Longevity Hubs: Regional Innovation for Global Aging

How innovation hotspots for the world’s aging population may prove to be of vital economic and strategic importance in the years ahead.Populations around the world are aging, and older adults’ economic influence—already considerable—stands to grow markedly in the decades ahead. Finding ways to make these lives better is a win-win-win: for older consumers; for aging economies; and for companies and the regions where they reside. This much-needed volume edited by Joseph Coughlin and Luke Yoquinto, Longevity Hubs, brings together contributors—entrepreneurs, researchers, designers, public servants, and others—who are addressing the multifaceted concerns of aging societies. Together, they explore the possibility that specific regions will soon distinguish themselves as longevity hubs: a home to disproportionate economic and innovative activity for older populations.If a region were to emerge as such a disproportionate hotspot, that area and its home nation might better weather some of the challenges posed by population aging, while at the same time providing a cash injection into the local economy thanks to aging markets domestic and foreign. Longevity Hubs explores strategies adopted by different areas’ government and industry leaders to promote such activity; who different regions’ target markets are; and how local, older adults may affect (and be affected by) innovation in their area.