[Air-l] hmm, last mile, imaginations, and historical projections

[Matt Hindman]

I'm not sure I can offer you many citations, since this is a little out of
my area of specific scholarly interest.  I can, however, claim personal
experience with this issue, having spent my childhood and adolescence
growing up in several communities in rural Washington state (including Walla
Walla, WA, a town which should be familiar to all of you Looney Tunes fans).
A few observations:

1.  I think it's easy for academics--an astonishingly urbanized group of
people--view rural areas as more "traditional" when they really aren't.
Mostly they're just smaller, more isolated, less rich, less educated, and
demographically older.

2.  The major problem facing rural communities is trying to get their young
people to stay--or to come back home after college.   The permanent
emigration of young people from rural communities is due almost entirely to
economic pressure.  As agriculture has gotten bigger, jobs have gotten fewer
and most family farms have folded.  The potential economic effects on rural
communities of new information technologies--particularly any jobs they may
create--are likely to outweigh anything else.  (It's notable that in the
1990 census, for the first time *ever*, more people were living in rural
areas than they were 10 years earlier.  The 2000 census shows the
rural/suburban ratio essentially holding steady.)

3.  Again, agricultural has become a high-tech, technology-driven
enterprise.  All of the farmers I know have wireless internet.  These people
*need* the web to manage the logistics of a modern ag operation--detailed
weather reports; ordering and inventorying supplies, parts, seed/feed, etc.;
arranging transportation and storage with distributors,  local granaries,
the railroad; tracking commodities futures; specialized subscription
services which advise optimal times to plant and harvest--the list goes on
and on.

4.  I think that the spectacle of people moving to rural communities to live
"off the broadband" is pretty darn unlikely.  First of all, if I can get
broadband all across Garfield County, WA, (pop. 2,300) I can get it pretty
much anywhere. ( http://www.firststepwireless.net/overview/ ) And second,
though upper-class suburbanites may desire to escape from congestion,
stress, and sprawl, they LOVE the web. Just ask them.

my $.02,

Matt

********************************************
Matt Hindman, Ph.D Candidate
Politics Department, Princeton University
mhindman at princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~mhindman/
********************************************


----- Original Message -----
From: "jeremy hunsinger" <jhuns at vt.edu>
To: <air-l at aoir.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2002 7:10 PM
Subject: [Air-l] hmm, last mile, imaginations, and historical projections


I'm sitting here looking at several fairly substantial proposals for
programs taking rural last mile broadband into account and was thinking
that taking the lastmile to the house in rural america may not have the
effects that are projected.  any opinions, theories, thoughts?


  I'm thinking that there is corresponding detraditionalizations that may
not have lasting positive effects on these communities, though immediate
economic effects may occur.  I'm thinking this will promote an overall
migration and population transition toward more urbanization, etc. which
of course is not supportive to small rural communities, which may in the
end result in a new gentrification of those communities by displaces
upper class urbanites looking to operate off of the broadband, thus
possibly creating the same situation as occured with industrialization
with the automobile in the south.  again, thoughts, theories, opinions?

I mean what we have is a certain number of imaginations of the future,
sometimes even supported by research and i could really use some more
citations on this, that seem to assume a certain set of goods in
development and goods in the expansion of technologies for the
populace...

so in short, let me know.


jeremy hunsinger
jhuns at vt.edu
on the ibook
www.cddc.vt.edu
www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy
www.dromocracy.com
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