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The ageing European population is driving the demand for age-friendly communities that support older individuals' health and well-being. As communities navigate this transition, Transition Design emerges as a promising approach for addressing complex social and environmental challenges. This study explores the potential of Transition Design to create age-friendly communities in Europe. Drawing on examples from several European countries, this paper describes the key principles of Transition Design and how they can be applied to the development of age-friendly communities. This article highlights the importance of participatory processes in involving older people and other stakeholders in the design process, and discusses the role of technology in creating more accessible and inclusive environments. It also considers some of the challenges of implementing a transition design approach in a European context. In conclusion, this study asserts that Transition Design offers a promising approach for creating sustainable, inclusive, and responsive age-friendly communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Krakow is a city that has undergone an immense transformation in recent years. At the end of the 1980s, the period of communism ended and Polish local governments began to operate based on the principles of subsidiarity, decentralisation and independence. In 2004, Poland joined the European Union, which opened up new prospects for development, including in regional and local terms. The world has become a networked and digitized entity susceptible to the influence of innovation. Due to metropolitisation processes, cities, especially those offering above-average earnings, a diversification of economic resources and a relatively high quality of life, began to develop even more dynamically, which had and still has negative consequences. In Poland, there are five cities in which development dynamics have a highly specific dimension. Apart from the capital city of Warsaw, these are Krakow, Wrocław, Poznań and the agglomeration of the so-called Tri-city (Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia). The aim of this study is to show how Krakow, the second-largest city in Poland, has evolved over the last three decades at the level of demographics, urban development and economy; how it changed in the historical "milestones" indicated above. Therefore, depending on the availability of statistical data, several time periods were selected and compared with each other in the most important areas of Krakow's functioning. The research hypothesis is as follows: Krakow's development policy in key areas optimally uses the opportunities resulting from contextual conditions (social, economic and cultural changes that have taken place in recent decades). The study focuses on the three main problems of the city's development (the abovementioned key areas of the city's functioning and development): socio-demographic, spatial and economic changes. The analysis assessed data from the literature, city reports and other available sources, as well as public quantitative data (assessment of data from the National Census for the years 1988, 2002, 2011, 2022; Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland and other repositories and reports). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]