Abstract:

In today’s society, the elderly population and aged cities have become a worldwide concern. By sorting out the theoretical research and practical focus of elderly friendly city in recent years, and the definition and evaluation index and methods of the built environment friendliness of elderly friendly cities, this article described the concept and definition of the built environment friendliness of aged city, summarized the evaluation index of the built environment friendliness of aged city, and proposed a multi-factor quantitative evaluation method of built environment friendliness of aged cities based on actual data, and guided by the characteristics of the elderly population distribution. Taking two aged cities of Taiwan Province — Taipei and New Taipei Cities as examples, this study evaluated their built environment friendliness. The evaluation results show that the “highest” and “high” built environment friendly administrative streets account for about 18% of the total, and they are mainly concentrated in Taipei’s urban area and parts of New Taipei’s urban area; the “moderate” administrative streets account for about 64%, and are mainly concentrated in New Taipei’s urban area, parts of Taipei’s urban area, and suburban areas of Taipei and New Taipei Cities; the “lowest” and “low” administrative streets account for about 18%, and are mainly concentrated in north and south city periphery of New Taipei City. The aging degree of each grade of built environment friendliness in Taipei and New Taipei Cities was compared with the average values of other evaluation indicators, so as to put forward effective policy recommendations. Generally, the quantitative evaluation method is helpful for improving the overall planning strategy of the built environment of aged cities, and can provide some reference for similar aging cities.

Key words: aged city, built environment, friendliness, quantitative evaluation, aging degree, Geographic Information System (GIS), evaluation index, Taipei, New Taipei