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@princeton.edu http://www.princeton.edu/~mhindman/ ******************************************** ----- Original Message ----- From: "jeremy hunsinger" <jhuns@vt.edu> To: <air-l@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@vt.edu on the ibook www.cddc.vt.edu www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy www.dromocracy.com () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l