Research of problems and development of ways to solve them in the formation and development of a comfortable living environment for the elderly

Tolochko Ol'ga Romanovna ORCID: 0000-0002-1174-6823 Assistant, Department of "Building Design and Real Estate Expertise", Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education "Siberian Federal University" 660041, Russia, Krasnoyarskii krai, g. Krasnoyarsk, pr. Svobodnyi, 82, aud. 3-60 89131804624@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Saenko Irina Aleksandrovna Doctor of Economics Professor, Department of "Building Design and Real Estate Expertise", Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education "Siberian Federal University" 660041, Russia, Krasnoyarskii krai, g. Krasnoyarsk, Svobodnyi, 82, aud. 3-56 saenko-irina@yandex.ru

In recent years, the issues of improving the quality of people's lives, the formation and development of a comfortable living environment have received great attention both in public practice and in the scientific community. There are methods for assessing the quality of the living environment, contributing, among other things, to the identification of problems of its formation and development in various regions. At the same time, it is necessary to single out a special category of the population – these are elderly people whose needs must be taken into account when forming and developing a residential environment, taking into account the accumulated international and domestic experience ^[11].

Undoubtedly, the concept of a comfortable life for the citizens of the country in a general sense includes decent medical care, decent financial well-being, a calm political and stable economic situation, the availability of developed infrastructure in cities, high quality of goods and services provided. However, within the scope of the research, special attention is paid to the field of urban planning and the comfort of living in its physical manifestation – the comfort of housing and urban areas.

The object of the study is the comfort of the living environment for the elderly.

The subject of the study are the elements of the system of formation and development of a comfortable living environment for the elderly

The purpose of the study was to identify and specify the problems that arise in the process of forming and developing a comfortable living environment for the elderly, as well as to develop directions for their successful solution.

The methodological basis of the research is a set of methods of scientific cognition: comparison, systematization, grouping, tabular visualization of data, generalization, as well as a sociological survey of residents of the city of Krasnoyarsk.

In the global community, the main tool for assessing the quality of life of elderly people is the Global Age Watch Index. The essence of this indicator is the analysis of 13 indicators of the quality of life of elderly people, divided into 4 main groups: material security, health, education and employment, a favorable environment. These groups of indicators were chosen by the developers of this assessment tool because they were identified by elderly people and politicians as key components of the well-being of the elderly population.

The Global Age Watch Index ranks countries by how well their older populations live. According to this indicator, the Russian Federation ranks 65th in the world (Table 1).

A comparative analysis of the index indicators for the selected groups shows that the lowest index indicator in Russia is in the field of health, and the highest indicator is in the field of material security, but in comparison with the leaders of the world ranking, Russia lags behind in terms of indicators in all groups. The indicators for the groups "education and employment" and "favorable environment" have values slightly below and slightly above average, respectively. In comparison with developed countries, the quality of life of the elderly population in Russia is lower, which confirms the relevance of the development and implementation of active longevity strategies for our country.

Table 1 – Global Age Wath Index indicators in the most developed countries ^[10].

Due to the subject matter of the study, the fourth group of indicators "favorable environment" (according to the Global Age Water Index) is the most interesting to study. In the field of housing and urban environment, the urban environment quality index developed within the framework of the national project "Housing and Urban Environment" is used to assess quality in Russia ^[8]. The Urban Environment Quality Index is a tool for assessing the quality of the material urban environment and the conditions for its formation. This index is based on 36 indicators, which together can give the maximum possible value of the city index of 360 points.  

Table 2 shows the indicators of the urban environment quality index in the largest cities of Russia for 2020. According to the index calculation method, the largest cities are understood to be cities with a population of over 1 million people, this group includes 15 cities of the country. According to the overall index indicators for 2020, 53% of them have a favorable environment, with a national average of 189 points.

Based on the data in Table 2, it can be concluded that such areas as "citywide space" and "housing and adjacent spaces" are best developed in the largest cities of Russia, and the worst indicators for a group of indicators reflect the public and business infrastructure. In relation to the elderly, the most important group of indicators, according to the authors, is the group "social and leisure infrastructure and adjacent spaces". At the moment, the level of indicators indicates the unsatisfactory state of this industry and only 6 of the 15 largest cities in Russia to some extent meet the needs of the population in this infrastructure.

Table 2 – Indicators of the urban environment quality index in the largest cities of Russia for 2020 ^[5].

