Ageing, Gender, and Territorial Inequalities: Environmental and Socio-Spatial Challenges in Contemporary Societies

1. Introduction and New Emphases of the Second Special Issue

This second volume of this Special Issue of Land, entitled ‘Ageing, Gender and Environment: Problems and Challenges from Different Disciplines’, continues the intellectual trajectory launched with the first compendium of 16 articles, which covered the years 2021–2022 and helped consolidate an emerging field at the intersection of land, ageing, gender, and environmental challenges. Building on this initial effort, the present volume gathers contributions published between 2023 and 2025, further expanding the thematic, methodological, and territorial scope of the Special Issue and responding to the call, already formulated in the first preface, to maintain a sustained, interdisciplinary research agenda on vulnerability, inequality and sustainability in a context of multiple crises.

Compared with the first edition, where the contributions were broadly grouped into social sciences and health/technology and often focused on climate change, sustainability, urban ageing, care arrangements, and environmental monitoring, the articles in this second volume introduce several new emphases and refinements that are already apparent from the titles of the contributions. First, there is a notable consolidation of spatial–analytic and planning tools specifically oriented to older people, with contributions such as ‘Beyond Proximity: Assessing Social Equity in Park Accessibility for Older Adults Using an Improved Gaussian 2SFCA Method’, ‘GIS-Based Analysis of Elderly Care Facility Distribution and Supply-Demand Coordination in the Yangtze River Delta’, and ‘Optimizing the Layout of Service Facilities for Older People Based on POI Data and Machine Learning: Guangzhou City as an Example’. These works show how fine-grained GIS, accessibility metrics, and machine learning are now being mobilised to design more equitable territorial configurations for ageing populations, moving beyond general references to urban ageing present in the first volume toward explicit modelling of spatial justice, service allocation and supply–demand coordination.

Secondly, the new volume sharpens the analysis of how built environments and land-use dynamics interact with health and well-being in later life. ‘Nonlinear Associations Between Built Environment and Overweight: Gender and Marital Status Differences in Urban China’; ‘Can Land Circulation Improve the Health of Middle-Aged and Older Farmers in China?’; and ‘Associations Between Physical Features and Behavioral Patterns in Macau Outdoor Community Public Spaces and Older Adults’ Performance of Instrumental Activities of Daily Living’ focus on specific health outcomes (overweight, functional performance, self-reported health), and link them to micro and meso-level characteristics of urban and rural spaces. While the first volume already included quantitative work on climate change, ecological footprint and regional economies, these new contributions go further in testing differentiated effects regarding gender, marital status, and rural–urban position, and in uncovering mechanisms through which land policies (e.g., land circulation) and public-space design shape ageing trajectories.

Thirdly, gender is addressed in an even more diversified and multi-scalar way, extending beyond the predominance of women’s participation and care roles highlighted in the earlier issue. ‘Indigenous Knowledge, Gender and Agriculture: A Scoping Review of Gendered Roles for Food Sustainability in Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Fiji’ broadens the geographical focus to the Pacific and foregrounds indigenous epistemologies and gendered agricultural practices, connecting gender and land to food systems and sustainability in ways that were only indirectly present in the previous collection. ‘Unveiling the Trajectories and Trends in Women-Inclusive City Related Studies: Insights from a Bibliometric Exploration’ contributes a meta research perspective on how women-inclusive urban studies have evolved, adding a reflexive layer on knowledge production itself. ‘Towards Equitable Representations of Ageing: Evaluation of Gender, Territories, Aids and Artificial Intelligence’ directly takes up one of the forward-looking suggestions of the first preface—the need to build bridges between ecofeminist, intergenerational approaches and artificial intelligence and technology—and materialises it in an empirical evaluation of how AI and assistive technologies intersect with gendered and territorial representations of ageing.

