“…Some scholars see residential age segregation as beneficial on the basis of efficient service provision to improve older people’s health and wellbeing, and for the pursuit of personal self-actualisation (Golant, 1985; Lloyd et al, 2014). Alternative perspectives express concern that places may become more age uniform, with potentially negative outcomes due to reduced cross-age interactions (Hagestad and Uhlenberg, 2006; Riley and Riley, 2000; Uhlenberg, 2000), which may undermine ‘productive ageing’ and age-friendly communities (Greenfield and Buffel, 2022; Lager et al, 2015; World Health Organization, 2007). In this paper our concern is with the underlying drivers of spatial polarisation; the extent to which housing markets may shape residential patterns, differentially for age groups, such that we see intergenerational residential separation as a by-product of the geographically uneven accessibility of housing, with potential implications for social cohesion.…”