwellers aged 65 years or above were administered to understand how different environmental dimensions relate to each other and place attachment, as well as the mechanisms underlying the associations between environmental perceptions and place attachment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand the meanings of place attachment and its implications for daily life. The research found that "buildings and surroundings," "community facilities and amenities," and "social attributes of a place" predicted place attachment. Residential satisfaction partially mediated the path from environmental perceptions to place attachment. Given that urban renewal and population aging are important considerations for future urbanization, these findings are relevant to guidelines on designing community landscapes and facilities, contributing to aging in place policies worldwide.

With the aggravation of rural aging, the well-being and self-rated health level of older people in rural communities are significantly lower than those in urban communities. Past studies hold that mobility is essential to the quality of life of the elderly, and well-being depends on their own adaptation strategies in the built environment. Therefore, this study combines three key factors related to active aging: environment, health and mobility, and assumes that the elderly with good health status will have environmental proactivity and a wider range of daily mobility in a poor rural built environment. This study attempts to track daily mobility by using a space–time path method in time geography and then to explore the relationship between outdoor mobility and older people’s self-rated health. A 1-week mobility path survey for 20 senior citizens of Xishi Village, a typical rural village in Taiwan, was conducted by wearing a GPS sports watch. A questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews were done to provide more information about the seniors’ personal backgrounds
and lifestyles. The results show that when the built environment is unfit to the needs of daily activities, half of the participants can make adjustment strategies to go beyond the neighborhoods defined by administrative units. Correlation analysis demonstrated that mental health is associated
with daily moving time and distance. In addition, men have higher self-rated health scores than women, and there are significant statistical differences between married and widowed seniors in daily outing time and distance. This exploratory study suggests that in future research on rural
health and active aging in rural areas, understanding the daily outdoor mobility of the elderly can help to assess their health status and living demands and quickly find out whether there is a lack of rural living services or environmental planning.

Natural disasters have negative health impacts on patients who need dialysis in affected areas. Severely affected areas are usually rural, with limited basic infrastructure and a population without optimal dialysis-specific care after a disaster. A population-based longitudinal case–cohort study enrolled 715,244 adults from the National Health Insurance Registry who lived in areas affected by a major natural disaster, Typhoon Morakot, in 2009. The observation period was from 2008 to 2011. A total of 13,268 patients (1.85%) had a history of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Of the ESRD patients, 1264 patients (9.5%) received regular dialysis. Only eight patients missed dialysis sessions in the first month after the disaster. Compared to the moderately affected areas, the incidences of acute cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases were higher in patients in severely affected areas. Male dialysis patients aged 45–75 years had a higher mortality rate than that of the general population. Among the affected adults receiving regular dialysis, patients with diabetes (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR): 1.58, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.20–2.08) or a history of cerebrovascular disease (aHR: 1.58, 95% CI: 1.12–2.21), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or asthma (aHR: 1.99, 95% CI: 1.24–3.17) in moderately affected areas had significantly elevated mortality rates. Additionally, among dialysis patients living in severely affected areas, those with a history of cerebrovascular disease (aHR: 4.52 95% CI: 2.28–8.79) had an elevated mortality rate. Early evacuation plans and high-quality, accessible care for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are essential to support affected populations before and after disasters to improve dialysis patients’ health outcomes.

Urbanisation and population ageing are two critical trends identified in the New Urban Agenda. Understanding the relationship between environment-related experiences and well-being is conducive to achieving an age-friendly urbanism. We argue that place, as a location, a material form and an expression of value, is an essential component of this relationship. Physical and social environments shape sociospatial experiences and hence one's well-being, bearing significant implications for the current policy movement of ageing in place. Environment comprises contexts whereby older people develop sentimental and emotive links to the place they live. Such links give rise to residential satisfaction and place attachment, the psychological experiences that highlight the importance of place in ageing. The article calls for research and planning practices to shed light on policies concerning age-friendly urbanism.

With the aggravation of rural aging, the well-being and self-rated health level of older people in rural communities are significantly lower than those in urban communities. Past studies hold that mobility is essential to the quality of life of the elderly, and well-being depends on their own adaptation strategies in the built environment. Therefore, this study combines three key factors related to active aging: environment, health and mobility, and assumes that the elderly with good health status will have environmental proactivity and a wider range of daily mobility in a poor rural built environment. This study attempts to track daily mobility by using a space–time path method in time geography and then to explore the relationship between outdoor mobility and older people’s self-rated health. A 1-week mobility path survey for 20 senior citizens of Xishi Village, a typical rural village in Taiwan, was conducted by wearing a GPS sports watch. A questionnaire survey and in-depth inte...