Fourthly, this volume adds new thematic axes around education, taxation, and territorial development that enrich the original triad of land–ageing–gender. ‘Importance of STEM and STEAM Education for Improvement of the Land in the RURAL Environment: Examples in Latin America’ connects land and rural development with educational strategies, indicating how training in STEM/STEAM can empower communities and potentially address territorial inequalities in line with the broader concerns of sustainability and intergenerational justice outlined in the first Special Issue. ‘Tax Planning on New Tobacco Risk-Reduced Products in Europe: Assessment and Implications for Public Policies’ explores public finance and health-related regulation, showing how fiscal and regulatory decisions around new products are also land- and population-relevant, given their implications for public health, territorial revenues, and behavioural inequalities. ‘Evaluation of Territorial Capacity for Development: Population and Employment’ further strengthens the macro territorial and demographic dimension by examining how population structures and employment patterns condition territorial development, thus providing a backdrop against which ageing, gender, and environmental vulnerabilities are produced and mitigated.

Finally, the temporal extension of the Special Issue to 2023–2025 allows this second volume to mirror more closely the evolving global context described in the first volume, marked by accelerating climate change, post-pandemic inequalities, inflationary pressures and the deepening of intersectional vulnerabilities, particularly for women and older people. While the first volume made a strong case for understanding climate change and COVID-19 as “twin crises of the Anthropocene” and called for intersectional, intergenerational, and ecofeminist perspectives that integrate technological innovation, this new collection demonstrates how those agendas are being operationalized through concrete studies on park equity, elderly care infrastructure, land circulation, AI, indigenous knowledge, and women-inclusive urban research. Together, the two volumes thus trace an ongoing and expanding research programme that remains anchored in land, ageing, gender, and environment, while incorporating new regions (China, Latin America, Pacific Islands, Europe), new methods (advanced accessibility modelling, machine learning, bibliometrics, scoping reviews) and new policy arenas (food sustainability, tax policy, territorial capacity, and service planning), with the shared ambition of informing more just and sustainable territorial futures.

2. Theoretical and Empirical Framework

Beyond the specific contributions collected in this second volume, a broader and rapidly expanding body of scholarship provides the theoretical and empirical backdrop against which these articles can be situated. Over recent decades, numerous studies have shown how demographic, social, and environmental transformations converge into a single structural transition that cuts across highly diverse territories. Population ageing, the presence or absence of essential services, processes of rural depopulation, and gender inequalities are increasingly understood not as separate phenomena, but as interdependent dimensions of a socio-environmental crisis that both manifests in space and is mediated through it.

In urban contexts, research on ecosystem services has highlighted how the distribution of green areas and infrastructures often follows lines of social stratification, with direct implications for environmental equity [1]. Studies on older adults’ accessibility to green spaces indicate that the mere presence of parks is insufficient: what matters are effective distances, transport networks, and the location of green areas in relation to residential neighbourhoods [2]. Work on the characteristics of the built environment further documents non-linear effects of density, functional mixing, and urban configurations of walking times and mobility behaviours in later life [3]. Analyses of spatial “trade-offs” between urban green, residential density, and physical inactivity combine environmental and social dimensions, showing how the protective effects of green spaces may be attenuated or even reversed in highly dense contexts [4]. From this perspective, studies that integrate natural and built factors in explaining older adults’ self-perceived health consolidate the idea of a close interweaving between urban form, environmental quality, and well-being [5]. In parallel, proposals for spatial indicator frameworks to assess how far living environments are genuinely age-friendly translate these insights into operational tools for territorial diagnosis [6], while the notion of the “city of care” invites us to consider material infrastructures, governance arrangements, and everyday relationships as components of an integrated urban care infrastructure [7].

On a different but closely related level, population ageing is reshaping the relationship between working-age and dependent-age groups, with far-reaching implications for welfare systems and territorial equilibria [8]. Recent analyses of global demographic projections show that in many regions the peak of both the total population and the working-age population will be reached earlier than aggregate readings suggest, with rising old-age dependency ratios and an accelerated transition towards “old” societies [9]. Studies conducted in China highlight how ageing is accompanied by highly differentiated spatial patterns in the distribution of health resources and new forms of productivity, with varying degrees of coordination between older people’s needs and the provision of services [10]. In an Australian context, projections for rural areas indicate a growing demand for residential and home-based care in remote communities, where distance from services is already a critical factor [11]. In Europe, the link between depopulation and ageing has been documented both at the scale of Italian municipalities, where depopulation and population ageing tend to reinforce each other [12], and in rural areas of the European Union, where processes of demographic decline intersect with limited access to services, infrastructures, and opportunities [13].

