Introduction: ageing in place in the Western Asia-Pacific

Population ageing is an international phenomenon with profound social and economic implications and the nature of the built environment at various scales is critical to optimizing the social participation and wellbeing of older people, who increasingly comprise larger shares of the population. It is, however, occurring at different rates in different countries, eliciting policy responses reflecting local cultural, political and economic settings. This is particularly notable in the Western Asia-Pacific, a region that includes the most populous and the oldest countries in the world as well as a diversity of socio-cultural and historical-political backgrounds, facing similar challenges to achieving ageing in place via design, planning and policy. This introduction presents a conceptual background for this collection of essays on ageing, place, and ageing in place from an environmental gerontology perspective - to provide an important context for the rest of the book.