The period from the late 90s into the noughties was one of transformative change in mobility, transport, and place-making. For the first time, a younger generation of Millennials (those born after 1982) were in the driving seat, using cars less and stressing shared mobility options – in cars, on bikes, and, more recently, on scooters. Millennials were the first younger generation to take up the mantle of being the ‘benchmark generation’. The lycra cyclist was born, and a new business culture emerged leaving the golf course for the peloton. Mobility, led by the Millennial and then the ‘Z’ generations embraced a new ‘phygital mobility lifestyle’ in which the physical and digital worlds merged, the Internet became the new oxygen, and whose mobility was more embedded in a smart phone and a bicycle than a car.

 

Cities queued-up to join this sustainable mobility revolution. Plans for plazas with innovative designs and artistic paving. Groups of Millennials are depicted sitting outside street cafes, communicating with smart phones rather than with those sitting around them, drinking cappuccino. Then from the midst of this generational and professional euphoria, a seemingly lone voice cried out ‘Where are all the old people’ (Anne Frye OBE). 

 

During the period of Millennial infancy, the professional policy eye was firmly on the implications of an ageing society for the design of our cities and our transport networks. In 2023, the mobility of ‘older people’ is now buried within a general narrative to achieve a ‘Just Transition’. Those designing impressive plan visuals for plazas, streetscapes, mobility hubs and so on will have to acknowledge that life does not finish at 40. This is an important point: individuals between 40 and 60 that don't have mobility impairment, may feel equally left out of the design narrative - a developer’s desire to present new locations for the 'pretty people' and not for the practical design needs of families, 

 
Let’s refocus the mind-set. The ageing society is not going away, and its mobility needs will grow. For example, the typical 70-year-old in 2050 may still be in employment and seeking local (3rd place) jobs. Ironically, these trends will have greater impact on an ageing Millennial generation in the 2050s and 60s, unless sympathetic ‘vision-led’ planning based on ‘walking for all’ is introduced. It is unlikely that ageing Millennials will be trying to balance on electric scooters, as they did in young adulthood. In the context of current planning thinking we must ask the question – ‘Whose 15-minute city, is it?’. Walking for all has many advantages, not only that it is socially inclusive and contributes to achieving a just transition, but that it will make a step-change to public health. 

 

The health benefits of a high-quality walking environment will generate significant mental and physical health benefits for the elderly, with knock-on savings to the health system. It will also provide benefits to society in general. While an online community might be a first step in forming meaningful and lasting relationships, face-to-face contact is essential, and something many elderly people are deprived of. The scale of the problem is acute: In 2022, roughly one third of households in the UK have sole occupation – most of them over the retirement age and a majority of these, women. While low mobility per se will not kill you, loneliness might.

 

Millions of older people can get around but need suitable street and plaza designs to make life easier – has anybody thought of ‘resting points’, a community design primarily based on ‘walking for all’. An older person may consider a trip on foot too far. However, sympathetic design could provide them with resting/community points to make the trip viable. Recent innovations in navigation, automation and security aids for walkers will have an important role to play in this transition. Not doing this will merely increase the number of short car trips made by an increasingly numerous and frail ageing society, who would benefit from daily active mobility and face-to-face contact.

 

In this context, Oxytocin is a natural hormone much talked about in the context of sharing and the sharing society.  However, the impacts are far greater on overall mental health. Oxytocin enters our bloodstream when we form meaningful relationships. It reduces stress and heals wounds, boosting immunity and assisting recovery. Sympathetic design based on a holistic vision of ‘walking for all’ will provide opportunities for social interaction across generations, with all the health benefits that brings for our future – ‘passegiata-focused planning’. 

 

Not all elderly people are able to walk. In recent years there has been significant innovations in ambient assisted living, meeting the diverse needs of the frailest elderly. There now exist several hundred designs of mobility scooters customised to assist those with limited ambience, to get out and about in their local communities. The number of elderly people using mobility scooters has expanded exponentially in recent years, and planners need to give this mode as much consideration in physical street and plaza design as they do cyclists.

 

Proximity is power. We need to change the mind-set to focus on local accessibility in the design of urban and rural villages that create social spaces for all generations, based on walking for all. To design ‘community hubs’, which have mobility attachments and not the reverse. Reinvent Ray Oldenburg’s concept of ‘Third Places’ where the growing number of elderly people still in work or retired might have walking access to a workplace and connect with others, rather than the ‘convenient isolation’ of working from home. 

 

In designing the mobility and transport systems of the future, the type of Vision-led planning now being pioneered provides the opportunity to ‘Get it right this time’. The need to develop ‘Walking for all’ strategies is essential in the context of designing inclusive, resilient communities in the face of the climate emergency. This will ensure a better life quality in old age, in developments where the 15-minute city is for everyone.