These dynamics affect not only quantitative balances, they also impinge on the pact between families and the state and on intergenerational relations, redefining roles and responsibilities in care within heterogeneous welfare regimes [14]. At the same time, more macro-level work urges caution with respect to catastrophic narratives of a “demographic apocalypse” [15], showing that the impact of ageing on health systems depends primarily on changes in morbidity rates and patterns of service use, rather than on age structure alone [16].

Within this broader picture, the experience of “ageing in place” acquires central importance and directly resonates with several contributions in this volume. The concept of ageing in place has underscored how home, neighbourhood, and community constitute spaces of identity, security, and belonging, whose meaning goes far beyond the physical dimension of the dwelling [17]. Research on neighbourhood characteristics and the built environment shows how long-term exposure to deprived, poorly serviced, or environmentally degraded contexts can accelerate processes of frailty, whereas environments rich in opportunities for social interaction, services, and accessible infrastructures can sustain independence in later life [18]. In this framework, technologies assume an ambivalent role: systematic reviews of digital solutions for ageing in place indicate that monitoring devices, communication platforms, and support systems can facilitate older adults’ ability to remain at home in good health [19], yet older people’s own perceptions often portray technology as “not designed for them”, potentially generating feelings of exclusion and reinforcing digital divides within the older population [20]. In addition, there is a broad dimension, as content analyses of social media have shown that ageing and old age are frequently represented in problematic ways, portraying older people as vulnerable, homogeneous, and dependent, which contributes to the reproduction of ageist discourses in the digital public sphere [21].

A third cross-cutting dimension concerns gender and processes of inclusion and exclusion, which are also central to the Special Issue. Cities and territories are profoundly shaped by gender relations, and applying this lens to urban space makes it possible to grasp how social structure and spatial structure are co-constitutive. Research on gendered cities has shown the ways in which patriarchal norms have historically organised urban space, delimiting women’s roles, mobility, and visibility in the city [22]. Analyses of urban structure in the light of gender differences have further demonstrated that access to housing, transport, paid work and spaces of care remains unequal, despite normative and cultural advances [23]. On the economic side, studies on small businesses have documented persistent gaps in success between men and women, modulated by urban or rural context, which point to mechanisms of structural discrimination and to gender queues in local markets [24]. More recent work has reconstructed the long process through which women have claimed their right to the city, intertwining symbolic struggles, legislative change, and demands for full citizenship in public space [25]. Research on walking practices and perceptions of pedestrian mobility in Europe further reveals systematic differences in satisfaction and perceived safety between women and men, confirming that urban spaces remain traversed by gender asymmetries in the possibility of moving in a sustainable and safe way [26].

3. Thematic Insights, Territorial Contexts, and Methodological Approaches

Against this theoretical and empirical backdrop, the articles collected in this second volume engage, each in its own way, with three interrelated thematic axes: (a) territory and environment, including questions of spatial justice, accessibility, and environmental equity; (b) population ageing, with a focus on health, care, and intergenerational arrangements; and (c) gender and inclusion, as they are inscribed in everyday spaces, policies, and technologies.

Taken together, they offer a multifaceted view of ageing societies in profoundly unequal territories, while also pointing to concrete tools and pathways for more just and sustainable futures.

To facilitate reading and provide a more immediate overall view of the contributions included in this volume, a summary is presented below the

Table 1. List of contributions, key methods used, and relevance to the thematic area.

