Growing old in New Towns: A call for research on health and ageing in planned urban environments.

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the planning of New Towns in the UK in order to explore what the design and planning of urban spaces can tell us about which populations and their health matter and are prioritized, at different points in time. We concentrate on how ageing was conceptualized, and what this tells us about how ageing societies and bodies are accounted for and understood. Through the dynamic evolution of people and place, we can also come to see that what was once viewed as health promoting can become entangled with the causes of ill health. We recommend further multidisciplinary research into the planning of future cities and urban environments.