Aging in Place Initiative - Engaging Community Leaders in the Process: Creating a Livable Richmond Metro Area for All Ages

Engaging Community Leaders in the Process: Creating a Livable Richmond Metro Area for All Ages

This report documents the Richmond Metro Area Aging in Place workshop which focused on engaging community leaders and provides an in-depth understanding of the role that leadership plays in the lives of older adults in the greater Richmond region, as well as the innovative programs and initiatives that are happening across the country on this issue. Making a community ageless requires the collaboration of numerous players from the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Download the Report> (6.44 MB)

The theme of this workshop, Engaging Community Leaders in the Process: Creating a Livable Richmond Metro Area for All Ages, reflected the Richmond area’s conviction that it takes leaders who are clearly dedicated to their community to guide planning for enhancing livability for all.

This serves as the record of the meeting and documents the discussions by participants and their recommendations for the most urgent priorities for further consideration. It also includes three mini-case studies which serve as a small sampling of the achievements of leaders whose backgrounds and expertise are extremely varied, but who crafted livable community plans and programs that made their communities more livable for all.

Key Points:

A cross-section of leaders from a community can create the kind of collaboration that will make it possible to develop a livable community for all ages.
Government alone cannot fund and support the transformation of communities required to accommodate the great increase in aging residents.
Businesses can be invaluable contributors to planning for the age wave.
While many national and state resources, such as the Older Dominion Partnership, can be extremely helpful, planning for livability for all ages must occur at the local level.
Making communities aware of demographic trends and the increase in the aging population for which they must prepare is the first step toward developing a plan.

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