Abstract
The See and Snap study uses a user-based qualitative research approach involving older people to take photographs of the built environment using their smart phones. It offers a way to see through their eyes how older adults perceive, negotiate and experience the outdoor built environment in their everyday journeys. It is one of three tools developed in the Urban Audit to understand the experiential perspective of older users and the barriers they face when using the outdoor built environment . The findings revealed that the respondents visited a range of places, structured and incidental, purposeful and social spaces , in their everyday lives within their neighbourhoods and outside of their town. They particularly liked the convenience and proximity of amenities like markets , local shopping and green spaces to their homes.
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Notes
- 1.
Kopitiams and hawker centres are two types of food establishments that are ubiquitous in Singapore. They have a range of food stalls, often reflecting the multi-ethnicity of Singapore. Kopitiams are of a smaller scale and frequently found at the void deck of public residential blocks while hawker centres are purpose-built establishments, comprising hundreds of food stalls. See Lai et al. (2012); Kong (2007) for more information.
- 2.
PG refers to “Pioneer Generation”, that is, to the early generations of people (those aged 16 and above in 1965 or those aged 65 and above in 2014) who have contributed to Singapore’s nascent years of nation building. Singapore has initiated a PG package for this group of older citizens to help with their medical costs, e.g. a PG card allows the cardholder to receive subsidised medical treatment at designated clinics.
- 3.
Burning paper money for the dead is a religious-cultural practice, part of Chinese Taoist ancestral worship.
- 4.
MP refers to Member of Parliament. Dr. Teo Ho Pin is the MP representing the Bukit Panjang Single Member Constituency and also Mayor of the Northwest Community Development Council. Dr. Teo has been credited with the many improvements in amenities and environment made to the Bukit Panjang neighbourhoods.
- 5.
Geylang Serai market is one of the busiest and largest wet markets in Singapore, offering mainly Indian-Muslim and Malay food and products.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the following for their generous support and assistance with the See and Snap Urban Audit Survey : our colleagues Cheong Sue Wei and Parvathi Nair for facilitating the group discussions with respondents; Bukit Panjang Town residents who participated in the survey and generously shared with us their responses and experiences of their urban environment. And our colleague Adithi Moogoor for assisting with the photo presentation in this Chapter.
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Yuen, B., Soh, E. (2019). Seeing Through the Eyes of Older Adults. In: Yuen, B. (eds) Ageing and the Built Environment in Singapore. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92444-1_6
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