In Brazil, the recognition of the city's social functions as well as the duty of supporting the elderly was one of the innovations introduced by the 1988 Federal Constitution (articles 182 and 230). A City's Act (2001) and an Elderly People's Act were also introduced in the Brazilian legal system, within an urbanization and aging population context. Based on a qualitative and explorative research, this article seeks to investigate if the notion of "urban ambience" has been employed or could be relevant for the analysis and implementation of elderly rights in Brazil. Searches were made in the databases IusData, Periodicals CAPES and LILACS in the fields of titles and abstracts with the terms "ambience(s)" and "elderly(s)" until February, 2014, in which only one result was found, in the area of Nursing. The research was also based on the main federal Laws related to cities and elderly as well as municipal Laws (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre) and references in Gerontology, Law, Architecture and Urbanism. The idea of ambience, which refers to an environment experienced by someone, places people's experiences at the heart of the thought process. This concept seems appropriate to think about the city as a place that reflects the heterogeneity of the elderly and promotes active and dignified aging. Although this concept is still rarely used in Brazilian legal acts, with no legal definition and unknown to lawyers, urban ambiences are, in fact, closely related to the law, since they are determined by Law (among other factors) and are determinant for enforcing rights.
Aging; Urban Ambiences; Elderly Rights; Cities; Brazil