Elder-friendly plans and planners' effort to involve older citizens in the plan-making process

Urban planning strives to make environments, physical and social, better for their inhabitants both now and in the future. The plan document provides the necessary guidance on how these environments will change. Through the citizen participation process, planners hear people's visions and learn about the issues to be addressed in the plan.; With the U.S. population aging, major societal changes are occurring and will intensify as the baby-boom generation ages. Older people oftentimes have a unique perspective that should be considered in community planning. By consciously involving older citizens in plan-making, planners can become aware of their specific planning needs. This contributes to the well-being of the greater community as well as to a successful aging experience for older people.; Plans affect the degree to which the built environment is elder-friendly, yet the degree to which they address the unique needs of older people is unknown. The degree to which planners involve older people is also unknown. This dissertation explores these unknowns within a context that may become a national model for planning for older adults - Florida. The sample consisted of 30 jurisdictions statewide.; This research uses content analysis and survey design combined with secondary data, and analyzes both descriptive and inferential statistics. The dependent variable is the elder-friendliness of individual comprehensive plans, measured using content analysis. A checklist of 100 elder-friendly criteria was developed to determine the extent to which the plans address issues related to aging. The independent variable is the effort planners made to involve older adults in the planning process. A survey of local planning officials was used to measure that effort. The hypothesized model contains four control variables.; The analyses show that plans scored poorly on elder-friendliness, and planners were not making a conscious effort to involve older people in the plan-making process. It also shows that the variation in plan elder-friendliness can be explained to some degree by the level of planning resources available in different jurisdictions. This research marks some promising directions for planners to take as they prepare to meet one of the principal challenges of the 21st century.