State-led age-friendly urbanism in non-Western contexts: Evidence from transitional communities in Fujian, China

Source abstract

In 2020, China launched its national Age-friendly Community Assessment Programme, aiming to certify 5000 communities by 2025 and potentially reaching over 50 million people. However, how these state-led objectives are translated into community-level realities remains underexamined, particularly in transitional communities ( guoduxing shequ ), hybrid urban forms emerging from rural–urban integration. Drawing on six case studies from Fujian Province, this article adopts an integrated framework combining multi-scalar governance theory and actor-network theory to analyse the situated enactment of age-friendly policies. Findings reveal three distinct models: (1) intergenerational integration, fostering cross-age interaction through shared space; (2) residential eldercare, delivering services in repurposed collective facilities; and (3) mutual-aid eldercare, activating peer support and local networks. These models demonstrate how national policies are adapted through institutional layering, actor mobilisation and cultural translation. Despite these innovations, the study also reveals critical constraints. Highly standardised assessment criteria and quota-based certification mechanisms often marginalise locally effective but unrecognised initiatives, particularly in communities with limited administrative leverage. Moreover, rigid top-down planning can delay or undermine implementation when it fails to account for on-the-ground realities. By conceptualising transitional communities as sites of both governance experimentation and structural tension, this research advances global debates on age-friendly urbanism beyond Western contexts. It highlights the need for more flexible, inclusive policy frameworks that recognise social heterogeneity, support grassroots agency and value plural trajectories towards age-friendliness.