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Welcome to the Conversations on Urban Ageing podcast, brought to you by the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group (MUARG)!
MUARG Conversations on Urban Ageing Podcast
This series features conversations with guest speakers from The University of Manchester, universities across the UK, and international experts discussing pressing issues related to ageing in urban environments. Recent topics include environments of ageing, civic engagement, digital arts and wellbeing, ethnicity, and housing futures.
You can also listen to the MUARG Conversations on Urban Ageing Podcast on Spotify.
Live recordings of the MUARG Conversations Series can be attended by anyone, with details available on our Events page. Join us as we explore innovative approaches to creating age-friendly cities and communities!
Recorded on 15 November 2023
In this episode, Liesbeth de Donder from Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Mo Ray from the University of Lincoln discuss interdisciplinary co-creation and new ways of working with co-production in research. Hosted by Patty Doran from the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group.
Recorded on 19 October 2021
In this episode, Sophie Yarker from the University of Manchester talks about her book, Creating Spaces for an Ageing Society with Paul McGarry from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Hosted by Patty Doran from the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group.
Recorded on 23 November 2021
In this episode, Sheila Peace from the Open University and Jarmin Yeh from University of California, San Francisco discuss the meaning of place to older people and the need to promote spatial justice in urban, ageing neighbourhoods. Hosted by Sophie Yarker from the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group.
Recorded on 15 February 2022
In this episode, Wilbert Den Hoed from Universitat Rovira i Virgili and Carol Kachadoorian from dblTilde Collaboration discuss urban mobility, transportation planning and policy development within age-friendly cities. Hosted by Sophie Yarker, from the Manchester Urban Ageing Research group.
Recorded on 5 April 2022
In partnership with the Manchester School of Architecture, this episode sees Professor Rose Gilroy from the University of Newcastle discussing Urban Ageing and Alternative Housing Futures. Chaired by Mark Hammond from the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group.
Recorded on 7 February 2023
In collaboration with the Morgan Centre, Helen Holmes presents a seminar on ageing and inclusivity in Manchester’s rave scene. In particular, Holmes explores how the landscape of rave has changed, becoming more accommodating for the older clubber’s body and lifestyle. This conversation is chaired by MUARG's James Fletcher.
Recorded on 14 June 2023
In Conversation, MUARG and Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity present:
Dharmi Kapadia and Christopher Phillipson will be coming together in conversation to discuss the experiences of people from minority ethnicities and urban ageing. The conversation will be chaired by Patty Doran from the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group.
New insights were gained into the experiences of urban ageing, race and ethnicity during the COVID-19 pandemic; both speakers will reflect on how these insights have been received and the challenges going forward. From a critical gerontology perspective, Chris Phillipson's research has explored and challenged some of the dominant social and cultural assumptions made about ageing and ageing societies. Dharmi Kapadia's work with the ESRC Centre on Dynamics for Ethnicity (CoDE) has included leading on the COVID Rapid Response project 'Ethnic and Racial Inequality in a Time of Crisis'.
Bringing together these speakers' different research experiences, this Conversation promises to be one that will inspire innovative approaches to future research on urban ageing, race and ethnicity.
Join Dr MaoHui Deng (Lecturer in Film Studies University of Manchester) and Andy Barry (Elders Programme Producer, Royal Exchange Theatre) in conversation.
Mao and Andy will be discussing what role culture should play in our lives as we age and consider the best ways to promote opportunities for people to remain or become creative in later life. The conversation will include reflections on the barriers older people face to engaging with arts and culture as well as what the next steps in the creative ageing sector might look like.
Mao and Andy have recently worked together on a creative ageing film project with members of the Elders Company exploring creative ageing in place, and this experience will form part of the conversation.
The Royal Exchange Elders Company was established in 2014 and has grown to become a busy programme of regular creative activity for people in later life from across Greater Manchester. Each year a new group of up to 25 people aged 60+ is recruited to take part in the Elders Company – a year-long creative learning project. Upon completion, they become graduates of the Company and continue to engage with the Theatre. There are currently over 100 graduates.
The Theatre also runs a year-round public access programme of activity called Elders Mondays that takes place on the first and third Monday of the month, and includes creative activity sessions in play-making, play-reading and playwriting. All sessions are led by professional artists. Elders graduates, who are part of the theatre’s Leaders programme, also lead their own creative activities for attendees at every Elders Monday. Elders Leaders also develop their own creative projects independently and alongside the theatre, including the Theatre’s creative phone service for people living with dementia called We'll Be in Touch.