Let's determine the dynamics of indicators for the group of indicators "social and leisure infrastructure and adjacent spaces" over the past three years, namely: 2018, 2019 and 2020. Table 3 shows the data of indicators for a group of indicators for the study period in the largest cities of Russia. The limited sampling of the time period is due to the fact that the urban environment quality index has been implemented and calculated only since 2018.

The indicators for the largest cities of Russia, shown in Table 3, indicate a lack of dynamics in this area. The arithmetic mean of the indicators for the given group is 30 points out of 60 possible, which indicates the positive state of this sphere in the whole country. Over the past three years, the indicators have not changed their values, which confirms the relevance of research in the field of social and leisure infrastructure development, including for the elderly.

Table 3 – Indicators of the group of indicators "social and leisure infrastructure and adjacent spaces" in the largest cities of Russia for 2018-2020 ^[5].

The need for the development of the social protection system on the example of the Krasnoyarsk Territory is due to a significant number of the population older than working age (more than 22% of the population of the region) ^[4], as well as a significant number of people in need of social support and social services (more than 44% of the inhabitants of the region receive various types of social assistance).

Today, there are 159 social service institutions in the region (77 regional and 82 municipal). Of the total number of institutions, 49 institutions carry out their activities in the interests of families with children and 110 institutions provide social services to elderly citizens, disabled people, and other categories of citizens. Every year, about 26 thousand elderly and disabled citizens use social services at home, more than 8 thousand people live in stationary conditions ^[7].

Within the general age group of elderly people, taking into account their socio-functional activity, they are divided into various categories, which are presented in Table 4. Speaking about creating comfort in a residential environment specifically for the elderly, it is worth highlighting the principle of individualization: for each category of elderly people, it is necessary to propose different strategies for the formation of urban infrastructure facilities.

Table 4 – Categories of elderly people, taking into account their socio-functional activity ^[3].

By a residential complex we mean a system of real estate elements and infrastructure elements interconnected with each other, however, when talking about housing for the elderly, it is especially important to have an idea that this housing is a system that must interact with various elements of the urban environment. Hence the division of the typology of housing systems for the elderly into open and closed systems.

It is obvious that the closed system represents typical specialized and isolated homes for the elderly and boarding schools both within and outside the city. And this means limited contacts with the external society, therefore, isolation and isolation of citizens, which does not contribute to the formation of active longevity in this category of the population. The open system is aimed at integrating specialized housing into urban development.

Examples of an open system can be cottage settlements in Norway, Germany ^{[2, 6, 9]} or a social town in Borisovichi, Pskov region ^[12]. The project being implemented in the Pskov region is experimental for the Russian Federation. The space is a complex of low-rise apartment buildings, as well as a number of infrastructure facilities.  It is assumed that a project of this kind will be able to provide elderly people with comfortable and safe living conditions that will be similar to home. At the same time, the main thing remains to improve the quality and accessibility of social services for elderly citizens. Including through the use of modern social work technologies.

There are noticeable differences in the approach to the formation of urban development in relation to elderly people in European countries and in the Russian Federation. The separation and remoteness of specialized institutions from the city center in Moscow, as well as in Krasnoyarsk, indicates their isolation and attitude to a closed system. There are similar "homes" for the elderly, but they should exist only for a small proportion of elderly people who need special medical care and inpatient stay, since these institutions cannot be fully a home. Hence it turns out that elderly people face a choice: to live separately in specialized institutions away from their usual place of residence or to stay in their apartments without proper help.

Based on the above, it is assumed that it is necessary to synthesize closed and open systems into something in between, i.e. the most optimal and cost-effective system for organizing residential development for the elderly, namely: a mixed system. Since the most promising and feasible format for organizing residential development today in Russian cities, including Krasnoyarsk, is complex development, it is most promising to try to integrate a mixed housing system for the elderly into complex development projects ^[14].

In the course of the study, a sociological survey of residents of the city of Krasnoyarsk was conducted, 136 people who belong to different segments of the population, including by age, education level, income and social status, took part in the survey. Taking into account the decentralized location of the spec. institutions on the territory of the city of Krasnoyarsk and according to the results of the survey, another trend is revealed. The overwhelming majority of respondents, in old age, do not want to live apart from society in a specialized institution, but prefer their own housing (Figure 1).

Figure 1 – Living conditions in old age based on the respondents' wishes.

