MADISON, Wis. (SPECTRUM NEWS) - Wisconsinites are living longer every day. 15 percent of Badger State residents are over 65. By 2040, that number is expected to jump by more than 70 percent. 

As people age, their cities, towns, and villages may not be as easy to live in as they once were. Six Wisconsin cities have joined an effort to change that. 

Thursday, Madison officially signed on as the AARP’s next Age-Friendly Community. “Everyone, including folks that are on the older spectrum in terms of years, need livable communities,” said Madison mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway. 

This program doesn’t mean they’re suddenly designating Madison age-friendly. It means the city has begun a years-long initiative to improve life for Madisonians. 

“When you design for a population that maybe might have greater needs, you actually end up helping everyone,” said Rhodes-Conway. “There’s a concept that you end up designing for an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old, you’re designing for everyone in between. If you design for people who have the biggest mobility challenges you’re also making life easier for the folks who have no mobility challenges.”

There are eight categories AARP uses to determine how livable a city is for people of all ages: housing, transportation, communication, outdoor space, civic participation, social participation, respect, and services available. 

Five other Wisconsin cities are already part of this program. There are no defined goals every city has to meet, there are no specific criteria. Instead, in each community, it’s focused on residents. What do they want? What do they need? They get to provide their input, then officials determine next steps from there, eventually implementing projects to improve on what residents want. There’s no way to tell what Madison’s projects will be just yet. 

Greendale is in the middle of the process. “[Greendale] really focused on outdoor space. Great walkways, great pathways, great bike routes… but none of them had signs, or labels, or benches if people needed to take a break,” said AARP Wisconsin State Director Sam Wilson. “They did the assessment, said ‘hey we really need to add these features to our outdoor built environment,’ and that’s what they’re working on.” 

In Sheboygan, residents said they didn’t know enough about what was going on in the city. “What they found in listening was ‘we don’t know what the city’s doing, we don’t have a great way of knowing how they communicate it to us, so is there a way that we can really maximize that inter-communication effort between residents and city leaders?’ So that’s what they’re focusing on,” said Wilson. 

Since Sheboygan started this process in 2017, they’re already onto the ‘solutions’ phase. “We started an internet-based monthly newsletter for citizens,” said Mike Vandersteen, Sheboygan’s mayor. “We’re also using our social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Nextdoor.”

Leaders said this project could have an impact on Madison for decades to come. “That’s gonna continue to make this city a good place to live, work, play and retire for the next 20 years,” said Wilson. 

There will be listening sessions over the next year to assess where Madison stands in providing for citizens of all ages, then officials will begin developing plans based on those results. 

Greendale, La Crosse, Sheboygan, Shorewood, and Wausau are already part of the AARP Age-Friendly Communities program.