How does a (smart) age-friendly ecosystem look in a post-pandemic society?

Abstract

COVID-19 has impacted not only the health of citizens, but also the various factors that makeup our society, living environments, and ecosystems. This pandemic has shown that future living willneed to be agile and flexible to adapt to the various changes in needs of societal populations. Digitaltechnology has played an integral role during COVID-19, assisting various sectors of the community,and demonstrating that smart cities can provide opportunities to respond to many future societalchallenges. In the decades ahead, the rise in aging populations will be one of these challenges, andone in which the needs and requirements between demographic cohorts will vary greatly. Althoughwe need to create future smart age-friendly ecosystems to meet these needs, technology still does notfeature in the WHO eight domains of an age-friendly city. This paper extends upon Marston andvan Hoof’s ‘Smart Age-friendly Ecosystem’ (SAfE) framework, and explores how digital technology,design hacking, and research approaches can be used to understand a smart age-friendly ecosystemin a post-pandemic society. By exploring a series of case studies and using real-life scenarios fromthe standpoint of COVID-19, we propose the ‘Concept of Age-friendly Smart Ecologies (CASE)’framework. We provide an insight into a myriad of contemporary multi-disciplinary research,which are capable to initiate discussions and bring various actors together with a positive impact onfuture planning and development of age-friendly ecosystems. The strengths and limitations of thisframework are outlined, with advantages evident in the opportunity for towns, regions/counties,provinces, and states to take an agile approach and work together in adopting and implementimprovements for the greater benefits of residents and citizens