Author (Year)	Case Study Area	Method(s) Used	Thematic Area	Main Output
Huang et al. (2025) [i]	Nanjing (Gulou District), China	Improved Gaussian 2SFCA, entropy-weighted park quality evaluation, multi-source spatial data, Pearson correlation	a, b	Quality-integrated 2SFCA model; identification of low–low equity zones; targeted planning strategies
Zhong et al. (2025) [ii]	Shanghai, China	5-stage survey, XGBoost machine learning, SHAP interpretation, subgroup analysis	a, c	Evidence of nonlinear and subgroup-differentiated effects; gender- and marital-status-sensitive planning insights
Lai et al. (2025) [iii]	Macau	Environmental audits, non-participant behavioural observation, IADL survey, Spearman correlations, multiple regression (VIF-tested)	a, b	Visible greenery and seating positively associated with IADL; design guidance for supportive public spaces
Hu et al. (2025) [iv]	Yangtze River Delta, China	GIS spatial analysis, Moran’s I, Kernel Density Estimation, Standard Deviation Ellipse, coupling coordination model, entropy weighting	a, b	Integrated “distribution–evolution–coordination” model; evidence of urban–rural inequalities; policy directions for balanced care provision
Zorrilla-Muñoz et al. (2024) [v]	International/virtual	Visual content analysis, manual coding, Cohen’s Kappa reliability, AI-generated image analysis	b, c	Mapping of gender/age stereotypes in digital images; proposal of AI + quantum computing bias-reduction framework
Feng et al. (2024) [vi]	Guangzhou, China	POI big data analysis, 500 × 500 m grid modelling, ID3 decision tree (ML)	a, b	High-accuracy predictive siting model; identification of priority grids; smart spatial planning strategies
Gavari-Starkie et al. (2024) [vii]	Rural Latin America and Spain	Comparative qualitative analysis, policy/document review, case-based evidence	a, b, c	STEM/STEAM as a lever for rural resilience, gender equity, and youth retention; policy guidance
Pinto Hernández and Delgado Rodríguez (2023) [viii]	Europe (Spain and Sweden)	EHIS microdata analysis, probit models, negative binomial regression, counterfactual scenario analysis	a	Empirical support for differentiated taxation of reduced-risk products; public health policy implications
Calvo-Palomares et al. (2023) [ix]	Rural Valencia (Spain)	Statistical demographic analysis, surveys with local development agents, READI© matrix	a, b, c	Replicable territorial capacity model; detection of underused local potential and governance weaknesses
Li et al. (2023) [x]	Rural China	IV ordered probit, instrumental variables for endogeneity correction, mechanism regressions	a, b	Land circulation-out improves older farmers’ health via income diversification and reduced physical burden
Thomas et al. (2025) [xi]	Pacific Islands	Scoping review (PRISMA-ScR), thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke)	a, c	Evidence of complementary gendered knowledge systems; call for inclusive and decolonized food policies
Hermaputi and Hua (2024) [xii]	Global	Bibliometric analysis (Bibliometrix), co-citation analysis, MCA, thematic mapping	c	Operational framework for women-inclusive cities; mapping of research trends, clusters, and gaps

. It organizes the individual papers according to the study area, the method employed, the thematic area addressed (a, b, c) and the main outputs that emerge from each contribution.

(a) 

Territory and Environment

The first thematic area concerns the ways in which territory and the environment—both natural and built—shape access to resources, the distribution of risks, and individuals’ ability to lead autonomous and dignified lives. The contributions that deal with this aspect show how, at different spatial scales, it is possible to measure territorial equity in a more fine-grained way and to identify strategies for rebalancing the provision of services and environmental resources.

Several studies directly interrogate the accessibility and quality of urban spaces. Contribution (i) develop an improved Gaussian 2SFCA method to assess older adults’ accessibility to parks in Gulou District (Nanjing), integrating multi-source data on park quality, mobility patterns, and residential characteristics. The result is a map of service “blind zones” that are not captured by traditional indicators and that point to the need for targeted interventions on micro-parks, pedestrian infrastructures, and transport connections. Contribution (iii) analyse outdoor community public spaces in Macao, linking physical configuration (visible greenery, availability of seating, layout) to observed behaviours and performance in instrumental activities of daily living, and showing how specific design choices can either support or constrain older people’s autonomy.

