There's no place like New Towns
image: A study on self-containment in old New Towns revealed the overall demographic of residents and their activities within the confines of the town.
Credit: Haruka Kato, Osaka Metropolitan University
In Asian countries, New Towns (NTs) have a design gap between theory and practice from the viewpoint of self-containment. In Japan, NTs have been criticized as bedroom communities for workers and their families in urban centers. Meanwhile, the Japanese NTs have experienced rapid population aging for more than 30 years since their urban development. From our unique perspective, older adults living in old NTs have retired from work and do not frequent urban centers for daily activities.
Dr. Haruka Kato, a junior associate professor at Osaka Metropolitan University, investigated the home range and visiting areas of residents who live in old-NTs across generations. This study selected the case of Senboku-NT in Osaka, Japan's most famous NT. Senboku-NT has approximately 48,000 older adults aged 60 years and above, accounting for 43.0% of the population. The home range and visiting areas were determined using GPS tracking data.
The results revealed that significantly more older adults lived in Senboku-NT than previously thought and many frequented healthcare and amenity facilities. This finding is important because it indicates that healthcare and amenity facilities for older adults may be self-contained within Senboku-NT.
“This finding is valuable because the vision of healthy New Towns has attracted attention to the healthcare facilities within old NTs,” said Dr. Kato. “In that regard, we need to redesign the living environment to accommodate the changing lifestyles of the growing number of older adults. This change may be the beginning of a new NT movement.”
The findings were published in Habitat International.
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