The connected neighbourhood

Eindhoven wants to become a Smart City, a city with a smart self-organizing system and a participatory society. One topic regarding the concept of Smart City is connecting people. Connecting people with each other, with facilities and with the city. An important focus group in this debate is the elderly. Connecting people is nowadays fast and easy to do due to online facilities, but is this the only way, and how does it work for them? Tempel and Woenselse Heide facilitate plenty of opportunities for elderly people to stay in touch with the ins and outs of what is happening in the neighbourhoods, in terms of activities and safety. Several associations fight for the interests of the inhabitants, the safety in the streets, as well as organizing activities that connect people. Taking part in activities to connect with neighbours is optional and it doesn’t take any requirements to join, however the associations state that they do have difficulties in reaching the people and to attract more members, despite the low threshold they tend to give. They would like to see the amount of members grow, and get more people connected with each other and to their neighbourhood. Regarding the smart city debate we could ask ourselves, is this smart? What is actually a smart initiative? Is it something that happens on a bigger scale, or are smaller initiatives important as well? How and why do these initiatives develop? And how do these initiatives connect the inhabitants? To this we can pose the question, how relevant is the smart city debate to the elderly, and what can be done to connect them better?