Large cities have always thrived as places of connectivity – it’s what makes them places where people choose to live and work. However, COVID-19 has revealed that it is these very characteristics which make cities most vulnerable to pandemics. What we have seen throughout the UK is the value of collective intelligence — not at a city scale, but rather, at the scale of the neighbourhood. Mutual aid, volunteering, local WhatsApp and Facebook groups have provided the benefits of local collective intelligence in urban areas.

During COVID, there has been an unprecedented rise in ‘neighbourliness,’ which is in stark contrast to recent years. A 2018 survey showed that 68 percent of people would describe their neighbours as ‘strangers’. Knowing your neighbours isn’t just a nicety, but a form of social support network whose benefits are revealed in times of crisis. It’s important to understand that they work at a neighbourhood scale. Famed urbanist Jane Jacobs highlighted how this local ‘social capital’ — the everyday activities and interactions that occur in a neighbourhood — builds up a network of relationships that provides a foundation for mutual trust, shared efforts and resilience in times of trouble.

The connections made at neighbourhood- and street-level during COVID have been, for many, a coping mechanism for social isolation, and the majority of these connections have been digital. The pandemic could provide the final shift in how technology is used in smart cities to one that is primarily about building communities. Technology used locally can enable cities to become more neighbourly and places of mutual support. For example, video calling with friends and family has doubled during COVID with seven in 10 UK adults online now making weekly video calls.

Digital services can also provide access to relevant information, health professionals and peer support and it can help manage conditions and improve health and wellbeing. Yet according to a study by Citizens Online in February this year, of 6,691 GP surgeries in England more than half had less than 30% of patients registered for online services.

COVID brought an upsurge of local and neighbourhood organising in the UK. There are now over 4,000 mutual aid groups nationally, in both rural and urban areas. Mutual aid groups have created a hyperlocal infrastructure of care that includes diverse digital platforms and applications, as well as physical media such as leaflets and posters.

This success suggests it is time to refocus on ‘hyperlocal’ neighbourhoods; where technology helps to build vital social capital — the ties that provide mutual support in times of need. A project in the city of Plymouth has been working at a neighbourhood scale to build mutual support. Working in the Stonehouse neighbourhood, where statistics show residents are likely to die 15 years before those in more affluent parts of the city, they have taken a hyperlocal approach during COVID to connect people. Through Borrow Don’t Buy, a ‘library of things’, they have taken donations of unwanted digital devices and distributed them to local people in need. Working with the University of Plymouth they have installed free neighbourhood Wi-Fi to support those without access to the internet. Another pilot programme in the city has trialled a model of ‘digital prescribing’: identifying people with health problems who lack digital skills and can’t afford devices. In providing the device, a gateway for support opens in the form of a follow-up telephone call and advice as to how to use the technology for their own health needs.

We need to think beyond cities, and look at how we use technology to help us be healthier at a neighbourhood scale. Humanising technology and enabling neighbours to be socially connected — not only just through a digital connection — can help to address the stark health inequalities in our cities exposed by COVID.

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Katharine Willis is Professor of Smart Cities and Communities, and lead on the UKRI-funded Centre for Health Technology Pop-up at the University of Plymouth. Over the last two decades she has worked to understand how technology could support communities and contribute to better connections to space and place. Her recent research addresses issues of digital and social inclusion in smart cities, and aims to provide guidance as to how we can use digital connectivity to create smarter neighbourhoods.

This article was originally published on the University of Plymouth’s website.