<p>The Chinese government is actively promoting the construction of age-friendly communities. To this end, model communities have been selected and their practices are being promoted nationwide. At this point, it is valuable to sum up the difficulties and deficiencies in the work, and give scientific feedback to the policy from practical experience. Taking participating communities in Jiangxi Province as an example, this study collected evaluation materials from 50 communities that have participated in the selection of model communities, conducted coding analysis and cluster analysis to compare them with the ‘Detailed Grading Rules for National Demonstrative Age-friendly Communities (for Trial Implementation)’, and identified difficulties and deficiencies in three aspects: improving travel facilities, providing services for the elderly, and improving management and security capabilities of both urban and rural communities in China. The huge gap between urban and rural communities in their progress of building age-friendly communities has been demonstrated, and it is suggested to adjust the policy priorities and work objectives of age-friendly community construction by improving public infrastructure, paying more attention to some special sub-groups, and strengthening talent-capital-technology security.</p>