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Two historic shifts are taking place. As is often stated, more than half the world’s population now lives in cities. Also for the first time ever, the elderly outnumber the children on the planet. Are these events unrelated, or do they signal the final stage of an unfolding plan? (Photo Š Naho Kubota, 2011)
using public-private partnerships, BIDs, conservancies, and public trusts. By securing ownership of large land areas, legal entities to maintain them, and seed operation funding, they have quietly organized commissions in their effort to accumulate more public space in cities. Such activity suggests that despite the decline in their personal resilience, seniors have been plotting to make cities resistant to neglect and decay. Posing Because architects peak in the later years of life, they feel professional pressure to appear youthful in order for their work GOES SOFT
to be viewed as informed and contemporary. Bowing to this expectation, they avoid associating with whomever could suggest they are old and out of touch, such as the elderly. Seniors, on the other hand, compassionately understand this impulse and also recognize that architects of all ages are premature seniors at heart. As much as designers obsess about the timeliness of their work, their real concerns are maturation and longevity: they want to prolong their lives and make as many enduring buildings as possible. All the while, the elderly happily pretend to be uninformed about architecture because their feigned ignorance gives them bracket