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Detroit's Marginalized Communities Are Building Their Own Internet (vice.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Motherboard has a report that discusses how some of Detroit's communities are building their own internet to help close the gap between the roughly 60 percent of Detroiters who have internet and 40 percent who don't. From the report: "[Diana Nucera, director of the Detroit Community Technology Project] is part of a growing cohort of Detroiters who have started a grassroots movement to close that gap, by building the internet themselves. It's a coalition of community members and multiple Detroit nonprofits. They're starting with three underserved neighborhoods, installing high speed internet that beams shared gigabit connections from an antenna on top of the tallest building on the street, and into the homes of people who have long gone without. They call it the Equitable Internet Initiative. The issue isn't only cost, though it is prohibitive for many Detroiters, but also infrastructure. Because of Detroit's economic woes, many Big Telecom companies haven't thought it worthwhile to invest in expanding their network to these communities. The city is filled with dark fiber optic cable that's not connected to any homes or businesses -- relics from more optimistic days.
Residents who can't afford internet, are on some kind of federal or city subsidy like food stamps, and students are prioritized for the Initiative, Nucera told me. The whole effort started last summer with enlisting digital stewards, locals from each neighborhood who were interested in working for the nonprofit coalition, doing everything from spreading the word, to teaching digital literacy, to installing routers and pulling fiber. Many of these stewards started out with little or no tech expertise, but after a 20-week-long training period, they've become experts able to install, troubleshoot, and maintain a network from end to end. They're also aiming to spread digital literacy, so people can truly own the network themselves."
Residents who can't afford internet, are on some kind of federal or city subsidy like food stamps, and students are prioritized for the Initiative, Nucera told me. The whole effort started last summer with enlisting digital stewards, locals from each neighborhood who were interested in working for the nonprofit coalition, doing everything from spreading the word, to teaching digital literacy, to installing routers and pulling fiber. Many of these stewards started out with little or no tech expertise, but after a 20-week-long training period, they've become experts able to install, troubleshoot, and maintain a network from end to end. They're also aiming to spread digital literacy, so people can truly own the network themselves."
They're building access to the Internet. That's totally different.
The key decision-makers – major shareholders in General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, etc, and the boards of directors they selected – made many disastrous decisions.
They failed in competition with European and Japanese automobile capitalists and so lost market share to them.
They responded too slowly and inadequately to the need to develop new fuel-saving technologies.
And, perhaps most tellingly, they responded to their own failures by deciding to move production out of Detroit so they could pay other workers lower wages.
Detroit wasn't about politics. It was about capitalism, and it's all around us today.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Boy are you in for a surprise when you find out about Coleman Young, his 20 years as mayor, and what he did to the middle class. He created the Detroit of today.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
When American auto companies were strong and becoming huge we had a very conservative government. Then a slight breeze came up and our auto companies learned that Europe and japan could really produce good cars and that put Detroit into decline. It took democrats to try to hold a messed up city together. The real problem was allowing such a concentration of industry in the first place. Brooklyn N.Y. is the same. New York played every game in the world to attract labor to a vibrant N.Y.. Then change came along and all those employees were in big trouble. Jobs were eliminated and paid less due to inflation and state taxes raised to try to keep the city and state alive. If the great expansion had been limited the great crashes and suffering would not have befell Brooklyn and NYC.. Look at the troubles that plague California. California has boomed for many decades. Now the underlying problems surface and suffering and chaos abound. When you hear the political folks screaming about getting more growth stop and think that growth may be your worst enemy.
You shouldn't be logical around right wing people. They tend to get aggressive and rude.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.