City beats rural living for older people, says report

CITIES ARE healthier places for older people to live than rural areas, a seminar on planning for age was told yesterday.

Conor Skehan, head of environment and planning in the school of spatial planning in DIT, told the Planning For Ageseminar in Dublin that older people living in rural areas reported themselves as less cared for than those in urban areas.

Mr Skehan was reporting preliminary results from the 1st National Study on Planning for Agewhich he carried out with Lorcan Sirr, head of research in the Faculty of the Built Environment at DIT.

The unpublished study, undertaken for the Ageing Well Network, explored how people plan for where they will age and the impact of location on independence, mobility, health, sense of belonging, longevity and quality of life.

The study found 47 per cent of people living in urban areas reported themselves as being cared for and 53 per cent said they were carers, compared to 32 per cent and 16 per cent respectively for rural dwellers.

Mr Skehan said Irish people were “essentially rural” with “a great mistrust of cities”.

“We are not an urban culture and that has big consequences when we look at ageing, because the countryside is not a friendly place,” he said.