Jones Family Life

08/08/08

Like most families the Jones’ are a very busy family and their life revolves around the community window.  This is a touch sensitive screen in the house and they cannot now imagine how they ever lived without it.

Every house has the community window facility and every house sets its own favourites page to suit its own needs.  The Jones’ mainly use it to organise and co-ordinate their busy lives, to display bus times and car share availability, for news downloads and for the community diary where they can find out what is going on in the town.  They also use it to find out what local seasonal produce is available from the town farm that can then be delivered to the house.

Helen who works in the city loves the fact that she can now check the community diary on the newly installed panels on the seat backs on the buses and she can also catch up with news on the way to work.  She also loves the fact that she can now download the community window onto her mobile.  The new “sell by date” software that transfers the shopping delivery bar code details to the fridge display to inform you what is going out of date has become much more useful now it can be downloaded onto Helen's mobile.  This means she can now check the sell by dates in the fridge whilst on the bus and plan the daily meals.  Although she has not measured it Helen feels she is wasting much less food.

Mike can recall one of the earliest debates in the design and development panel was about providing housing with annexes for the now more typical extended families. It was decided to put a number of the larger houses back to back with starter homes to allow these to become annexes in future.  This has worked out brilliantly for the Jones' as Helen has been able to move her elderly mother, Sarah, into the community, into the starter house behind theirs.

 

In moments of reflection, Mike and Helen feel comfortable in this community and want to stay here for life.  They know that if their jobs change, or as the children get older and their jobs change, there is a good chance that they will be able to stay in the town. The need to move with work is much less than it was in the past, especially here with the opportunity to work from home and from the community working hubs.  The children will also be able to buy one of the permanently affordable starter homes.  They love the fact that they have three generations of the Jones’ all in the same community and the chance in future of there being four.

Increasingly food water and energy are becoming huge political issues around the world and Mike and Helen like the fact that their homes are supplied by onsite energy, that they can if needed grow their own food and all their water is recycled.  It is shame that the demand for housing in the community far outstrips supply.

What they like most of all is that they live in a truly mixed community. Like Leicester City which had an international reputation for its cultural diversity, their town is now visited by groups from around the world as an example of not only successful cultural diversity but social diversity also.  Mike is proud that he has played a part in creating this community.