The aging population of European cities raises massive challenges with regard to employment, pensions, health care and other age-related services. The housing preferences of the aging population are changing rapidly where more and more people want to live independent lives. and at the same time governments need to reduce the costs of expensive institutionalized care. A precondition for ageing in place is that elderly people perceive their neighborhoods as familiar and safe places. In the Netherlands, many neighborhoods with a rapidly ageing population have been subject to urban regeneration policies. Hence, an important question is to what extent these policies affect the housing situation, social support networks and socioeconomic position of elderly people because these factors strongly assist the ability of elderly people to live independently.

A precondition for the success of such policies is that elderly people feel safe in their homes and that they perceive their neighborhoods as familiar, safe, clean and a nice place to grow old (Smith, 2009; Davies & James, 2011; Gardner, 2011; Wiles et al., 2012). Whereas physical measures inside houses to accommodate lower mobility and health problems are relatively straightforward, creating ‘age-friendly’ neighborhoods or even cities is much more difficult (Lui et al., 2009; Phillipson, 2011; Buffel et al., 2012). In fact, many less affluent elderly people live in deprived neighborhoods where low-quality housing, crime, disorder and tensions between ethnic groups, decrease the livability of the area (Van der Meer et al., 2008; Smith, 2009).

Many of these neighborhoods in Western European countries have been subject to urban regeneration policies. A key element is demolition of cheap social rented housing, new construction of more expensive rental or owner-occupied housing, and renovation of infrastructures and public space. The aim of such policies is often twofold. On the one hand, they aim to improve the liveability and reputation of deprived urban neighborhoods which are dominated by social housing that were constructed in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. On the other hand, these policies aim to improve the lives of residents in those neighborhoods.