Urban Environment Essay

Problem exists within the urban areas of cities on the focus of the elderly. These issues can make it difficult for specific members of society to live a normal life especially as they grow older and become frail. Problem solving devices needs to be implemented to look at how it can be made easier for them to live better. A considerable amount of people retire yearly and thus the statistics surrounding these dilemmas only grow and become more problematic. In this discussion the various concerns will be addressed and solutions will be suggested to give them a better life or rather a better ending to their life. One of the biggest plights is building design and how this influences the well being of the elderly and the restrictions it places on immovability and their integration into society. The main focus in this debate will be considerations that need to be made to make it easier for the housing of elders and emphasis will be placed on this at the design stage. The Western Cape and cities within will be used as precedent to argue this point.

The urban environment that we live in consists of conditions, circumstances and elements which influence the development and existence of people. When we are conceived and up until our demise, we are frequently interacting with the environmental forces that find it upon us whether natural or manmade. Benefits are found in sunlight and the warmth it gives and problems are created by storms and the cold that it brings, but these elements do not discriminate as they affect us all in the same way whether young or old. There is a big difference between the natural forces and the manmade as the latter is greater. The forces that are shaped by modern technology within the manmade environment do in f...

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...ace than that of an able-bodied person. Differences in experience lead to difference in value on parts of the environment and in systems of direction. The lack of ability to experience the environment results in poor cognition of it and in turn hampers efforts to use the community. The development of competent building settings can improve the adaptive capacity of elderly people. It is important to remember that while a society may act supportively in many ways through the interpersonal actions of its members, social actions that shape the physical environment may be unsupportive and not because of society’s attitudes, but because of its traditional ways of building and lack of alternative responses. If our society should change its attitudes toward elderly people, without corresponding changes in the built environment, a truly responsive life space will not exist.