Why Place Matters

Why Place Matters reassesses and challenges what is known and traditionally understood about the relationship older adults have with place over time and in later stages of life. Building from notions that affirm there is no single "right" place to age or grow older, Joyce Weil underscores older persons' agency in thinking about place and uncovers the ways in which feelings about place may be paradoxical, may change and evolve over time, and will always be subject to other variables - large and small - that add complexity and nuance to how older adults derive and also attach meaning to their surroundings. Even in the presence of a rich literature and ongoing body of research on older adults and their relationships to place, this book critically defines, reframes, and measures this relationship in an effort to represent the relationship more fully and authentically. Voices and the experiences of older adults are shared throughout, enlivening the book's analysis and expressing in real ways how the interaction of person and place is fluid and just as dependent on personal and individual circumstances as it is on societal and structural ones.

Combining first-hand accounts and innovative analysis, this book unpacks and expands the meanings ascribed to place in later life and ponders why, and to whom, place matters. Readers across the fields of gerontology, sociology, geography, planning, and health and social care will all find a fresh and invaluable perspective through which to think about place and aging.