The nature of the increasingly ageing populations of developed countries places residential issues of these populations at the heart of urban policy. Retirement villages as housing options for older adults in Australia has been growing steadily in recent years; however, there have been a dearth of geographical studies looking into the distribution of existing retirement villages at the regional level. This study aims to reveal the geographical distributions and cluster patterns of retirement villages in the Greater Brisbane Region of Australia to better understand and serve the living requirements of current and potential retirement village residents. The geovisualization method was adopted to visually explore the distribution patterns of retirement villages. The Global Moran’s I and Local Moran’s I measures were employed to analyze the spatial correlation and the clusters of retirement villages in the study region. The study revealed that distribution of retirement villages was not random (z-score = 7.11; p < 0.001), but clustered in nature and included hotspot patterns, especially along the coastline and Brisbane River areas. Moreover, for-profit and not-for-profit retirement villages have different distribution patterns and adopted significantly different tenure agreements. In the study region, the spatial distribution of retirement villages aligns with the aggregation trend of older residents. The findings of this study disclosed the spatial distribution patterns of retirement villages and will provide developers and policymakers with geographically referenced data for the choice of new development sites to meet the market demand of potential customers, forming aged-friendly development strategies, and eventually leading to improved quality of life for older Australians.
As most older Australians prefer to age-in-place, providing sustainable and age-friendly communities poses a significant challenge to urban policymakers. The naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) have organically emerged as a collaborative model of care to support older adults to age-in-place, but neither academic research nor government policies recognise this housing option for older Australians. This paper aims to analyse the distributions and temporal patterns of NORCs in the Greater Brisbane Region, Australia, to understand the formation and development of NORCs. The geovisualisation method was employed to identify the distribution changes of NORCs between 2006 and 2016. The Global Moran’s I and Local Moran’s I measures were utilised to analyse the spatial correlation and the clusters of NORCs. The results show that NORCs increased significantly from 2006 to 2016, and their distribution was mainly clustered or co-located along the coastline and Brisbane River areas. The evolvement of NORCs reflected the change of aggregation pattern of older population between 2006 and 2016. Understanding the distribution trend of NORCs informs government policy and decisions in addressing issues of service delivery and community cooperation, and eventually leads to sustainable urban development and successful ageing in place for older Australians.
We conducted a spatial and temporal analysis of naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) in the Greater Brisbane region using the latest ABS Census 2021 data. Four methods of spatial analysis were employed to identify the distribution and evolution of NORCs: (i) geovisualisation, (ii) spatial autocorrelation, (iii) cluster and outlier analysis, and (iv) hotspot and cold spot analysis. The findings from this data analysis are consistent with previous research findings that NORCs are developing at a fast pace and are concentrated along the Brisbane River and coastline areas, where an increasing number of older people are relocating for better ageing in place, i.e., ageing at home in the community as long as possible. In addition, the spatial distribution of NORCs is characterized by a preference for cluster, with most of the NORC population located in coastal areas. Furthermore, older people moving out and younger people moving in are the primary reasons why the city and the south area are becoming cold spots. The findings of this study will provide practical implications for various stakeholders to assist older Australians in ageing in place as long as they desire by developing age-friendly community environments.
As an alternative to ageing at home in the community, naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) have great potential to facilitate ageing in place; however, they have not attracted much research attention. This study conducts an overview of NORCs, aiming to examine the previous research in a comprehensive manner in order to explore how NORCs impact ageing in place, with the goal of guiding future research. The research presented here employs the content analysis method to review prior NORC-related studies and categorise research themes and findings following top-down coding principles. A total of 49 articles were selected from the Scopus and Web of Science databases, and the results show that the “social environment”, which was the most discussed topic (n = 24), provides the necessary mental support and physical motivation for older adults to live actively in NORCs, and that NORCs play a positive role in preserving public resources and promoting individual health. The limitations of this study include the fact that there is little public information on NORC programs and the subjective classification of themes, among others. This study acts as a foundation for future research on NORCs, which serve as a perfect model for healthy ageing in place.
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