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Future Forum's junior research fellow, Top Viphallin was published in Cambodianess on January 3, 2025. Check out the original article HERE, and read it below!
Phnom Penh is a vibrant, fast-paced city where life moves quickly. Our sun-soaked streets hum with the energy of cars and vehicles zipping in every direction. At street level, shophouses line the roads, but navigating the patchy pedestrian pathways can be a real challenge – especially for those with mobility issues. This urban setup isn’t designed with older residents in mind, often leaving them sidelined and unable to fully engage in the city’s social life.
As this guide from the World Health Organization about “age-friendly cities” points out, the built environment has a major impact on the mobility, independence and quality of life of older people. As people get older, their worlds often shrink down leading them to not engage as easily with life outside of the home. City infrastructure can play a big role in this issue, particularly when that infrastructure is not disability-inclusive.
While Cambodia still has a younger population compared with countries facing a dramatically aging citizenry, this dynamic is set to change. According to research published in 2020, there are currently around 1.3 million people aged 60 and above in Cambodia, representing 8.9 percent of the population. But, according to projections from the Ministry of Planning, the proportion of the population that is 60 years-old and above is expected to increase to 21 percent by 2050 and 30 percent in 2070, which would put Cambodia on track to catch up with the current demographic realities in countries like Japan and Italy.
If this is our trajectory, Cambodia would do well to learn from the experiences of other countries whose populations are older. We need to begin investing in age-friendly infrastructure now and an excellent place to start is in urban infrastructure.
Existing features of Phnom Penh’s built environment—such as the city’s small, intimate alleyways—if reexamined through the lens of age-inclusivity, may become vibrant spaces for people of all generations.
What do Phnom Penh’s Older Adults Need?
When it comes to the ways in which Phnom Penh’s infrastructure can better serve older Cambodians, it’s useful to examine the specific needs of this population, as well as their experiences and abilities.
In one survey published in 2021 by HelpAge in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, 80 percent of elderly respondents were found to have at least some difficulty in terms of mobility, while 70 percent of respondents had at least some difficulty with their vision.
The majority of the older people surveyed live with some form of family, but a smaller percentage, 7 percent, of the people surveyed live alone. The survey notes that this sub-group in particular faces increased difficulties in terms of their mental and emotional well-being.
And, while most survey respondents were satisfied with the material support they have received from the people who support them, there was a much more mixed response when the older people surveyed were asked if their spiritual, emotional or mental health needs were being met. The survey noted that only a quarter of older people were supported in a satisfactory way with social communication or socialization.
This demonstrates that despite the majority of older adults living with their families, there is still a risk of social isolation among this demographic.
Urban Planning to Overcome Isolation
To decrease isolation for older Cambodians, we need to think about the spaces they might already be able to access that could be reimagined as healthy third spaces, community hubs or gathering places.
In an ideal version of an age-friendly city, these public spaces would be just a few minutes from the doorsteps of older people. For that reason, urban planners would do well to consider the role that Phnom Penh’s alleyways can play.
The city’s alleyways, 3-to-4-meter-wide side streets, often snake behind major roads. Many of these alleyways already serve as ad hoc gathering spaces for communities, hosting food vendors selling their wares and neighbors sitting on stoops and plastic chairs. The benefit of smaller alleyways is that they are already free of significant through-traffic.
Phnom Penh could invest in these alleyways to make them even more safe and even more accessible for the elderly. With small changes, these alleyways could be more vibrant, intergenerational, and greener spaces.
Phnom Penh should consider establishing an alleyway pilot project to study and provide evidence-based recommendations to urban planners, developers and policymakers in their further development.
Accessible Streets Mean Elderly Independence
First, we need to make sure that alleyways are completely safe for older pedestrians to use. For older Cambodians who might need to use mobility aids like canes, walkers, or wheelchairs, we should start by establishing wide designated walking areas. We must also ensure that these walkways have an even surface and have adequate drainage. Given the percentage of older Cambodians who have vision difficulties, it’s important that we prioritize making these spaces well-lit.