Individuals and families in every city, town, and rural area feel the impacts of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. While a growing body of evidence points to potentially modifiable individual risk factors for dementia, the everyday environments in which people develop and navigate cognitive decline are largely overlooked. This talk introduces a new theoretical concept, Cognability, to investigate how well your community supports cognitive health through places to exercise, connect with other people, and keep your mind active. Not everyone has access to these places, and some of us face additional health threats such as pollution from local factories and highways. It is important to identify which communities lack neighbourhood resources to support cognitive health. That way we can prioritize community changes and neighbourhood investments to create more equitable opportunities for healthy aging and reduce dementia risk.
Jessica Finlay is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Department of Geography and Institute of Behavioural Science. Her research on neighbourhoods, health, equity, and aging uses mixed-methods and crosses the fields of environmental gerontology and health geography.
In this episode of the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group Conversation Series, co-hosted with the Urban Institute, Dr Shengxiao (Alex) Li examines mobility challenges faced by older adults in the United States—particularly those living in households without access to a vehicle.
Drawing on data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey, Dr Li explores the growing number of older Americans ageing in low-density environments and the implications this has for everyday travel and independence. The study categorises zero-vehicle older individuals into four distinct groups—urban commuters, nonrural low-income nondrivers, rural unemployed nondrivers, and nonurban moderate transit users—offering a detailed picture of how mobility needs and constraints vary across contexts.
A key finding highlights that more than one-third of zero-vehicle older adults are rural unemployed nondrivers, underscoring significant gaps in transportation access outside urban centres. The discussion also draws attention to the relative mobility advantages experienced by urban commuters, illustrating deep inequalities in travel opportunity linked to place, income, and infrastructure.
The episode considers what these patterns mean for planners and policymakers, including the need for more inclusive transport services in suburban, rural, and small-town contexts, as well as longer-term changes to land use and neighbourhood design that better support ageing populations.
Join us for a conversation on transport equity, ageing, and how planning decisions shape the ability of older adults to stay connected and active in their communities.
In this episode, we bring together UK and Canadian perspectives on how Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) can be co-created to support ageing in place and strengthen community life in later years.
NORCs are neighbourhoods or housing developments that were not originally designed for older people but have gradually become home to significant numbers of older residents. These settings offer unique opportunities to build social connection, enhance mutual support, and improve access to local services—while also raising important questions about inequality, participation, and care.
The session, chaired by Dr Mark Hammond (Manchester School of Architecture), features two speakers exploring how NORC-based approaches can be developed in different contexts.
Dr Catherine Donnelly (Queen’s University, Canada) presents the “Oasis” programme, a pioneering Canadian initiative that works alongside older residents, housing providers, and community organisations to co-design social and practical supports within NORCs. Drawing on a five-year longitudinal study, she reflects on the programme’s impacts on health and wellbeing outcomes, as well as the dynamics of long-term community-based collaboration.
Niamh Kavanagh (University of Manchester, UK) shares insights from the co-creation of a NORC initiative at Hopton Court, a high-rise social housing block in Hulme, Manchester. Developed from the bottom up by older tenants, the project responds directly to everyday experiences of inequality and explores how resident-led action can shape more supportive living environments.
Together, these UK and Canadian case studies highlight both the promise and the challenges of co-designing NORC models across different housing and policy contexts. The discussion offers wider lessons on ageing in place, community empowerment, and how collaborative approaches can help shape more inclusive urban futures.
In this episode of the MUARG Conversation Series, Vikki McCall (University of Stirling) explores how stigma attached to place, ageing, and disability intersects to shape experiences of exclusion—and what can be done to create more inclusive and accessible housing systems.
Drawing on early findings from the Intersectional Stigma of Place-Based Ageing (ISPA) Project, Vikki discusses how stigma linked to where people live can combine with age- and disability-related stigma to produce compounded barriers to services, participation, and everyday life. The project is a 5-year participatory mixed methods study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (2022–2027), involving collaboration across the Universities of Stirling, St Andrews, Newcastle, and Bristol, alongside housing sector partners including the Housing Learning and Improvement Network (Housing LIN) and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA).
The episode brings together insights from an initial evidence review, secondary analysis of Mass Observation diaries, and new data collected with community peer researchers. These materials illuminate the lived realities of disabled adults with sensory and mobility impairments, showing how intersecting forms of stigma can reinforce inequality in housing and neighbourhood life.
The discussion also considers how these findings can inform practical, place-based housing solutions that prioritise accessibility and inclusion—offering pathways to reduce stigma and improve living environments for ageing and disabled populations.
Join us for a conversation on how housing, place, and perception shape inequality—and how research can support more inclusive futures.
In this episode of the MUARG Conversation Series, chaired by Patty Doran (University of Manchester), Barbara Groot-Sluijsmans and Vanessa Burholt explore the ethical complexities that arise in age-friendly community work and co-creation practices across the Netherlands and New Zealand.