Other contributions approach the geography of services for older adults as an eminently territorial issue. Contribution (iv) reconstruct the spatial distribution and twenty-year evolution of care facilities in the Yangtze River Delta, highlighting a transition towards smaller-scale community services but also a marked polarisation between well-served central areas and underprovided rural or peripheral territories. Contribution (vi) apply machine-learning algorithms to point of interest (POI) data in Guangzhou to identify spatial cells most suitable for hosting new facilities for older people, distinguishing between differentiated strategies for saturated historic centres, emerging commercial districts, suburbs and peripheral areas.

The theme of territory as both a resource and a constraint emerges particularly strongly in rural areas. Contribution (ix) assess the territorial capacity for development of two rural comarcas in the Valencian Community, combining demographic and employment indicators with the READI© methodology, and show how spatial resources, local actors, and cooperative dynamics translate into divergent trajectories of resilience or further marginalisation, with direct implications for depopulation and ageing. Contribution (vii) propose to conceptualise rural territory as a privileged educational space: STEM/STEAM education, rooted in local natural and cultural resources and in the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, is interpreted as a tool to counter youth outmigration, reduce gender inequalities, and valorise older adults as pedagogical resources.

In the Chinese context, contribution (x) explore the relationship between land circulation and the health of middle-aged and older farmers, showing how the transfer of land-use rights can improve health outcomes by reducing physically demanding labour and enabling access to less strenuous income sources, albeit in a framework where land continues to function as an informal guarantee of security in old age. Lastly, contribution (xi) widen the lens to Tonga, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, and Fiji, bringing to the fore how indigenous knowledge and gendered roles in food production and natural resource management are central to sustainability and climate adaptation, and how decolonised territorial policies must integrate these forms of knowledge in order to strengthen local resilience.

The insight provided by contribution (viii) on tax regimes for reduced-risk tobacco products also has a territorial dimension: national fiscal systems, health markets, and the socio-demographic profiles of consumers combine to define differentiated geographies of health risks and costs, with concrete implications for health in ageing regions.

(b) 

Population Ageing

The second area focuses on population ageing as a process that permeates welfare systems, labour markets, production structures, intergenerational relations, and territorial development trajectories. The collected contributions show how ageing takes on different configurations depending on whether one looks at large metropolitan areas, regions undergoing rapid economic transformation or rural contexts marked by demographic decline.

At the urban scale, several studies place ageing in place and the possibility for older people to remain in their living environments in conditions of autonomy at centre stage. Contribution (i) demonstrate the scale of the share of communities in Gulou District that have poor pedestrian accessibility to parks, suggesting that, in the absence of adequate infrastructural adaptations, ageing risks translating into greater exposure to physical inactivity and social isolation. Contribution (iii) show that specific configurations of community public spaces (e.g., greater visibility of green elements, availability of seating, and layouts that encourage encounters) are associated with better performance in instrumental activities of daily living, pointing to the possibility of designing spaces that sustain functional independence in later life.

At the regional scale, contribution (iv) analyse the system of care facilities in the Yangtze River Delta, documenting an overall growth in provision but also an increasing territorial misalignment between the needs of the older population and the distribution of services, with the risk of exacerbating divides between central and peripheral areas. Contribution (vi) address this issue from a prospective approach, using predictive models to identify priority areas for service expansion in relation to the current and future distribution of the older population in Guangzhou.

In rural settings, ageing assumes specific features linked to depopulation, institutional fragility and dependence on traditional productive sectors. Contribution (ix) describe rural comarcas characterised by very high old-age and dependency ratios but also by signs of employment strengthening and increased female participation in the labour market. Therefore, ageing becomes both a challenge and an opportunity to rethink models of local development. Contribution (vii) place rural ageing within a pedagogical framework, in which older adults are recognised as active subjects in the transmission of knowledge and in the construction of educational pathways aimed at rooting younger generations in the territory.

Contribution (x) approach ageing from a micro perspective, placing farmers’ decisions concerning the circulation of agricultural land at the centre of analysis for those aged over 45, as the transfer of land-use rights is associated with improved self-rated health due to the reduction in physical strain and the possibility of diversifying income sources towards less burdensome activities. Contribution (v), finally, remind us that ageing is also a symbolic construction. By analysing visual representations of old age in digital image banks and AI-generated images, they show that older people are often depicted as fragile, passive, and confined to indoor environments. This suggests the need to critically interrogate such narratives to promote an image of ageing consistent with the ideas of participation, citizenship, and capability.

