Aging Experiences among Older People in Conakry/Guinea: Towards an Age-Friendly City and Community

Older people are a demographically significant group, who represent a vulnerable layer within conditions for active and healthy aging that may be lacking in both urban and rural areas. Objective: To identify the main barriers and opportunities for the establishment of age-friendly cities and communities in a low-income country. Methods: This was a qualitative study that involved focus group discussions with older people, and service providers (health and social services) in the city of Conakry. The older people were purposively selected with the support of older people associations, and men and women were equally represented in the sample. Results: The analysis focused on the experience of old age as well as the barriers and opportunities for active healthy aging specific to the sub-Saharan context. The results indicate that a good quality of life for older adults boils down to the acquisition of good health and decent housing. Other concerns frequently reported were food and education problems for their children and security. Conclusion: This study contributes to strengthening the understanding of the age-friendly cities and communities’ approach in the context of sub-Saharan African countries.

Comparative Analysis between Community and Occupants’ Rating Systems for Sustainable Urban Communities (SUC)

Overpopulation globally is an addressed issue impacting human lives, marine lives, and the surrounding ecosystem;it is adding pressure on the available resources that should be optimized to suit the needs. Yet with improper management of resources and monitoring of daily activities, the environment will be further negatively impacted. With overpopulation higher urbanization rates are noticed with the demand of seeking better health facilities, better education, better jobs and better well-being;this progression is driving more demand into the infrastructure sector to be able to accommodate the growth rates. Hence, the need to having sustainable communities aiming at optimizing the resources used, working towards more feasible, environmentally friendly and cost-effective communities with a better occupant’s experience is in action. Sustainable development goals (SDG) are vital goals developed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 2015 to address and guide through 17 interconnected global goals serving the previously mentioned trend. Out of the 17 goals, Sustainable Cities and Communities (goal #11) and Good Health and Well-Being (goal #3) are the focus of this paper directed towards holding a comparative analysis between the community scale commonly known and mostly used rating system Leadership of Energy and Environmental Design (LEED-Cities and Communities) (USA) versus similar rating systems like Tarsheed-Communities (Egypt) and Estidama-Pearl (UAE) rating systems meeting sustainable development goal #11. Conjointly, another complimenting comparative review of the occupant’s health and wellbeing rating systems, such as Fitwel (USA) and Well (USA) are studied under sustainable development goal #3;however, they are focused on a building scale assessment. Living Community Challenge (LCC, USA) rating system linking community rating system with health & wellbeing credits was first issued in 2006, yet is it not cost effective neither easy to apply acting as a primary step while being affordable, accessible, and easy to implement. The objective of this paper is to highlight the pros and gaps under both categories of studies of community rating system and occupants’ health & wellbeing rating systems based on scientific content and commercial acceptance and do-ability. This comparison is done via comparing credits and sections within each rating system type;this will support in addressing the focal points needed for an integrated rating system between both categories that will serve in meeting SDG Sustainable Cities and Communities (goal #11) and Good Health and Well-Being (goal #3).

Understanding spatial structures and organizational patterns of city networks in China: A highway passenger flow perspective

The use of multi-perspective and multi-scalar city networks has gradually developed into a range of critical approaches to understand spatial interactions and linkages. In particular, road linkages represent key characteristics of spatial dependence and distance decay, and are of great significance in depicting spatial relationships at the regional scale. Therefore, based on highway passenger flow data between prefecture-level administrative units, this paper attempted to identify the functional structures and regional impacts of city networks in China, and to further explore the spatial organization patterns of the existing functional regions, aiming to deepen our understanding of city network structures and to provide new cognitive perspectives for ongoing research. The research results lead to four key conclusions. First, city networks that are based on highway flows exhibit strong spatial dependence and hierarchical characteristics, to a large extent spatially coupled with the distributions of major megaregions in China. These phenomena are a reflection of spatial relationships at regional scales as well as core-periphery structure. Second, 19 communities that belong to an important type of spatial configuration are identified through community detection algorithm, and we suggest they are correspondingly urban economic regions within urban China. Their spatial metaphors include the administrative region economy, spatial spillover effects of megaregions, and core-periphery structure. Third, each community possesses a specific city network system and exhibits strong spatial dependence and various spatial organization patterns. Regional patterns have emerged as the result of multi-level, dynamic, and networked characteristics. Fourth, adopting a morphology-based perspective, the regional city network systems can be basically divided into monocentric, dual-nuclei, polycentric, and low-level equilibration spatial structures, while most are developing monocentrically.