Valparaíso-Chile: Towards a senior-citizen-friendly town?

Abstract

The development of global cities with a cultural potential - as in the case of Valparaiso, recently declared Patrimony of Humankind - offers some exceptional opportunities in Quality of Life for their inhabitants, as long as those cities are set up as friendly and inclusive. However, the dynamics of a Global City accelerate some processes of social differentiation and exclusion in which senior-citizens - the subjects of our study - are an especially vulnerable group. On the other hand, these dynamics show new trends of population migration between cities that, according to their calling, attract or repel different age groups. This paper falls within the context of a Research Project (FONDECYT # 1061179) titled "Calidad de Vida del Adulto Mayor en el Habitat Urbano: Estudio del Caso de Valparaiso" (Quality of Life of the Senior Citizen in a Urban Habitat: Valparaíso, a Case Study). This paper starts by integrating the concepts of Quality of Life, Sustainable City, Aging, and Neighborhood, in order to establish the possible relationships between aging and quality of life in the urban context of Valparaíso. This implies to investigate how certain conditions in the urban habitat impact the quality of life of the eldest group of the population. © 2007 WIT Press.