The author focuses on the role of place-based community both in in-situ aging and in age-segregated (often gated and walled) retirement villages within cities as a potential contributor towards self-actualization. Elderly individuals in a case study in Calgary, Alberta, were measured on the short index of self actualization and a series of multivariate ‘structures’ of place — community associated with behavioral, cognitive, and affective features of community derived from a principal components analysis of community indicator variables. Self-actualization tendencies were not found to differ by residential context. Multiple regression models showed a similar overall contribution of all community structures to self-actualization in the different residential contexts, but different sets of community structures were identified as unique and significant predictors of self-actualization in the two residential settings. This differential impact may signal that a variety of forms and structures of person–environment congruence amongst the elderly yield similar psychological outcomes.
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