Taken together, these contributions show that ageing is not a simple demographic fact but a spatially situated process whose outcomes depend on the alignment between demographic structures, service provision, working conditions, local social capital, and cultural representations.

(c) 

Gender and Inclusion

The third area places the role of gender and inclusion at the centre of the processes that connect territory, ageing, and environment. The papers discussed here confirm that gender is not an additive dimension but a structuring principle of the organisation of space, territorial policies, and the very experiences of ageing.

In urban contexts, contribution (ii) analyse non-linear relationships between the built environment and overweight risk in Shanghai, with particular attention to differences regrading gender and marital status. The results show that the protective effects of greenery and other features of the urban context are not uniform; in fact, men and women, both single and married individuals, experience the same environmental conditions differently, confirming that care roles, social norms, and gender expectations modulate the impact of territory on health. From a symbolic and media perspective, contribution (v) highlight how images of ageing circulating in image banks and artificial intelligence systems tend to reproduce stereotypes that associate old age—and particularly older women—with frailty, sadness, and dependence, alongside a marked underrepresentation of natural environments and technologies that support autonomy.

In rural and island contexts, gender intersects with local knowledge and the organisation of work. Through a scoping review on Tonga, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, and Fiji, contribution (xi) show how men, women and non-binary people contribute in differentiated but complementary ways to food production, resource management, and the transmission of indigenous knowledge, and how their exclusion from decision-making processes entails a concrete loss in terms of adaptive capacity and sustainability. Contribution (vii) interpret STEM/STEAM education in terms of gender justice, showing how educational projects rooted in the territory can counter the masculinisation of rural villages, promote the continued presence of girls and women, and valorise older adults within educational circuits.

Economic dimensions and territorial development are also permeated by gender. In the work of contribution (ix), the increased participation of women in the labour market in Valencian rural comarcas is read as resulting, at least in part, from the expansion of social services and local cooperative projects, albeit within a context still marked by demographic imbalances and pronounced population ageing. Contribution (xii), lastly, locate the topic within the broader field of women-inclusive cities. Their bibliometric analysis reconstructs trajectories and theoretical nodes in research on cities inclusive of women, from urban safety to mobility, from political participation to feminist urbanism, offering an essential conceptual framework for rethinking urban and territorial policies that structurally integrate women’s needs across the life course, including in later life.

In summary, the contributions in this area show that gender and inclusion are constitutive elements of the ways in which space is designed, lived and represented, and of the ways in which ageing is enabled, supported, or hindered. Only by systematically integrating this lens with perspectives on territory/environment and ageing is it possible to outline development pathways that are genuinely sustainable and socially just for ageing societies in deeply unequal territorial contexts.

Looking at the geography of the cases considered, a marked variety of contexts emerges. A substantial share of the contributions focuses on large urban areas in East Asia, in particular cities and metropolitan regions characterised by high density, rapid demographic transition, and intense pressure on land use. Other studies are situated in rural contexts in Europe and Latin America, marked by depopulation, population ageing and institutional fragility, or in island systems in the Pacific, where vulnerability to climate change intersects with subsistence economies and indigenous agricultural knowledge. Alongside these traditional territorial realities, we also find a supranational European scale, a global analytical space on women-inclusive cities, and even a digital territory constructed through image databases and artificial intelligence systems. Overall, the cases range from neighbourhoods and community public spaces to regional networks of services for older adults, as well as entire rural regions and sets of countries, offering a rich spectrum of scales and contexts.

4. Conclusions and Future Directions

At the methodological level, overall, the contributions display considerable heterogeneity and a clear interdisciplinary orientation. Some studies adopt a strongly quantitative and spatial approach, combining indicators of environmental quality, accessibility measures, and advanced GIS techniques, such as new-generation 2SFCA models, entropy indices, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and models of demand/supply coordination. Other works employ interpretable machine learning tools to capture non-linear relationships between urban environment, health and risk behaviours, or econometric models with instrumental variables to address endogeneity problems and uncover causal mechanisms linking working conditions, income, and health status in older populations. There are also studies based on highly articulated matrices of territorial indicators, which combine demographic, employment, governance, and social capital data.

