The Elderly:  A New Path to Growth?

Posted by Sheila Redick on December 31, 2005

As Japan's elderly ranks swell, Toyota sees a new path to growth. According to The Wall Street Journal (12.21.05), Toyota is building on its skills in auto technologies to develop beds, lifts, wheelchairs, even houses to chase a mature crowd.

Toyota's chief executive engineer told WSJ, "This is a priority for all the companies in the Toyota group. We don't see any other global care maker putting the effort into this that we are."

WSJ deems this a "case study on maneuvering around a tricky marketing challenge: How does a company grow sales as the population begins to age rapidly?"

In the next 20 years the U.S. population over 65 is expected to grow by 53%. Fastest growing of all is the frailest group, those aged 85 and over, whose numbers are expected to triple to 8.8 million by 2030.

Which city will become the Toyota of cities and lead the way to inventing new urban systems to accommodate this fast-growing population? Most cities lack even the most basic accommodations for their aging citizens. (If you don't believe it, you try to get your mom across a major street using a walker. You are likely to find yourself caught midway across when the light changes. Or try to wheel her down city sidewalks in her wheelchair. Even in Miami Beach earlier this week -- a place that has its history with elderly sunseekers -- I almost dumped her out face first several times from too steeply angled handicapped curb cuts and unexpected sidewalk cracks.)

Cities have to stop ignoring the reality of an aging population and figure out a way to make this an asset rather than a liability. Who will be first?