ABSTRACT

The tendency of shrinking-cum-ageing presents new planning challenges for the city of Taipei, which is undergoing the loss of public life due to corporate-led urban renewal while simultaneously activating the community-based approach of urban regeneration. In the historical yet marginalised district of Wanhua, three particular neighbourhoods have been chosen as case studies of the place-making paradigm and evaluated for the effects of active ageing and ageing-in-place in the community regeneration process. “Place” is regarded as a locus of identity, familiarity, community support, and social inclusion in the place-making practices of ageing-in-place. To defer the syndrome of ageing and to sustain elders’ mental and physical well-being, the modes of choreographing place-ballets and weaving memory tapestries are employed to foster a sense of neighbourhood and personal attachment.

In the surveyed cases of Bopiliao, South Airport, and Ka-la̍k-á, choreographing the place-ballet and weaving a memory tapestry have been crucial to the processes of community empowerment and the regeneration of public life, which further lead to the conservation or revitalisation of declining neighbourhoods. The regeneration of communities is conducive to sustaining the cross-age interactions and a mutual care environment and is therefore a critical strategy for the planning of the ageing city.