A spatio-legal approach to the intermediate housing-with-care solutions for older people: Exploring the adoption of a retirement village concept in Finland

Abstract

Retirement villages are an increasingly popular senior housing option that aims to comprehensively integrate accommodation, care services, social activities and interaction opportunities for ageing people. The research literature about retirement villages and communities is extensive, but less studied are the contextually varying spatial, legal and political processes of how such villages and other intermediate housing-with-care solutions for older people are initially constituted, especially in novel national and local contexts. In this paper, a spatio-legal approach is employed to study the many legal possibilities and barriers that have arisen while developing retirement villages in Finland. As a specific case, I examine the new Finnish Virkkulankylä retirement village concept and its implementation process. As the key result of my study, I identify three major spatio-legal barriers to developing retirement villages and other intermediate senior housing solutions, which are (a) the polarised division between the fields of elderly care and housing in both law and practice, (b) the prevalence of 'local law' in spatial planning and service provision for elderly people, and (c) the inflexible funding system regarding alternative housing-with-care solutions for seniors. I argue that although the 'in-betweenness' of retirement villages may facilitate a more comprehensive understanding about the housing and care of older adults, in practice their intermediary position translates into many ambiguities and challenges .