Constraining Environments: Spatial Vulnerability

The environment determines our quality of life to a greater extent than we usually imagine. It does so throughout the entire life cycle, but in childhood and old age—two especially sensitive stages—its influence becomes decisive. Before continuing to explain why, I think it is helpful to clarify what we mean when we talk about “environment.” In the field of urban sociology, the environment is not only what we see when we look out the window: it is a complex fabric of spaces, relationships, services, and even sensations that shape our everyday life. It is the set of conditions that makes a neighborhood welcoming, difficult, exclusionary, attractive, or, at times, all of these at once.

When we talk about environment, we mean, of course, the streets and buildings, the neighborhood’s street furniture, but also its upkeep, the presence of shade in the summer, or the benches (if they exist) that allow us to rest. When we talk about environment, we also refer to the services available (including those that do not directly affect us or that we barely use), such as the health center, the bus line, the library, or small local shops (the butcher, the pharmacy). But the concept of environment also includes—in fact, what is perhaps much more important than everything else—the feeling that the neighborhood gives us: whether we feel safe, whether we feel it as “ours,” whether we feel identified with that space, whether it conveys calm or, on the contrary, weighs on us. However, in order for there to be a positive relationship with the place, with the environment, such a relationship has to be possible. That is, the space has to be accessible; it has to allow us to walk through its streets, to be part of it. If the environment is not accessible, if it does not allow us to be there, it excludes us. It is impossible to have a positive relationship with a space that does not allow us to be part of it. We are applying this today to the physical world, but we could talk about other symbolic spaces in the same terms.

To summarize, the environment is the mix of space, relationships, and meanings that allows a person to live well in a place… or not so well. It is not only what the neighborhood is like, but how we experience it, what possibilities it offers, and what limits it imposes.

In old age especially, the environment can be our ally or our enemy. The second situation is the one I see most often in today’s cities, which are increasingly uncomfortable, more exclusionary (not only exclusive), more… detached from their inhabitants. It seems as if those who decide and organize urban space forget that it affects not only our physical health but also our psychological health, and that the configuration of space enables or denies the possibility of social life. When the media talk about social cohesion, safety, and well-being… they are talking, without knowing it, about things like the layout of space. About the existence of spaces that allow and encourage social relationships, including through the most purely physical dimension. Cities, neighborhoods, and homes are life settings that either support our independence or do exactly the opposite: if the space does not make it possible for me to move around properly—if, for example, it limits my movement with a walker, bogs down my cane, or makes it impossible for me to move about with my slower steps—it will cause me to move less and less, to want less and less to walk through a space that feels difficult, which in turn will limit my independence and cause my small difficulties, my disability, to worsen. If that space, through small adaptations, allowed passage with my walker, I could continue to be part of that space. It might be more difficult mobility, but it would be possible mobility. Put another way: dependence can become a situation imposed by the space.

That is, it would not be the person’s disability or mobility problem itself, but rather the space imposing new forms of dependence. When the environment does not adapt to people’s changing needs, we can say that the disability is not in the person but in the environment. It is a disability that may originate in people’s changing motor capacities, but that is worsened by how the environment does—or does not—enable those people to continue using the space.

At the same time, this would hinder the feeling of attachment to place, that emotional and symbolic bond with the space where we live and that leads us to care more for our environment, participate in activities, and be part of the neighborhood’s social life. Neighborhood attachment is highly beneficial for the functioning of social life, but such attachment can only flourish if the environment allows it. There is no possibility of attachment if going outside is dangerous, if my walker is not useful due to the configuration of the space, or if my slower steps trip over poorly maintained pavements. And when the space becomes inaccessible, let us not forget, imposed loneliness appears. A person who cannot go outside will not be able to socialize or will have great difficulty doing so.

Sociability requires infrastructure: walkable streets, habitable homes, common spaces where relationships are possible.

We have gained years of life, but will we continue to gain them if we do not take care of the environments in which we age? Living longer is not enough if those years are spent among impossible staircases, narrow hallways, or neighborhoods without benches or shade. Aging well is not only a matter of health or economics, but also of architecture and urban planning.

We need to think about spaces (in cities, towns, and our neighborhoods) that are truly for all ages, for all physical conditions, for all economic situations. Spaces that support, that include, that adapt, and that do not exclude for any reason (including economic ones, as happens when benches are replaced by café terraces or street markets). What benefits older adults—accessibility, public transport, green spaces, proximity of services—benefits society as a whole.

Our future will be (if we are allowed) more long-lived. But for the years gained (and yet to be gained) to be good years—full of meaning, allowing participation, presence, belonging, and being—we will need to examine whether the spaces, the places we inhabit, truly enable social relationships. We may need to rethink our cities, our homes, and our spaces so that they adapt to people’s changing needs and allow our ways of inhabiting them to remain possible.