Introduction Population ageing in Guangzhou has continued to intensify, and the older adult population is increasingly concentrated in central urban areas. This concentration amplifies spatial mismatch between service demand and resource allocation, thereby shaping both the equity of public service provision and the capacity of urban governance. Methods Using district-level data on older adult care service demand and care-service resources in Guangzhou from 2015 to 2023, we develop an integrated analytical framework combining the entropy-weight method, spatial autocorrelation analysis, geographic concentration measures, and inconsistency indices. This framework is applied to identify the spatial structure of demand–resource alignment and its evolution over time. Results The analysis reveals a clear core–periphery pattern. Central urban districts form structural “bottleneck zones,” characterised by high service demand and insufficient resource supply. Peripheral districts, by contrast, display a reverse mismatch: comparatively higher pre-allocated resources alongside lagging or slower-growing demand. Transitional districts between the urban core and outer areas exhibit relatively better coordination between demand and resources. Discussion Overall, Guangzhou’s older adult care system appears to be entering a phase of structural adjustment in which misalignment is driven less by absolute scarcity alone and more by spatial configuration and cross-district spillovers. Policy priorities should therefore shift toward spatial optimisation of facilities and service capacity, strengthened cross-district coordination mechanisms, and more targeted resource allocation that responds to the evolving geography of the older population and care needs.
Liu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.