ABSTRACT
The viability of the field of environmental gerontology depends upon whether it can make itself practically relevant by helping to resolve some of the urgent, real-world problems facing older adults. Many of the problems relate to which and how residential environments might best forward the goals and aspirations of an aging population. More attention should be directed toward improving the environments of choice of older adults, which are not institutional settings, but rather their own homes located in neighborhoods and communities. To help direct attention, this article begins by linking the concept of the Third Age with theories of environmental gerontology and summarizes key empirical understandings of autonomy and security at the community level because these are the essential environmental attributes for the Third Age. Taking into account contextual issues for community-based living for aging suggests that relocation in the pursuit of residential normalcy ought to produce a diversity of environmental responses. We then sketch out the different ways in which three models of community-based living in the Third Age—the leisure-oriented retirement community, the naturally occurring retirement community, and the villages model—reflect contextual issues as they relate to residential environments for the Third Age.
