The different connections between the elderly

Connecting people is one of the main topics when you want to talk about a Smart City. Eindhoven is participating in this debate because they want to become a Smart City.

Taking interviews with elderly of the neighbourhood Tempel and Woenselse Heide pointed out that there are different ways of being connected to the neighbourhood. The people can roughly be divided into three groups; the first group consists of people who are involved in the associations, the second group consists of people who are not involved in any association but still feel connected and involved in their neighbourhood and the third group consists of people who feel not connected to their neighbourhood at all. People of the second group state that not taking part in one of the neighbourhood associations, does not mean that you are not connected. Most of them feel connected by joining activities in their local environment. Like meetings with direct neighbours, neighbours that live in the same street and neighbours that live around the same court. Interesting to notice is that in streets or around courts where neighbours have good contacts with each other, small initiatives pop up. A good relationship with neighbours results in many stories about activities together, ranging from a small coffee together to yearly street-barbeques. Apparently elderly do not find a need in joining other initiatives if there is a strong social cohesion in their local environment.

This is rather interesting, because this differs from the situation where people join activities hosted by associations. It is the association’s main goal to connect people, which is different to the initiatives that arise in the streets and around courts. There connection was not the goal but the source of why these activities or meetings started. Connecting people starts with talking to the people. The rest comes along with it.