2004 Volume 69 Issue 584 Pages 67-73
The purpose of this paper is to discuss factors promoting/preventing the going-out activities of the elderly in relation to spatial structure of the physical environment in their neighborhood. We took six residential districts in Kumamoto city as the case,' in suburb, two active districts in terms of the going-out activities of the elderly, the other two represent relatively inactive districts, in downtown area, two districts represent the residential districts having 'good' environment in terms of well-developed transportation networks and commercial services. In these districts, we analyzed 918 sets of answers of the elderly people to the questionnaire, and investigated the physical environment using fieldwork survey data. We analyzed the differences of the going-out patterns of the elderly in each characteristics, spatial structure of the territory of daily life, their evaluation of the neighborhood. Findings can be summarized as follows. For the eldelry, safe and comfortable walking environment is fundamental conditions. However, it is more important for them to have several places that they freely access through safety pedestrian network within the walking distance. Combination of these places and pedestrian network creates the space which is attractive for the elderly and promote their going out. Although the road with much traffic is the barrier of movement for the elderly, they reach the distinction exceeding it if it is near in distance. But for the old-old people, .the influence of the restrictions by such a barrier and distance becomes stronger.