Barbara Groot-Sluijsmans (VU Amsterdam) draws on practical experiences from age-friendly community-building initiatives in the Netherlands to highlight the everyday ethical dilemmas that emerge in participatory projects. These include navigating tensions such as racism and conflict within multicultural community garden settings, balancing artistic quality with inclusion and stigma reduction in dementia-related arts programmes, and managing competing expectations between funders’ demands for visibility and the need to protect the anonymity of participants in theatre and dance projects involving women with migration backgrounds.
Vanessa Burholt (University of Auckland) reflects on the challenges of implementing co-creation principles in contexts where formal regulatory frameworks are limited or unclear. She discusses the complexities of distinguishing between research participants and co-creators, including in collaborative projects such as soundscape research with people living with dementia. The conversation also addresses decolonising research practices with Māori communities living with mate wareware, as well as sensitive issues such as continence and incontinence in later life. Vanessa further outlines the work of the Centre for Co-Created Ageing Research (CCREATE-AGE), which is developing co-creation principles aligned with Kaupapa Māori methodologies.
Together, these perspectives illuminate the ethical tensions, cultural considerations, and practical challenges involved in co-producing age-friendly research and practice across different national and cultural contexts.
In this episode of the MUARG Conversation Series, Helen Manchester (University of Bristol) explores how co-designing digital technologies with older adults can reshape our understanding of ageing, wellbeing, and inclusion.
Drawing on findings from the UKRI Healthy Ageing-funded project Connecting through Culture as we Age, Helen shares insights from working with twenty socioeconomically and racially minoritised, or disabled, co-researchers aged 60–75. Together, they engaged in a participatory digital innovation process that placed lived experience at the centre of design. Their voices and everyday realities directly shaped the development of six prototype digital cultural experiences.
Rather than starting from a “problem to be solved,” this research challenges dominant approaches to digital innovation that frame ageing as a crisis. Instead, it asks what becomes possible when we begin with the rich, situated, and creative everyday lives of older adults.
The episode also explores the creative methods used to surface these lived experiences in place, how they informed the co-design process, and what the project reveals about digital exclusion, creative citizenship, and more inclusive approaches to technology design over a three-year collaboration.
Join us for a conversation that rethinks how we design with—and not just for—older people in a rapidly digitalising world.
In this episode of the MUARG Conversation Series, we explore how neighbourhood environments shape civic engagement in later life, and what this means for ageing societies across Europe.
Drawing on findings from the CIVEX project—funded under the Joint Programming Initiative “More Years, Better Lives”—Principal Investigator Rodrigo Serrat (University of Barcelona) and Sandra Torres (Uppsala University) examine how urban and social contexts influence older adults’ ability to participate in civic life. The project brings together a rich comparative dataset of 240 life-course interviews conducted across Spain, Belgium, Sweden, and Finland, focusing on groups at greater risk of civic exclusion, including older adults living in socioeconomically disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods.
The episode highlights emerging insights from this interdisciplinary research, combining urban studies and gerontology to better understand how place-based inequalities shape opportunities for participation. It also considers how societies might better support “active citizenship” in later life, particularly at a time when demographic ageing and democratic pressures are increasingly intertwined.
By looking closely at participants’ lived experiences, socio-demographic profiles, and patterns of engagement, the discussion reveals how neighbourhood conditions can either enable or constrain civic involvement—and what this means for unlocking the potential of ageing populations.
Join us for a conversation on ageing, democracy, and the role of place in shaping who gets to participate in civic life.
In this episode of the MUARG Conversation Series, we explore how environments shape the experience of ageing in the UK, from homes and neighbourhoods to cities and wider natural landscapes.
Professor Judith Phillips, a leading social gerontologist and Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester, reflects on decades of research into environmental gerontology and the evolving understanding of how place influences later life. Drawing on insights from the Social, Behavioural and Design Research Programme (SBDRP) within the UK Healthy Ageing Challenge (2020–2024), the discussion highlights how ageing is shaped across multiple scales—from the micro environments of home and household, through community and retail spaces, to broader public, built, and natural environments.
The episode traces the development of environmental gerontology in the UK since the 1980s, asking what we have learned so far and where the field is heading. It considers pressing contemporary issues such as “left behind” places—areas facing economic and social decline—and the growing impact of climate change on ageing populations and everyday life.
By bringing together empirical evidence and theoretical perspectives, the conversation explores how environmental conditions can both enable and constrain wellbeing in later life, and what this means for designing more inclusive and age-friendly futures.
Reflections on the ‘Doing’ of Community Research Podcast
This series features conversations with community researchers involved in the project, including Tina Cribbin, Anthea Cribbin, and Niamh Kavanagh. Across three episodes, they reflect on building trust, using gentle and creative research approaches, and recognising community research as a form of resistance.
Drawing on experiences from Hulme, the series explores how community research can be carried out in more equitable, respectful, and useful ways. Join us as we reflect on the realities of the ‘doing’ of community research and what researchers can learn from community knowledge and experience.