Alongside these approaches, we find more qualitative and conceptual research, including comparative analyses of educational policies and practices in rural areas, scoping reviews on indigenous agricultural knowledge and gender roles in food systems, visual analyses and systematic codings of images of old age, as well as bibliometric investigations that map the evolution of entire fields of study.

Taken together, the contributions integrate tools from spatial sciences, statistics, economics, social sciences, pedagogy and gender studies, often combining applied, participatory and analytical methods to support evidence-based territorial planning.

Essentially, empirical evidence advances knowledge along three main directions. Firstly, it improves the capacity to measure and represent territorial equity in access to resources that are crucial for ageing, such as green spaces, social and health services, and care infrastructures. Spatial and predictive models make it possible to identify systematically disadvantaged areas, quantify imbalances between urban and rural settings, and propose more targeted planning strategies.

Secondly, the contributions deepen the relationship between ageing, work, local development, and well-being. Clear links emerge between restructuring in agricultural work, economic security, and health conditions, as well as the often underutilised potential of rural territories characterised by pronounced population ageing but rich in environmental, cultural, and social resources. Attention is directed not only to deficits but also to capacities for resilience and to the opportunities generated by new forms of cooperation, proximity services, and re-oriented local economies.

Thirdly, the corpus of studies underscores how gender and inclusion cut across all the dimensions considered. The research shows that the effects of urban and rural environments on health, mobility and opportunities are not neutral, but vary by gender, age, marital status, cultural background and socio-economic position. Educational practices, food policies, images of old age and theoretical references on women-inclusive cities all contribute to delineating a field in which gender inequalities intersect with territorial and generational inequalities, making the need for more intersectional approaches evident.

Despite these advances, the studies also give rise to several reflections that open up important avenues for future research. At least four can be highlighted as follows:

Many contributions offer high-resolution portraits of specific contexts, yet there are still few studies capable of systematically connecting micro dynamics (domestic space, neighbourhood, local community) and macro dynamics (regions, urban systems, supranational networks) and of following their evolution over time. There is a need for longitudinal designs that observe, over longer time spans, how accessibility, environmental quality, care networks, and older people’s living conditions change in relation to territorial transformations.

Although the cases cover a plurality of world regions, structured comparisons between areas with different welfare regimes, settlement models, and socio-environmental conditions remain limited. Studies that systematically compare strategies, instruments, and outcomes across urban and rural contexts, North and South, and centres and peripheries could clarify which models are genuinely transferable and under what conditions the tools need to be profoundly adapted.

In several contributions, older people, women, rural communities, and indigenous populations are at the centre of the analysis but are more rarely fully involved in the co-creation of indicators, maps, images, and design solutions. Developing more robust hands-on and co-design approaches—where those concerned are included as co-researchers and not only as informants—appears crucial for reducing the risk of paternalistic, ageist, or androcentric perspectives and for grounding proposals in needs that are actually perceived.

Many studies propose operational tools (i.e., spatial models, territorial capacity matrices, regulatory or fiscal schemes, educational frameworks) explicitly oriented towards institutional use. However, the pathways through which these tools are effectively adopted by administrations, services and local organisations, as well as the feedback generated by their concrete application, are still poorly documented. A promising research agenda thus concerns the study of the conditions that facilitate or hinder the translation of scientific evidence into policies and practices, and the analysis of feedback loops between implementation, evaluation, and redesign.

Taken together, the contributions to this Special Issue confirm the fruitfulness of a perspective that holds together territory and environment, population ageing, and gender and inclusion, moving beyond sectoral readings and addressing socio-spatial inequalities in an integrated manner. Further developing the lines sketched here, by strengthening longitudinal and comparative perspectives, expanding co-production practices with local actors, and consolidating bridges between research, policies and interventions, can contribute to building territories that are more sustainable, more just, and better able to respond to the needs of all generations.