Introduction

In all of our lives, in Ireland and in other national settings, place matters. The communities, the neighbourhoods, the districts and the streets that we live in matter to us as individual residents and as members of a collective place-based community. As we age, it can certainly be argued that place matters even more, regardless of what country we live in. Many older people have simply spent longer periods of their life course in their place of residence. Therefore, their place relationship is often more established, and has paralleled and intersected with important events and transitions in their lives. Additionally, where we live can be critical when health, mobility and social connections become more of a challenge in later life.

It is unsurprising, then, that there have been various initiatives focused on enhancing the relationship between people and place. Concepts such as liveable communities (AARP, 2005), compact cities (OECD, 2012b), welcoming communities and healthy cities (WHO, 2008) are now embedded in the policy and practice rhetoric of many countries. Perhaps the most prevalent of these in recent years, particularly for targeting older adult well-being, has been the age-friendly movement. Ireland, as with many other settings, has certainly embraced this movement. Building on the World Health Organization's (WHO’s) Age-Friendly Cities Programme, the age-friendly concept has been applied to communities, cities and larger regions as a means of enhancing older people's environmental relationship, and as a framework for social policy. With a presence in over 21 countries, the movement has become globalised, and, in some circles, is viewed as a way of addressing ‘challenges’ and resource demands arising from demographic ageing (eg Tompkins, 2008).

In the current economic climate, however, enhancing older people's relationship with their place is a substantial challenge in its own right. Such efforts, whether driven by political, societal or even community agendas, are starkly juxtaposed with experiences of economic recession and programmes of austerity in Ireland and in other settings. Whether we take a narrow environmental view of place or a broader multidimensional view, reductions in public expenditure are likely to influence experiences of ageing in place. However, the impact of austerity on older people's relationship with place has not been considered, and reflects a wider paucity of research on the influence of global (or national) macro-societal issues on local settings (Phillipson, 2011).