Integrating Neuroscience into Age-Friendly Urban Governance

Global policy frameworks such as the WHO Age-Friendly Cities initiative and the Sustainable Development Goals have played a significant role in shaping contemporary urban responses to population aging. These frameworks promote inclusive, healthy, and accessible cities, yet they are often translated into practice through standardized design checklists and physical accessibility measures. This study argues that such approaches are insufficient to address the cognitive and neuro-sensory dimensions of aging, resulting in a governance gap between global standards and local lived experience. It examines how age-friendly policies are mediated by urban environments based on concepts from neuroarchitecture, an interdisciplinary approach that focuses on psychological and physiological dimensions of human experience in the built environment, health geography, and urban governance. It introduces the notion of neuro-responsiveness as an evaluative lens for assessing whether urban governance structures meaningfully engage with aging-related cognitive diversity. As a result, neuroarchitectural considerations are frequently marginalized, despite their relevance to well-being, and everyday mobility for older adults. In the context of a shifting world order, marked by demographic aging, decentralization, and increasing demands on local governments, the study calls for a reorientation of age-friendly governance toward neuro-informed planning methods. This involves integrating cognitive criteria into urban policy, fostering cross-sector collaboration, and recognizing neuroarchitecture as a form of necessity embedded in local decision-making. The study concludes by identifying pathways to more cognitively equitable and contextually sensitive urban governance, to em-power the next generation of designers, planners, and future decision-makers, to navigate complex social change.