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The development of a new planning and management vision for urban areas, combined with energy saving strategies, reduction of the carbon footprint and an enforced sustainable approach, will provide a better quality of life for citizens and a more attractive space for economic developments, but above all for the daily lives of the citizens themselves33. The demographic issue and the challenge of the ageing society The demographic challenges that occurred in the past, above all in relation to the migratory phenomena of population and depopulation, have been the field of analysis favored by the European and American sociological schools of the 19th and 20th centuries34. The debate over the demographic question today directs its attention not only to migration, but also towards the ageing of the urban population, whose numerical growth is directly proportional to the general trend of the overall ageing of the human population. This is because, as already stated, since 2010 most of the world’s population lives in an urban setting, and therefore in reflecting about the future of cities we cannot disregard the evaluations that derive from the issue of ageing. In the last ten years the average age of the population, or rather what is called life expectancy, has increased
United Smart Cities Program 2018. 2009 Ageing Report: Economic and budgetary projections for the EU-27 Member States (2008 - 2060), European Economy, and Demography Report 2008: Meeting Social Needs in an Ageing Society (SEC(2008)2911).
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