Пожилые горожане и аудиовизуальная среда города: возраст как фактор солидарности с пространством

Аннотация

The article considers the peculiarities of perception of the audiovisual space of Southern Russian cities by elderly citizens: what urban objects and sounds are significant for them; what are their expectations about the urban environment; how their evaluations compare to other socio-demographic groups; how status, territorial identity, and solidarity with space are manifested in older people's perceptions. The analysis of survey data (Southern Russian District, 29 cities of various sizes, N=1371) showed that older people are happier than other age groups to live in their cities; they assess the state of the urban environment and public spaces higher; they are more concerned with issues of urban improvement and preservation of the history of their city. Elderly residents of Southern Russian cities have their own significant spaces, priority infrastructures, leisure practices. Representatives of older age groups are more in need of silence and security, in expanding the natural, socio-cultural urban environment, but do not focus on their own needs or manifestations of age-specific socio-spatial exclusion. The growth of solidarity with space directly correlates with the social and biological age of a person, not only due to a deeper practical development of space in the process of socialization, but also due to the peculiarities of social construction of categories of age and old age, social and psychological characteristics of aging. The audiovisual urban environment for an elderly person contains both a modern look and lost spatial attributes of the past associated with significant events, people, previous status, lifestyle. Older people broadcast “conservative” values, familiar ways of communication, take on the role of custodians of historical and cultural memory and lost spaces, realizing solidarity with space, their own status, their generation, demonstrating “expected” behavior within the framework of “social desirability”. Familiar objects, people and spaces provide safety, protection, act as factors of adaptation and socio-psychological health. For an elderly person, familiar things, people and spaces provide a sense of safety, protection (which the elderly need especially acutely), and act as factors of adaptation and social and psychological health. The high importance of solidarity with space for successful social aging actualizes the task of developing a favorable “age-friendly” environment in Russian cities.