Elderly people in residential environment

The paper is based on the results of socio-architectural part of Polsenior project (2007- 2011). The author shows a residential environment from subjective perspective of senior respondents, who were surveyed and interviewed within above mentioned project, in which the author is one of the main doers. A theoretical background of the research include: space order concept, Maslow's pyramid of needs, Lawton's and Nahemow's concept of environmental stress and those theories in which a residential environment is a "source" of social capital, embedded in networks among neighbors. According to this view of a neighborhood the author shows how elderly respondents define "good neighbors" and what qualities such relations contain. As a social integration is one of the crucial issues in the text, it is shown there how a residential environment can facilitate or hinder it. The place to live for a senior is also presented as a subject to emotional attachment - no matter how much is this, losing physical efficiency creates dilemmas for seniors themselves and for their families: whether to stay where they are or to move to a nursing home.