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Elder Law Prof Blog
Katherine C. Pearson, Editor, and a Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network on LexBlog.com

Age-Friendly Cities

By rmorgan

In browsing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website recently, I found their October 10, 2013 post about age-friendly cities.  The post notes that New York recently released its report noting progress on becoming age-friendly.

In  New York, the mayor’s office along with the city council and the NY Academy of Medicine are collaborating to develop this initiative.   Age-Friendly NYC was named by the International Federation on Aging as the “best age-friendly initiative in the world.” There are over 50 initiatives to make NYC more elder-friendly, contained in a 130 page report.

In reviewing the recently released progress report, I was interested to read about some of the actions completed in New York, including funding for NORCs for a variety of programs (see ¶ 20) and the transformation of a number of existing senior centers into “Innovative Senior Centers” which

 provide enhanced programming, including robust wellness programs, additional access to health care services, arts and cultural programs, and new technological and volunteer opportunities. ISCs will work with individual center members to obtain baseline health information upon enrollment and will measure critical health outcomes over time.

I also thought the “market ride” program clever–using school buses while not needed to transport the kids to transport NY elders from the senior centers to grocery stores and farmers’ markets (get it–market ride), as well as to cultural events (see ¶ 47). You can read more about current initiatives in New York here.  The Age-Friendly NYC progress report is available here.

There is a significant amount of information available on the website, in addition to the reports mentioned here. The Big Apple is rocking it on creatively making the city age-friendly!