Nabo-nomics.The economicsof knowing your neighbour.
Nabo-nomics (from Danish nabo, neighbour) is the study of how the places we live shape our health, wellbeing and quality of life, and how to measure and improve it.
The blind spot
Everyone measuresthe building.
Square metres. Energy rating. Minutes to the metro.
Nobody measures the people inside it. Strange, since the people are the only part that can leave.
Loneliness is linked to poorer health and earlier death. We treat it as a personal failing. It's a design failure.
Why now
The century ofmore is ending.
The global population peaks, then falls. And the people who are left are moving: from rising seas, from unliveable heat, from regimes that would rather they didn't exist.
Cities will compete for residents the way companies compete for talent. The winners won't be the places with the best views. They'll be the places people can't bear to leave.
From health to housing
I started in healthcare, building solutions for assisted living. Care plans track medication, meals and falls. They don't track who knocks on the door. That turned out to be the part that mattered.
The numbers
Not a hunch.A spreadsheet.
Three institutional property owners measured 22 properties for 12 months. Where residents were connected:
Real estate askswhy people leave.Nabo-nomics showswhy they stay.
How we measure it
The Nabo Score has five dimensions. We didn't invent them in a workshop with sticky notes. We asked residents in 12,000 homes about their quality of life, then checked it against what they actually did. The dimensions are what survived.
- [The five dimensions, one line each.]
- [The five dimensions, one line each.]
- [The five dimensions, one line each.]
- [The five dimensions, one line each.]
- [The five dimensions, one line each.]
What you do on Monday
A score is only interesting if it tells you what to do next. The Nabo-nomics Dashboard gives each community concrete suggestions, compares it with similar places, and puts a number on what an initiative is worth, based on what worked elsewhere.