Age-friendly urban design and policies are commonly framed as tools to enhance older adults’ social inclusion and quality of life. While this approach is vital, it often underestimates the wider strategic potential of age-friendliness as a lever for territorial development. This paper argues that when age-friendly policies are understood not only in functional or compensatory terms but as generative forces for place-based transformation, they can produce value far beyond the older population: socially, spatially and economically.

The study builds on the WHO Age-Friendly Cities framework and draws on André Torre’s theory of territorial development, which emphasises the role of local actors, identity, and perception in shaping development trajectories. In this view, ageing is not perceived as a burden to be managed, but as a resource capable of activating new relationships between people, space, and governance. Age-friendliness becomes a policy innovation at local level. Territorial value, is not only produced through investment in technology but through how people interpret, imagine and channel change.

The research focuses in Alexandroupolis, the first Greek city to join the WHO Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities. At the time of study, the city had not yet developed a formal age-friendly strategy, offering a rare opportunity to explore how stakeholders and residents perceive the potential of age-friendliness before it becomes institutionalised. This is particularly relevant in a context of demographic ageing, geographic marginalisation, and limited local policy experimentation.

The central aim of the research is to explore how the relationship between age-friendliness and territorial development is perceived by older adults and municipal stakeholders in Alexandroupolis. It examines how older adults assess the city’s age-friendliness through the lens of the WHO framework domains; how they experience their ability to participate in civic, social, and economic life; and how both older residents and institutional actors view the potential contribution of age-friendliness to the city’s broader development goals. These questions guide the research toward a deeper understanding of how ageing is locally imagined and whether it is being linked to a wider vision for the city’s future.

Methodologically, the study combines a baseline assessment, semi-structured interviews with local actors, and a participatory Ripple Effects Mapping (REM) session. Findings suggest that participants do not view age-friendliness as a siloed social policy, but as a symbolic and practical shift with implications across the urban fabric. Improvements in walkability, safety, and public space are associated not only with greater inclusion for older people, but also with revitalised neighbourhoods, support for local businesses, silver tourism and a renewed sense of shared identity. Ageing is not simply accommodated, it becomes a driver of territorial value creation and a starting point for a more inclusive vision of development.

Ultimately, this work calls for a shift in ageing discourse: from meeting needs to mobilising potential, from social inclusion to place-based regeneration, and from older adults as passive recipients to co-creators of territorial futures and age-friendly policies not just as the instrument for inclusion but also as a vehicle for territorial development.

Ioakim Vravas is a practitioner working at the intersection of social policy, local development, and applied research, with over a decade of experience in the humanitarian and civil society sector, mainly in Greece and Eastern Europe. He has led programme design, monitoring, and evaluation efforts in diverse contexts, with a particular interest in challenge-to-opportunity initiatives — including post-wildfire recovery in Northern Evia and refugee integration as a driver of local development on the island of Tilos. He currently leads monitoring and evaluation for humanitarian responses globally at ACT Alliance.

He is completing two master’s degrees: one in Ageing and Social Change (Linköping University, Sweden) and another in Evaluation and Management of Social Policies (Université Grenoble-Alpes, France), with a focus on the development potential of less privileged regions. He also holds a Master’s in International Public Policy (University of Lyon III) and a Bachelor’s in International and European Studies (University of Macedonia, Greece). His current academic work explores how age-friendly urban design can be perceived as a lever for territorial development, particularly in underrepresented and mid-sized cities.