Progress in Creating Livable Communities for People of All Ages

With the right tools and support, people have the power to improve communities for residents of all ages. Keeping that in mind, our AARP Livable Communities team created  the AARP Livability Index^TM platform and manages the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities (AARP age-friendly network) to help residents measure and support their progress towards making their neighborhoods more livable. Now there is new evidence that those efforts have indeed had a positive impact on the lives of older Americans.

Two powerful resources, working in tandem

Last year marked the 10^th anniversary of the AARP Livability Index platform, an online, interactive tool that scores neighborhoods and communities across the United States in seven categories: housing, transportation, neighborhood, health, environment, engagement, and opportunity. We created it so residents and local officials could have solid information to prioritize their age-friendly advocacy agendas. By tracking metrics and public policies, AARP has provided a source of accountability and encouragement to those working to make their communities more accommodating for all.

AARP’s livability work — and livability more broadly — recently hit another milestone when the AARP age-friendly network welcomed its 1,000^th member. In joining the AARP age-friendly network, each member community has signed on to the challenge of developing, executing, and assessing progress on a plan to improve the livability and age-friendliness of their communities.

Committing to the network kicks off the process of developing community-centered strategies to address the challenges they face. Being part of this collaborative group has enabled communities to learn from one another and share effective strategies to advance age-friendly policies, programs, and practices, allowing them to create plans that can move them forward.

Many of the members of the AARP age-friendly network utilize the 8 Domains of Livability framework when developing their age-friendly plans, and several related measures of livability are captured by the metrics, policies, and categories included in the platform. This can allow communities to establish a baseline and measure progress on their plans.

An evidence base emerged

Ten years of the AARP Livability Index platform and a base of 1,000-plus members of the AARP age friendly network are now yielding important data. For a study released in August 2025, researchers Xue Zhang of Penn State University and Mildred Warner of Cornell University used data from the platform to compare communities that joined the AARP age friendly network with those that did not. They discovered real and quantifiable progress among those that participated.

While we’ve been buoyed by individual examples of progress we’ve heard over the years from community leaders, this research goes one step further in demonstrating the progress that network members have made in addressing challenges and the value of having access to wide-ranging local data. It also highlights the limitations, as communities alone cannot solve every challenge.

The analysis examined 646 communities in the AARP age friendly network that had AARP Livability Index data for both 2015 and 2024. The sample covered 10 states and included 211 counties and 425 localities. We were heartened by the results: 70% of the 646 places had an increase in their overall livability score in the period studied.

Where did they see the impact? In areas where communities had the most control — such as AARP Livability Index categories of neighborhood, engagement, and opportunity.  For instance, the study found improvement in accessibility and safety issues, including access to grocery stores, parks, and exercise opportunities, and a decrease in crime and traffic collisions.

The results underscored that it was tougher for community leaders to make a dent in widespread, long-standing national challenges, such as high housing and transportation costs, during the timespan of the study. Progress also stalled in areas that are often outside the scope of most communities’ age-friendly plans, including addressing income inequality, job creation, and availability of health care workers. In these challenging areas, the researchers acknowledge that broader economic trends may be at play and beyond the reach of local efforts. Nevertheless, local efforts can help to mitigate the impacts of these large-scale challenges.

Next, the study considered whether the AARP Livability Index category scores differed between those 646 places that joined the AARP age friendly network and the nearly 32,000 communities that have yet to make that commitment. AARP age friendly network members made the greatest improvement in the engagement category. This is a key focus of the network, as many communities address their challenges in social participation and resident and social inclusion as part of their plans.

Evaluating the makeup of these cities, the researchers note that entities in the AARP age friendly network have larger populations and higher density; they’re also more diverse and have higher incomes. In both 2015 and 2024, network members had a lower percentage of older adults. Members also had higher livability scores that improved over time in the categories of neighborhoods and transportation, as well as better health scores.

Illuminating strengths and weaknesses

Engagement is the most promising area where network members made the greatest improvements in scores over time, as this category measures the ways that people of all ages can be involved in the civic and social lives of their communities. The opportunity category (including age diversity, jobs per worker, high school graduation rate, and income inequality) is another area where network members began with lower scores but made significant improvements in the decade after joining the network. This suggests that age-friendly communities align with inclusion for all residents.

High housing costs and limited options remain a national concern, as they limit choices, particularly in communities that are highly desirable, livable, and/or age-friendly. Housing is the only category where scores were lower for network members than non-members in both years and declined over the time of the study. Several communities and their states have adopted policies to increase housing supply as part of the solution, including support for zoning and land-use changes that enable the production of housing options including accessory dwelling units (ADUs) , “missing-middle” housing and more; however, these actions can take time to implement and see positive impact. Still, the goal of these policies remains to increase the number and types of housing units offered that can lower the cost of housing, which may lead to improved housing scores in the future. 

Many of these elements are linked to urban living. The study underscores the need to engage and attract smaller, rural, lower-income communities with more older adults and to ensure that all older adults, even in suburban and urban places, have access to the features that make a place livable.  

We’re thrilled with the bottom-line messages of this study. Most importantly, progress is possible, and it is already happening in communities that are working to be more age-friendly. Making data available can provide a way for people and community agencies to collaborate and support change. There is potential to create more livable communities when ordinary residents step up to volunteer alongside elected officials to champion and adopt age-friendly policies. With a rapidly aging society, this work is needed more than ever.

The findings remind us, too, of the challenges we face in changing the housing stock, infrastructure, and economic base of communities. Those are bigger issues community leaders can tackle with short- and long-term solutions and policies, together with state and national efforts. But rather than being discouraged by tough challenges, I hope we see them as opportunities to use the platform and the AARP age friendly network to make a difference.

Now that we have evidence to back our efforts, let’s move forward and share the results with others. With these results in hand, we can confidently make the case for even more communities to invest in age-friendly efforts. And let’s remember how people are already benefiting, with livability scores improving for nearly three-quarters of the communities that participated in the AARP age friendly network during the last decade — a collective win for residents of all ages, and a hopeful sign for the future.