Ageing Smart - Jena is a model municipality

The baby boomers born between 1955 and 1969 are increasingly reaching retirement age. How can municipalities prepare for this and guarantee the necessary care structures? Researchers from Kaiserslautern are developing a data-supported system that will serveas a decision-making aid for public stakeholders in their planning processes. The city of Jena was selected as one of seven model municipalities. Representatives from TU Kaiserslautern presented the research project at the project launch in the city administration this Monday.

Baby boomers are retiring

The age cohort of today's 53 to 67-year-olds was born at a time of high birth rates (the "baby boom") after the Second World War (1955 to 1969). This is a large group with different life situations, ways of life and lifestyles. In the coming years, more and more "baby boomers" will reach retirement age. This poses new challenges for our cities and municipalities, especially as little is known about the housing requirements and demands on (residential) locations, mobility, attitudes and behavior of the baby boomers. The question arises as to what extent there will be a change in demand for residential locations and services in the residential environment. How can we determine the locations of medical care more sensibly? How can finances be used optimally today for tomorrow? Will the young and old stay in the area? Which location factors are relevant? How can accessibility be guaranteed and improved?

The task of the researchers at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (Fraunhofer IESE) is to make all these strands of information comprehensible in a decision-making system as part of the "Ageing Smart - Designing Spaces Intelligently" project. Data from different sources is brought together and the bundled knowledge is linked using mathematical methods and artificial intelligence in order to recognize connections between various spatial and social information.

Help for decision-making

The aim of the project is to develop an intuitive, digital decision support system (DSS) for decision-makers, which can be used to plan infrastructures and services in line with demand and in a future-oriented manner. The system should enable actors in municipalities to coordinate offers and services and to map the needs and requirements of the "baby boomers".

In order to be able to carry out detailed analyses of situations and opportunities for the development of the decision support system, the researchers are cooperating with seven model municipalities from different settlement areas. In addition to the cities of Mannheim and Kaiserslautern (urban areas), the municipality of Nieder-Olm and the municipality of Remshalden (suburban areas) as well as the Geisaer Land and the municipality of Kusel-Altenglan (rural areas), the city of Jena was selected as a model municipality based on structural data.

How model municipalities help

The model municipalities support the researchers by providing municipal data. In addition, surveys and workshops will be conducted over the next four years with administrative staff, local stakeholders and citizens. A written survey of 3,000 randomly selected residents aged between 50 and 75 is planned in Jena in late summer/autumn in order to find out more about everyday life, housing, leisure behavior and ideas for the future as well as the needs of the "baby boomers" and the adjacent birth cohorts in their places of residence.

On Monday (04.07.22), Prof. Dr. Annette Spellerberg, Prof. Dr. Stefan Ruzika and Dr. Lynn Schelisch from TU Kaiserslautern presented the project to representatives of the city administration and other Jena stakeholders from the fields of social affairs, senior citizens, urban development, infrastructure, housing, geoinformation and statistics and discussed with them the extent to which the needs of the "baby boomers" are already apparent today.

Ten professors and 18 research assistants from the disciplines of spatial planning, urban sociology, climatology, computer science and mathematics are working together on the interdisciplinary research project. The research project has been funded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation with around 4.3 million euros over a period of 5 years since April 2021.