ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we start with the radical discussion of the current agenda of the urban planning profession. We have come to the moment of truth and face the fact that urban planning has encountered fundamental changes and challenges in both the physical environment and demographic contexts. Not only does urban planning as a discipline face the urgent need of refocusing and repacing our steps, people in the world have also faced challenges of how to remain active and healthy in a longer life they may not have expected. We also elaborate the urgent need and reasons to react on ageing trends from the institutional and individual levels and discuss the contexts of ageing-friendly cities from the WHO age-friendly program in the second part. In the third part, we focus on how to interpret the concept of ‘active ageing’ and ‘ageing well’, review related theories, and propose the structure of the book as well as the main issues we would like to explore. Three pillars compose the whole book: the relationships and changes between demographic ageing and planning theory and approaches at a different scale and cultural context, how to integrate cross-discipline research methods, and the search for the knowledge gap for better knowledge integration. Finally, we emphasize that planning for ageing is planning for the future commonwealth.
