This paper develops the argument that post-COVID-19 recovery strategies need to focus on building back fairer cities and communities, and that this requires a strong embedding of ‘ age-friendly’ principles to support marginalised groups of older people, especially those living in deprived urban neighbourhoods, trapped in poor quality housing. It shows that older people living in such areas are likely to experience a ‘double lockdown’ as a result of restrictions imposed by social distancing combined with the intensification of social and spatial inequalities. This argument is presented as follows: first, the paper examines the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on older people, highlighting how the pandemic is both creating new and reinforcing existing inequalities in ageing along the lines of gender, class, ethnicity, race, ability and sexuality. Second, the paper explores the role of spatial inequalities in the context of COVID-19, highlighting how the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on deprived urban areas already affected by cuts to public services, the loss of social infrastructure and pressures on the voluntary sector. Finally, the paper examines how interrelated social inequalities at both the individual and spatial level are affecting the lives of older people living in deprived urban neighbourhoods during the pandemic. The paper concludes by developing six principles for ‘age-friendly’ community recovery planning aimed at maintaining and improving the quality of life and wellbeing of older residents in the post-pandemic city.
Purpose This paper aims to explore the social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on issues facing older people living in urban areas characterised by multiple deprivation. Design/methodology/approach The paper first reviews the role of place and neighbourhood in later life; second, it examines the relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and the impact of COVID-19; and, third, it outlines the basis for an “age-friendly” recovery strategy. Findings The paper argues that COVID-19 is having a disproportionate impact on low-income communities, which have already been affected by cuts to public services, the loss of social infrastructure and pressures on the voluntary sector. It highlights the need for community-based interventions to be developed as an essential part of future policies designed to tackle the effects of COVID-19. Originality/value The paper contributes to debates about developing COVID-19 recovery strategies in the context of growing inequalities affecting urban neighbourhoods.
Citation for published version (APA):Yarker, S. (2018). Tangential attachments: Towards a more nuanced understanding of the impacts of cultural urban regeneration on local identities. Urban Studies. https://doi. Urban Studies1 Tangential attachments: towards a more nuanced understanding of the impacts of cultural urban regeneration on local identities. AbstractThis paper offers the concept of tangential attachments as a way to interpret the meaning of urban of regeneration for local residents. This contribution to the critical study of cultural regeneration allows us to consider the multiple ways in which urban transformation can impact on local identities and attachments to place. It recognises the sometimes fleeting, and at-arms-length connections residents can have to places of urban regeneration, and thereby positions the experience of urban regeneration as one part of complex, processual relationships between people and place. The paper extends literatures which critique the social and cultural impacts of regeneration, and offers a more nuanced understanding of how people engage with regenerated urban environments. Principally, it offers a framework that goes beyond a binary presented by some in the literature between enhancing and the undermining of attachments. The paper does this by drawing on phenomenogical perspectives of place and the concepts of memory and affect. The empirical work presented in the paper demonstrates the tangential nature of attachments to urban regeneration, and is comprised of original in-depth research interviews with residents of a local community in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK.Cultural regeneration has always been about more than bricks and mortar and the physical transformation of place. It is also about reimagining a bold new future for post-industrial cities and creating a brand image geared towards attracting capital, labour and leisure (Gomez, 1998).
This paper considers the basis for a ‘community-centred’ response to COVID-19. It highlights the pressures on communities weakened by austerity, growing inequalities, and cuts to social infrastructure. This paper examines the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on low-income communities, whilst highlighting the extent to which they have been excluded from debates about policies to limit the spread of COVID-19. This paper examines four approaches to assist the inclusion of neighbourhoods in strategies to tackle the pandemic: promoting community participation; recruiting advocates for those who are isolated; creating a national initiative for supporting community-centred activity; and developing policies for the long-term. This paper concludes with questions which society and communities will need to address given the potential continuation of measures to promote physical distancing.
This paper calls for a research agenda that attends to the geographies of everyday intergenerational encounter that occur informally in communities. Using the theoretical framing of social infrastructure and encounter, it argues that we need to better understand the potential of the everyday, mundane, and often fleeting social interactions we have in the everyday shared spaces of our neighbourhoods, and that it is these interactions that can have the biggest impact on intergenerational relations. This argument is made in response to a lack of research on "naturally occurring" intergenerational encounters when compared to a more well-established body of research on intentional intergenerational practice and design. To demonstrate the value of attending to encounters of the everyday, the paper draws on a body of research within social and cultural geography on intercultural encounters that points to the value of "everyday civics" in contributing to community cohesion in the context of cultural diversity.
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