Independent Living
Livable Communities as an AARP Priority
Speech
June 2005
June 15, 2005
Universal
Village: Livable Communities in the 21st Century
William Novelli
AARP CEO
Good morning. It is wonderful that we are all here today to talk about livable communities in the 21st century. Thanks to all of you for bringing your talent and experience to this important gathering.
Nnow, think about porwerful words and phrases, how about "my home." These two simple words may be the most emotionally charged phrase that we ever say — with the possible exception of "I love you." Our homes are part of our identities: they are property, certainly, but they are also zones of comfort and security.
They carry memories, hold our possessions, and give us a sense of place and of belonging. Our homes are our keys to personal independence and engagement in community life. And they are the settings for socializing with family, friends and neighbors.
It is hardly surprising that, year after year, when we at AARP ask older people where they want to live as they age, they say, "In my home." They do not want to live with relatives, in a nursing home, or an assisted living facility. My home is the preference of nearly 90 percent of older people. It makes sense.
Yet there are daunting barriers for aging at home for many men and women. The house or apartment itself may be one of them. Mobility—that is to say, transportation and other means of getting around—can also be a problem.
We are concerned about this for obvious reasons. If the barriers prove to be insurmountable, then the choice of staying at home is taken away. An older person's independence and participation in society are also compromised—and in some cases made impossible. What do we do to counter this?
Our response is to create what we call livable communities. In May, we released a report to the nation on Livable Communities: Creating Environments for Successful Aging as part of our AARP Beyond 50 series. There is no one formula for what makes a community livable, but it surely has common elements, including affordable and appropriate housing, an array of options for mobility, and community services. All of these features combine to make it easier for people to remain independent and to engage in civic and social life as they get older. And perhaps most important of all, such a community does not depend on driving a car. I'll get back to that point, but let me talk about housing first.
No matter where you live in the world, if you look at houses and apartments built today, it's quite obvious that they are in many ways superior to houses built a generation ago, let alone a century ago. They have greater amenities, benefit from better materials, and they are safer. But there is one area in which they are no better than houses built in the 1950s or even the 1850s. They do not accommodate for people as they age. That might have been all right 100 years ago when average life expectancy was 50. But today it's nearly 80 — and gaining all the time. So, this makes no sense at all.
If you are building a new house or apartment building, it does make sense—starting with the blueprints—to build in "universal design" features: that is, certain features that benefit people of all ages. These include elements such as: at least one entry without a step, doorways wide enough to permit a wheel chair to pass through and one complete bathroom on the first floor, again with a wide door.
This is not expensive, if it's part of the design in the first place. Retrofitting is much more expensive. But of course retrofitting is really the only option for older houses. For example, adding a ramp makes it easier for the wheel chair or the baby stroller to get into the house. Better lighting in stairwells and grab—bars in bathtubs also can help an older person remain in his or her home.
But retrofitting has its limitations. As I said, it can be expensive—and often beyond the means of older people living on fixed incomes. Moreover, there are some problems that cannot be overcome no matter how much money spent—short of gutting the house and starting all over.
Older people in houses that cannot be made to accommodate them have to move—and often their choices are severely limited because housing is expensive and the stock of affordable housing is shrinking, not growing.
We have to face these facts. We have to admit that we cannot retrofit the entire housing stock in the United States and everywhere else. But we can learn from the past. And one way to do it, as I said, is to design houses that are adaptable, that can accommodate people of all ages — and especially people as they age.
The marketplace may be catching up with this idea. Earlier this month, the American Institute of Architects held their annual convention in Las Vegas. And in their survey about trends in home design, the hot topic wasn't the rediscovery of urban living or the resurgence of a particular architectural style. It was how to design for independence in old age.
America's 76 million baby boomers, who have a long history of getting their way, are getting on in years. The youngest have passed 40, and the oldest are just about to turn 60. By this time next month, half of them will have turned 50. Not that long ago, a 50—year—old person taking out a 30—year mortgage would be called an optimist. But today, that person would be called a realist. If they want to buy a new house—and many of them are because they can afford it—they are beginning to insist on the kind of design that will let them stay where they are as they age.
But markets, are messy, even if they are, as economists like to say, ultimately efficient. There is a need for public policy in housing design. In Japan, for example, the Construction Ministry officially recommends design guidelines for housing to accommodate people as they age—and Japan is aging faster than most nations. Those guidelines are linked to government housing loan programs, so the policy recommendation has some teeth.
In Italy, the National Program for Housing enables some city councils to promote urban regeneration and housing renovation, thus avoiding sprawl while keeping neighborhoods intact. There are some municipalities and counties in the U.S. where some of the features of universal design I described are required in publicly supported housing.
These are different approaches—and they show that we can all learn from one another. Nations, states, provinces, regions, cities, villages all need to develop policies or guidelines about residential construction that will enable people to stay in their homes if that is what they want.
If we are going to increase the stock of affordable houses and apartments, we will need vigorous public policy. Some cities require developers to set aside a certain number of units in condominiums or rental apartment buildings at below—market rates. Others link the right to build an expensive office building to development of affordable housing elsewhere in the city.
