“I wondered, ‘How could this happen?
How could a critical support for working parents be ignored?'”
Warner soon realized that older adults and their caregivers faced similar challenges.
Warner’sPlanning Across Generationsproject helps communities plan for the needs of the agingandthe young.
What is the connection between age and gender and how communities have developed over the past several decades?
We tend to ignore both age and gender.
This segregation has created special challenges for women but now, with an aging society, also older people.
The importance of recognizing these groups is now being acknowledged.
How have age and gender been impacted by zoning laws and economic development?
It doesn’t have to be that way.
New approaches to planning are focusing more on integrating these functions.
Beyond allowing child care in residential areas, planners are paying attention to walkability and Complete Streets features.
This kind of planning encourages the integration, rather than separation, of activities.
While the work is fundamental to human well-being, it is often ignored in economic planning.
When we start to think about elders, we are thinking about the issues women have always faced.
They’re really excited about incorporating aging and gender into their plans.
They find it liberating to focus not just on the needs of the worker but on all age groups.
After all, we all have parents and many of us have kids so we know the challenges.
There’s a really positive turn that is happening right now.
Planners are imagining things differently and focusing on a lifecycle approach.
We are all born.
So let’s plan for everyone along that life cycle.
The answer is inertia.
The rules get written and we add to them but rarely go back.
In some Main Street corridors you couldn’t live on the second floor over a store.
The rule against it was part of the fire code.
But in larger cities, people do it all the time.
Some rural communities now allow this.
The aging tsunami is giving us an opportunity to imagine things differently.
What would you advise a community that wants to begin implementing more age-friendly zoning and planning policies?
My guess is that they probably want to allow mixed use commercial and residential development.
And what about transportation policy?
Is it supporting comprehensive mobility and not just commuting?
We need to plan for all segments of the community.
We also need to think about a less restrictive family definition or eliminating family definitions altogether.
Who are we to decide what constitutes a household or a family?
Is it really appropriate for planning and zoning to restrict how people live together?
Both groups make special demands on local government for education, housing, and community services.
The needs of children and elders have traditionally been addressed primarily through age-segregated programs.
But fiscal constraints require local governments to look for more efficiencies, which may be achieved through integrated programs.
Find more atMildredWarner.org
Page published September 2016
