Spatial Aspects of the Shopping Patterns of the Urban Elderly: The Case of Central Area Apartment Dwellers

Abstract

This paper offers an exploratory investigation of spatial aspects of the shopping patterns of elderly downtown residents. Attention is explicitly focused on their usage fields, transport modes, and shopping context. The shopping behaviour of the elderly is evaluated with reference to that of a baseline group of non-elderly consumers. The data are obtained from a questionnaire/interview survey of random samples of elderly and non-elderly apartment dwellers in the central area of Winnipeg. The findings indicate that the elderly's shopping trips are largely restricted to the central business district. In contrast, the non-elderly exhibit more extensive movement patterns, particularly when purchasing relatively expensive items. These differences appear to be related to the higher level of transport deprivation among elderly persons, although some are able to compensate for their limited mobility by travelling as bus or automobile passengers.

Older Women's Community Mobility: A Qualitative Exploration

“…As already noted, addressing older people's general travel destinations was a focus of numerous transportation studies completed in the 1970s and 1980s (Ashford & Holloway, 1972;Carp, 1972;Cutler, 1975;Gant & Smith, 1988;Grant & Rice, 1983;Paaswell, Weinstein, & Nalepa, 1982). Some studies explored older people's travel patterns to specific destinations, for example, the grocery store (Smith, 1984(Smith, , 1991 and other shopping trips (Smith, 1984). More recent work reflecting the nature of older people's community mobility has focused on average miles driven per week rather than on specific destinations (Forrest, Bunker, Songer, Coben, & Cauley, 1997).…”

“…Regardless of the method of collection, questions on travel destinations tend to ask older research participants to comment on whether or not they visit pre-defined locations (Ashford & Holloway, 1972;Cutler, 1975;Gant & Smith, 1988;Grant & Rice, 1983). Only a few studies explore the frequency with which an older person goes to these destinations (Gant & Smith, 1988;Smith, 1984Smith, , 1991.…”

Effects of Spatial Interaction on Spatial Structure:

“…The floor data were provided through interviews with dir ectors at each daycentre. Since public transporta tion dominates daily activities of pensioners (see also, HERBERT and PEACE, 1980;SMITH, 1984), the separation term (dij) was determined by time distance between centroids at each region derived from a bus time table in Malmo4. Here, distance within the same region was meas ured by one-half time distance from a centroid to the nearest one5.…”

Geographic Separation and Patterns of Social Interaction Between Residents of Senior Citizen Apartment Buildings and Their Adult Children

“…In both Canada and the United States, a move to a government-assisted SCA building may be precipitated by many factors, including the onset of widowhood, income reductions, high rents of private apartments, costs of maintaining a single-family dwelling, declining health, and personal mobility constraints (Mercer 1979;Gutman 1980;Bbland 1984;Leung 1992;Everitt and Gfellner 1995). Consequently, residents of SCAS are typically comprised of disproportionate numbers of single persons, females, lower-income tenants, former renters, and users of public transportation (Beland 1984;Varady 1984;Meyer and Speare 1985;Kanaroglou and Diegel 1990;Leung 1992), although they are usually ambulatory and required to live independently (Smith 1984). A move to an SCA, however, could be prompted by the desire not to be a burden on younger relatives (Connidis 1983) and to participate in age-specific support networks that supplement exchanges with kin and friends in the community (Mercer 1979;Hare1 et al 1983).…”