Clearly, policies of this nature must be fair. Developers are not philanthropists, but they know a good deal when they see it. They get to build thei profitable building on your terms, and we get some affordable housing. And maybe they get a tax break or at least a gold star. Public policy can get the market moving without choking off its creativity and profitability.
Let me offer you just one example—that demonstrates that some private developers understand what makes a community livable. This will also lead to the subject of mobility.
Several years ago, the King Farm in Rockville, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., was sold by the family. The developers decided— perhaps with some pressure from the city and the county—to build a town, not a suburban tract. They built the houses close together, put in wide sidewalks, reserved large areas for parks and commons, and created a commercial core with a market, offices, restaurants, and a recreation center.
The King Farm development does several wonderful things at once. First, it avoids sprawl — no house sits on five or ten acres of land. Sidewalks encourage people to walk—which keeps people physically active and makes it possible for people who do not drive to get around. There is a free shuttle bus to take people to the commercial center and the nearby subway stop. Public buses run through the community. So, it is not shut off from the rest of the world, it is not a car culture suburb, and it encourages sociability.
King Farm was not built with older people in mind. But it serves them well—especially in overcoming problems of mobility. Mobility is as serious a concern for older people as housing. A truly livable community should accommodate the mobility needs of people of all ages.
As we know, America is largely suburbanized. And there are parts of cities—Washington is one of them—where you might as well be living in the suburbs. The old so—called "street car suburbs"—like Brookline outside of Boston or Chevy Chase outside Washington—developed, obviously, along the old trolley lines. They also developed as neighborhoods or small towns. They were not purely residential. They had their own drugstores and markets and the other services you'd expect in a real neighborhood—all within walking distance.
The modern suburb developed after World War Two, and what prompted it was driving. Unlike the streetcar, the automobile could go anywhere—and thus so could the new houses. As the population grew—it has just about doubled since the then—developers built vast tracts of houses with no commercial centers, often no sidewalks, and, when they could, as much land around each house as possible. There was nothing to walk to.
Americans took to the suburbs and their cars. Want a quart of milk? Get in the car. Going to school? Get in the car. Want to see the doctor? Get in the car. We got used to getting into the car. Many older people still drive.
I'm proud to say that AARP's Driver Safety Program has helped some nine million of our members stay on the road longer. Better signage on roads, special turn lanes, and general traffic calming measures would keep even more older people in their cars. That's good.
But what happens when people are no longer able to drive or don't feel comfortable driving? A little over a year ago, we collaborated with the Surface Transportation Policy Project and produced a report called "Aging Americans: Stranded Without Options." That gloomy title says plenty.
A few years back, General Motors had a very catchy slogan: "It's not just your car, it's your freedom." To a suburbanized society that slogan rang true. It still does. But as people age, they tend to drive less, or not at all.
So how do they connect with society? How do they get to the doctor, to houses of worship, to the grocery store, to see their friends? In many cases, they don't. They become isolated, often depressed. The "Stranded Without Options" report found that over half of non—drivers 65+ stay at home on any given day because they have no transportation.
Many live in areas without sidewalks. They are more likely to be injured by car when they walk than younger people, and many—in the suburbs and particularly rural areas—have no public transportation nearby.
This problem is even more difficult than it sounds. Sitting at home, often alone, compromises physical health. Isolation can cause depression and, can lead to alcohol or drug abuse. We are not talking only about inconvenience—though that is bad enough. We are talking about the loss of belonging, we are talking about marginalization, we are talking about physical and mental deterioration.
Mobility is essential to independent living. A truly livable community must afford as much mobility to older persons as possible. This is not an easy task or a cheap one—but neither was building the transcontinental railroad or the Interstate highway system.
We can expand bus routes. We can reroute buses during non—rush hours through communities where people live. We can create more bus stops so people need not walk too far. We can build shelters and resting places along the way. We can develop and support shuttle bus services—both public and private—for older people.
What I have just suggested is a little like retrofitting an older house. We have to live with the houses and the transit systems and the roads we have. But let me say again: we must also face the facts and learn from them.
We must insist—that the new communities that are built will be truly livable. They must accommodate people as they age, they must not sprawl and leave people dependent on cars for everything they need. New and rebuilt communities need accessible public transit, they must have important services nearby, and must also contain affordable housing as well as market—price housing.
To have such livable communities, we need public policy that recognizes their importance. We need private developers to realize that making real communities that are livable, rather than sterile tracts, is good business.
And we have to look across borders and around the world for good ideas and practices. That's why we're all here today. No one has a monopoly on good ideas. The more we share our experiences, the better strategies we will develop. And the more we will succeed at making market forces and public policies more responsive to investment in livable communities.
It's not going to happen otherwise. It's up to all of us. And we are making progress. But we still have a long way to go. It is our hope that this conference and others will identify best practices, spur innovation, lead to the development of more livable communities, and ultimately, help us create societies in which everyone ages with dignity and purpose.
Thanks very much