ABSTRACT
Old age, as described earlier, is often a period of shrinking life space. This concept is crucial to our understanding of the housing problems and choices of older Americans. As older persons lose strength, experience health losses, and begin generally to feel less in control of their environment, they are likely to restrict their mobility to the areas where they feel most secure. For most older persons this means that they spend much of their time in their immediate neighborhood and increasing amounts of time inside their own house or apartment. The older one becomes the more likely
sons over 65 spend 80 to 90 percent of their lives in the domestic (home) environment.1 In comparing older persons with other groups, only small children and those living in institutions are so bound to house and neighborhood.