Also, as part of the survey, respondents were asked to choose the most important elements of infrastructure that older people need. The most popular response was specialized medical care. The rest of the respondents' responses were distributed as follows, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 – Necessary infrastructure elements for the elderly, according to respondents.

In the course of the study, the following problems were identified, the consideration of which and the development of appropriate solutions are necessary in the process of forming and developing a comfortable living environment for the elderly: 1                    The principle of individualization in creating a comfortable living environment, that is, to take into account the existing needs for each of the above-mentioned groups within the general age group of the elderly. 2 Decentralization of infrastructure for the elderly, which makes them isolated from society and requires the adoption of appropriate special decisions in relation to them, which will contribute to active longevity, which is declared in the strategic documents of the Russian Federation. 3                    In addition, the vast majority of respondents in old age do not want to live separately in a specialized institution, but prefer to stay in their housing. However, at the moment, when designing and building residential complexes, the interests and needs of elderly people are not fully taken into account. Having identified the problems, it is necessary to consider the directions of the solution.  The existing urban models of living for the elderly need to be modernized. New methods of helping and caring for older people, such as maintaining active longevity through socialization with other groups (young people and children), occupational therapy in workshops require other architectural and spatial forms. These changes have an impact on the typology of architectural solutions for the elderly, as well as form recommendations for a new localization of housing – within the city ^[13].

Today we have a relatively stable and developed housing market, and the development of housing development implies an increase in the level of comfort of this environment, which determines the need to adhere to a strategy to increase the quality of products. To this end, two fundamental directions should be distinguished: the first is the optimization of the regulatory framework, in particular regarding the adoption of urban planning decisions taking into account the needs of elderly people; the second is the popularization of elderly people as a special group of consumers in the residential real estate market, which entails the development and implementation of not only appropriate urban planning, but also organizational and managerial decisions ^[1].

First of all, it is necessary to start with the optimization of the regulatory framework. This is the creation of local architectural regulations and design principles. At the federal level, it is the development of principles of integrated development reflecting the vision of modern integrated development of territories in terms of planning solutions and technical and economic indicators of development, amendments or the development of new regulatory documents regulating urban planning activities aimed at improving the comfort of the environment according to the "Set of Principles of Integrated Development", Strategies, MDS 35.12–2006 and other regulatory documents that take into account the needs of elderly people.

In parallel with the work on the regulatory framework, an active marketing campaign should be conducted among the population and developers in order to create demand and supply, respectively, for projects based on new urban planning principles. Conduct open architectural competitions of housing development projects, arrange open courses for architects and designers to improve their competencies. After the changes in the regulatory framework are completed and the new provisions become mandatory, a new stage in the urban planning policy of Russian cities will begin.

A strategic approach to improving the comfort of the living environment for the elderly should consist in a comprehensive analysis of urban areas and the needs of the elderly.

The following activities should be included in the comprehensive analysis:

1 Urban planning analysis;

2                    Sociological research;

3                    Transport research;

4                    Economic research.

Based on the analysis data, it will be possible to choose the best option for the development of the city's residential environment.

The scheme of solving the identified problems of creating a comfortable living environment for the elderly is based on a combination of urban planning and organizational and managerial directions.

A number of measures to solve the identified problems within the framework of urban development:

1                    Revision of the regulatory framework for the design of residential areas, taking into account the needs of elderly people in terms of the norms for the mandatory composition and area of functional zones in order to increase the comfort and compactness of urban development.

2 Development and implementation of standards for integrated development of the territory taking into account the needs of elderly people;

3 Development of programs for the development of integrated residential development of cities, taking into account the needs of elderly people.

A number of measures to solve the identified problems within the organizational and managerial direction:

1                    Coverage of standards in the media, the formation of a request from the population for a comfortable living environment of the city;

2                    Creation and support of competitions for the best residential development projects, residential planning;

3 Development of the principles of PPP (MCHP) in the formation of a comfortable living environment for the elderly in the projects of complex development of the territory;

4                    Support of private medical organizations involved in the provision of medical and social services, involvement of private business in the organization of firms providing social services within residential complexes (neighborhoods).

Designing a city that is convenient for everyone is designing according to standards that meet the needs of all categories of citizens, including both young families and elderly people. Improving the quality of life of elderly people will have a positive impact on the development of society as a whole. This fact directly determines the choice of alternative social models of the living environment for all categories of the population.