| Author: | Xiang, Liqun |
| Title: | Transforming existing urban housing estates into age-friendly communities in China : a multi-agent platform for the briefing stage |
| Advisors: | Shen, Geoffrey (BRE) Tan, Yongtao (BRE) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2021 |
| Subject: | Older people -- Housing -- China City planning -- China Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Department of Building and Real Estate |
| Pages: | xvii, 223 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Rapid ageing has become one of the biggest global challenges in the 21st century and has urged urbanised cities to make changes accordingly. On the global scale, making cities and communities age-friendly will facilitate the achievement of sustainable development goals of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and allow cities and communities to be developed into inclusive and equitable places in which vulnerable groups, such as senior citizens, can live. Age-friendly cities and communities will benefit everyone in the near future. For developing countries like China, promoting age-friendly communities (AFCs), especially through the transformation of existing urban housing estates, is critical because the issues of medical care, welfare system and urban-rural integration have not been substantially addressed. Numerous efforts have been made to construct AFCs in China by national, regional and local organisations during the past few decades, and in 2016, China National Committee on Ageing put forward guidelines on promoting an age-friendly built environment that set forth the basic principles, developing goals, major tasks and supporting measures for the development of AFCs. Despite these efforts, limited attention has been paid to key stakeholders' concerns on critical success factors (CSFs) for AFC projects at the beginning. To transform existing urban housing estates into AFCs in China, efficient cooperation from many parties is needed, including from governments, service providers, civil societies and senior citizens. Given that no detailed guidelines have yet been proposed regarding stakeholders' involvement and responsibilities, it is not clear which sector will be actively involved, which stakeholder will be responsible for the construction work, and whose interests should be given the highest priority when conflicts occur. In addition, the question of how effective key stakeholder collaborations should be promoted has not received sufficient consideration. Therefore, this research aims to examine whether a multi-agent platform (MAP), on which key stakeholders' relationships and their concerns on CSFs are taken into consideration, can support the briefing stage of AFC projects in urban China. The research objectives are accomplished by carrying out Delphi-panel screenings to identify key stakeholders and CSFs extracted from the literature review and document analysis on studies related to AFCs, conducting focus group discussions among key stakeholders of AFC projects, establishing a two-mode social network to analyse the relationships, and applying agent-based modelling techniques to explore mitigating strategies to deal with conflicts among key stakeholders. This study makes original contributions to the knowledge of AFCs and the briefing stage of construction projects. First, a roadmap is developed to identify critical AFC research areas, key stakeholders and CSFs for AFC projects. Second, key stakeholders' concerns on CSFs during the briefing stage of AFC projects are explored. The importance of fostering effective collaborations by analysing key stakeholders during the briefing stage is emphasised. Moreover, a three-tiered MAP is proposed to help address conflicts among key stakeholders during the briefing stage of AFC projects. The findings of this study can also support practical AFC projects: Practitioners can follow the proposed framework to explore the relationship among key stakeholders during the briefing stage of AFC projects. It is suggested that key stakeholders make changes in the identified challenges of AFC projects in urban China. Moreover, practitioners can apply the MAP to better understand the participating stakeholders and to explore strategies to mitigate conflicts. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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