Understanding spatial distribution of retirement villages : An analysis of the greater Brisbane region

The nature of the increasingly ageing populations of developed countries places residential issues of these populations at the heart of urban policy. Retirement villages as housing options for older adults in Australia has been growing steadily in recent years; however, there have been a dearth of geographical studies looking into the distribution of existing retirement villages at the regional level. This study aims to reveal the geographical distributions and cluster patterns of retirement villages in the Greater Brisbane Region of Australia to better understand and serve the living requirements of current and potential retirement village residents. The geovisualization method was adopted to visually explore the distribution patterns of retirement villages. The Global Moran’s I and Local Moran’s I measures were employed to analyze the spatial correlation and the clusters of retirement villages in the study region. The study revealed that distribution of retirement villages was not random (z-score = 7.11; p < 0.001), but clustered in nature and included hotspot patterns, especially along the coastline and Brisbane River areas. Moreover, for-profit and not-for-profit retirement villages have different distribution patterns and adopted significantly different tenure agreements. In the study region, the spatial distribution of retirement villages aligns with the aggregation trend of older residents. The findings of this study disclosed the spatial distribution patterns of retirement villages and will provide developers and policymakers with geographically referenced data for the choice of new development sites to meet the market demand of potential customers, forming aged-friendly development strategies, and eventually leading to improved quality of life for older Australians.