A Proposal for Town Development in Aged Society

According to the Aged day commemorative report issued in September of 2007 from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, the population of over sixty five years old attained the historical record high of 27.44 million or 21.5% of total population. On the other hand, the many of shopping malls with large parking have been located in suburbs with expanding of suburban residential area and the effect of motorization. In addition, the growth of remote shopping such as internet and catalog one, helps accelerate the decline of old shopping malls. However, these malls give the only one life-line to the elder and disabled population. In this paper, we discuss on the way of maintaining this life-line for elder and disabled one from the study of questionnaire surveys for visitors of two shopping mall in Wakamatsu-ward and Tobata-ward, Kitakyushu, the gate way city to Kitakyushu in Fukuoka Prefecture. Some of methodology is proposed to facilitate revitalization of local areas as the result of this study.