Aging in a Big Town

Abstract

The subject of this article is a big city social Policy towards old people with an example of Warsaw. The author was inspired to write this text with her partici- pation in a workgroup “Exclusion of elderly persons,” which prepared a diagnosis and formulated initial suggestions to the Social Strategy for Warsaw 2009–2020. It seems, that regardless the differences between big towns, basic goals and assumptions for the policy towards senior citizens are similar in the majority of metropolitan communities. Due to the fact that any proposal concerning social policy should be preceded by a diag- nosis, the article begins with the description of demographic situation of big Polish towns (above half million population) and with a diagnosis of the situation of senior citi- zens in Warsaw. Demographic and socio-economic data were obtained from the Central Statistical Office publications.