Another question of the week by a tribe which people who have lived abroad give a warm heart to. I guess anyone who has a little bit of affection with a different country (often because you have spent some time there over the years) sees and feels the differences between the places which have left.
Now the question of the week is not about travel, but is regarding your hometown, the place you grew up. How has you hometown changed over you lifetime? And that my friends...was very much easier to see when I had moved away for a while.
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Iamexpat.nl
I grew up around the city of Eindhoven in a surburb. A normal childhood and Eindhoven was also always a normal city to me. Eindhoven is the 5th largest city of Holland with around 200.000 residents living there we had always learned in school. It was the city where Philips was homebased
Wikipedia
You know Philips, don't you? Lightbulbs and later on tons of technology home devices? Soccer club PSV ? PSV actually means Philips Sport Vereniging (philips sports club). Well these guys grew Eindhoven from the early 1900s and it was only until later that the head office moved to Amsterdam and the High Tech Campus took over.
HIgh tech Campus
Steden.nl
The old building of the high tech campus
The high tech campus is like the silicon valley of Holland now. All the research and development from the bigger tech companies is done here on this gigantic complex filled with wizzkids.
Now all of this sounds kind of boring and that it has nothing to do with how my city has changed. But that is the thing...this has everything to do with how the city has changed
You see the attraction of the high tech campus and also the big micro chip factory ASML drew a lot of attention internationally. People from all over the world are flewn in to work here in this field and that is how the city has changed.
When I came back after 5 years abroad I saw it. All of a sudden the city if Eindhoven was spoken highly about. While before this was more of a 'Southern town' now the is a place the lonely planet refers to, where the design academy draws peoples attention from, and where the language in the shops in the city centre is English all of a sudden.
It feels...vibrant....alive...cool in some kind of way.
And that also brings up new challenges. Because where do all of these people live who came to the city? So the city of Eindhoven is building skyscrapers like there is no tomorrow. And that is what I had noticed most...
All of a sudden the city is being built vertically
It is beautiful and it feels different. It feels urban. It feels like stuff is being made. Even with covid now the concrete has the attraction.
Old neighborhoods are being reformed and are alive. Expats are all over. I like it. And that is an awesome difference from Eindhoven from the last couple of years.. It is working on it and putting itself on the map.
See you there
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