Pedestrians crossing street
| By Charlotte Nixon
Launching the "Silver Hues" report with the World Bank
The World Bank will publish Silver Hues: Building Age-Ready Cities on Tuesday, April 5, 2022. This report builds on the reality that for the first time in history, there are more persons aged 65 years or over than there are children under five. In fact, by 2050, one in six people will be 65 or older.
This is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity for countries. Not only are older persons a vital part of communities, but they are also an attractive audience for inclusive goods and services and an inspiration for innovators to build healthcare, leisure and technology services that work for everyone regardless of age, disability, gender, and income.
Simply put, age-ready cities represent smart economics. They help countries put in place inclusive, lasting services and infrastructure and enable older persons to lead dignified and productive lives.
The report draws from a rich set of examples to show how focusing on universal design, housing solutions, multigenerational spaces, physical mobility, technology, and efficient spatial forms can help design age-ready cities. From countries in Europe to others in Africa and Asia, there are valuable lessons in the report for how policy makers can take action and make intentional investments in age-readiness.
At the launch and in the report, we will prompt our panellists to reflect on the question: How can we plan, design, and create age-ready cities and towns for a silver-hued future—one in which older persons will increasingly outnumber younger ones in more and more countries? Given the global pandemic, climate change, and the unique situation of older persons, inclusion has never been more important. Moreover, as the report shows, age-readiness isn’t just for older persons: an age-ready city is a city for all, and has universal benefits.