Along with the walkable pathways, we should install comfortable seats or resting places for our older people with mobility challenges.
Urban designers can also bring life and interest to an alleyway through lively movable potted plants, and creative paintings on blank walls.
To further enhance safety on the street, reducing speed or traffic should be taken into account by setting appropriate speed limits. To that end, driving areas should have speed bumps to prevent motorcycle drivers from cutting through these areas at high speeds.
Alleyways as Community Gardens
According to a study examining the relationship between home and community gardening and aging, there are significant benefits for older people who participate in gardening activities. The study identified benefits ranging from increased self-esteem to increased social engagement.
Community gardens allow elderly individuals to socialize with their neighbors. This social engagement helps combat loneliness and isolation, promoting a sense of connection and belonging within the community. As a case study, consider a back alley in the U.K. that has been transformed by two older women into a natural oasis, mini garden, and family space which has brought their community together.
At the moment Phnom Penh lacks green spaces. While large-scale parks would be wonderful, they require big investments in terms of money and land. Converting portions of small alleyways into community gardens can be a small step towards promoting social interaction among the elderly while amplifying urban green spaces for all city residents.
Adding additional greenery to alleyways wouldn’t be a step outside of what Cambodians already do in a spontaneous way. If you walk down any residential street in the city, you'll notice people already growing herbs, vegetables, flowers, and green plants in small planters. Planters refer to containers or pots used for growing plants. These can be made from materials like plastic, ceramic, metal, or wood and are commonly used in urban or small-space gardening where planting directly in the ground isn't feasible.
Adding greenery to alleyways in an official way, through raised beds or vertical gardens in tight areas, would simply build upon the desire for plant life that is already very strongly felt.
Making alleyways beautiful and green would also ensure that they can be intergenerational spaces to bridge the gap between younger and older Cambodians. Through these types of spaces, we can foster communities where mutual support and respect thrive.
Wat Chen Domdek neighborhood holds a good model for transforming an alleyway into a community center in Phnom Penh. Through a partnership that brought together support from development partners, partners in the arts, Phnom Penh City Hall, and students from RUFA and the University of New South Wales, the alleyway had been turned into a colorful and attractive walkway. Kids and older people spend more time together on the street playing and interacting.
Moreover, enriching local businesses can give people more reason to go there.
A Prime Candidate for an Alleyway Pilot Project
The small alleyway adjacent to the Toul Sleng genocide museum is a perfect place to test out alleyway designs. If you were to walk down that alley, you would see lively and dynamic daily activities—small groups of kids playing football, mothers cooking at their doorsteps, neighbors chit-chatting and preparing their vendor stalls. Down that alleyway you might already see older people sitting on a kre, a wooden bed, in front of their houses drinking tea while watching the kids play.
This kind of closeness and ease is harder to get on bigger busier roads in the city.
This alleyway is clearly already beloved, so any changes that might be made in a pilot project shouldn’t take away from what already works so well. In terms of improvement, we might consider the ways in which we can maximize space for even more greenery and social activities for all ages. We might consider installing additional play space for children through “street art games” painted on the street or on empty walls. This would create social connectedness between children but also would provide entertainment and joyful moments for older residents to observe and cheer on.
We might consider even more accessible features, such as handrails along the alley to allow older people to navigate to built-in seating by themselves, or stable permanent seating that includes armrests, which allow older people to raise or lower themselves to a chair or bench with ease.
The transformation of this potential alleyway could serve as a street development model for our city to demonstrate the ways in which spaces can serve all neighbors, including older Cambodians.
The Way Forward
If our physical environment is playing a role in social isolation, then we should consider making the built environment a part of the solution. Simple features, like the humble alleyway can become pillars of social cohesion and mitigate the loneliness of the elderly by prioritizing age-friendly street design and making it safe, allowing the older adults in our lives to access and benefit from strong bonds with their neighborhoods.
Making an investment in infrastructure that includes elderly Cambodians is an investment in all of our futures, particularly as Cambodia’s demographics change.
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