Development Strategy of Urban Public Cultural Service System under the Perspective of Positive Aging: A Study Based on the Practice of “Age-Friendly Cities” in New York and Shanghai

China is entering an aging society at the fastest pace in history, with 14 percent of the total population aged 65 and over in 2022. There would be nearly 500 million older people in China by 2050 if 60 years and over is used as a criterion for defining the elderly population. Population aging, accompanied by large-scale urban-rural population mobility, poses many challenges to urban development and impacts traditional concepts and models of old age. The separation of the elderly from their customary society may lead to fragmentation and atomization of the individual, posing a severe test to their social participation and physical and mental health. In this context, public cultural services, with their unique social and cultural functions, play a unique role in promoting the concept of positive aging. This paper will start from the theoretical foundation of positive aging, explore the cultural dilemmas faced by the aging group, and summarize several suggestions for the development of public cultural services through the case studies of the construction of age-friendly cities in New York and Shanghai.