The Neighborhood Assessment Projects (NAPs) allowed me to learn what it means to be an age-friendly city and to more critically analyze what is being done in my city and how it can be done better. The start of the project was personally a bit rocky since I moved back to San Diego part way through the project. As a result, I wasn’t able to visit the neighborhood in-person as much as I wished to. Furthermore, given the pandemic situation, it was more difficult to fully explore certain aspects of the city that would have usually been functioning prior to stay-at-home orders. However, in another sense, this issue has also brought to light how much cities need to work to become adaptable in future scenarios where person-to-person contact may become limited.
I’m grateful to have done the project on my hometown, Carson, CA, because it has allowed me to see how much our city has changed since my childhood. I’ve never known much about the history of Carson prior to the project. Therefore, it was interesting to see how much has been worked on to actively better the community. Furthermore, the project also allowed me to further appreciate the work put into city planning and city services. Multiple sectors have to work together in order to fully provide for residents' needs. In our case, we looked specifically at WHO’s checklist which includes aspects of urban design, social services, and more. Seeing my peers presentations also brought to light how differently each city can choose to interact with age-friendly planning. Ultimately, what is done varies between cities as each needs to take into account what its residents specifically need.
I’m grateful to have done the project on my hometown, Carson, CA, because it has allowed me to see how much our city has changed since my childhood. I’ve never known much about the history of Carson prior to the project. Therefore, it was interesting to see how much has been worked on to actively better the community. Furthermore, the project also allowed me to further appreciate the work put into city planning and city services. Multiple sectors have to work together in order to fully provide for residents' needs. In our case, we looked specifically at WHO’s checklist which includes aspects of urban design, social services, and more. Seeing my peers presentations also brought to light how differently each city can choose to interact with age-friendly planning. Ultimately, what is done varies between cities as each needs to take into account what its residents specifically need.