This book provides a comprehensive and empirical investigation into how aging-friendly living environments influence older adults’ physical activity, mental health, and residential preferences. It offers a multidimensional perspective that connects the built environment—both objectively measured and subjectively perceived—with key health and behavioral outcomes in later life.

Adopting an innovative approach, the book goes beyond conventional linear analyses by exploring non-linear effects, mediating pathways, and the interaction between environmental conditions and personal well-being. It further integrates insights from housing needs and spatial expectations, drawing on field data and case studies from rural China.

The book covers a wide range of topics, including environmental determinants of physical and mental health, walking accessibility and well-being, residential functionality, and policy implications for inclusive design. Its interdisciplinary scope makes it particularly valuable for scholars, graduate students, and practitioners in gerontology, public health, urban and rural planning, and environmental psychology.

This book is an essential resource for scholars, planners, public health professionals, and policymakers in gerontology, environmental psychology, and urban–rural development. It bridges disciplines to deepen our understanding of what it truly means to live—and age—well within the environments we call home.

Yibin Ao, Professor, Doctoral Supervisor, and Reserve Candidate for the 14th Batch of Sichuan Province's Academic and Technical Leadership Program. He has devoted his career to friendly and resilient environments. He has published more than 70 academic papers, presided over or participated in a number of national projects, and won the the Springer Nature 2024 China New Development Award.

Mingyang Li, Ph.D., Chengdu University of Technology, is mainly engaged in the research of elderly friendly planning, healthy humanities and so on. Presided a number of scientific research projects, including the project of Sichuan Aging Health Development Center and the project of Sichuan Gerontology Society, participated in the research of National Key R&D Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation and other projects.