In 2004, the City of Groningen (NL) developed the Groningen Portal together with the Province of Groningen and Marketing Groningen (Tourist Information) and also opened the eLoket for electronic services. Citizens who are unfamiliar with electronic communication, receive support from an online 'personal assistant', who answers their questions directly.
In the same year, the City of Groningen also started a number of smaller pilots of internet communities, primarily to gain experience and to trial the available technical possibilities. The results of these pilots were rather promising.
Therefore, Groningen started in 2005 a more elaborate pilot on an interactive community website in the suburb Hoogkerk in co-operation with the inhabitants organised in 'Vereniging Wijkopbouw Hoogkerk'.
The target is a functional website to be used by the municipality, the villagers and other groups as a platform for (social) development in Hoogkerk: services, information, interactive policy making by the municipality, and communication on the activities, decisions and ideas of the 'Vereniging Wijkopbouw Hoogkerk'.
Recently - in the small village of Leegkerk - the second community website within the Municipality of Groningen became available.
For a description of the ideas behind the concept of community websites, please click:
bezoekersaantallen wijkwebsite Hoogkerk
Nederlandse versie/Dutch version
English version
