Glen Miller was introduced by his friend, Larz H. Larz and Glen have crossed paths many times through their interest in urban development. Glen, a Senior Associate with the Canadian Urban Institute, is one of a number of committed practitioners who act as resources supporting the institutes work.

On a date when Statistics Canada indicated a significant increase in the proportion of seniors, Glen started his talk outlining the various definitions and language used to describe seniors.  He used this as a springboard to initiate the discussion around policy decisions in urban planning.  Going forward with changing demographics, communities will need strategies specific to the needs of seniors to ensure age friendly environments. Aligned with this, the World Health Organization launched "Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities in 2011, recognizing the growing importance of the need to create community environments that are supportive of healthy ageing", and they also developed an indicator tool for measurement and evaluation the same.  http://www.who.int/kobe_centre/ageing/age_friendly_cities/en).   

Glen was able to pinpoint the time in history post World War II where fast paced population growth  led people to migrate to the suburbs to an environment which was primarily dependent on the car.  Increasingly spacious communities need an appropriate transportation system in order to access everything from groceries, to health services and opportunities to socialize. Seniors are outliving their ability to drive by approximately 10 years and thus communities must prepare for those needs. The age friendly community requires affordable housing, accessible infrastructure (roads/walkways/parks), age adapted health and social services all geared to a wide range of abilities in the older population. The older population will be dependent on well researched policy decisions considerate of these to optimize quality of life.  As well as outlining the issues, Glen offered a hint at futuristic ideas in transportation and technology, such as the driverless car, leaving the audience somewhat hopeful for possible solutions to a complex issue.

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