Plan aims to bring wireless Internet to poor neighborhoods

Sun-Times:

The mayor declared four impoverished neighborhoods — Englewood, Auburn Gresham, Chicago Lawn and Pilsen — “digital excellence demonstration communities” that will be flooded with technology to demonstrate the internet’s “transformative power.”

Microsoft has agreed to donate $1.1 million worth of software to help 28 non-profit organizations in those neighborhoods. Another $2 million from Microsoft, the MacArthur Foundation, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the state will help bring internet access to schools and public spaces in those disconnected neighborhoods.

A “Digital Excellence Access Agenda” crafted by a mayoral commission also urged the city to develop “detailed standards for broadband readiness in public and private, new and renovated developments” and to “enact policies that encourage developers” to meet those standards.

“We think we can do this piecemeal. ... And eventually, President Obama is talking about the digital-divide, broad-band and other things. So, we’ll be working with the federal government,” Daley said.

At a news conference in Pilsen, the mayor unveiled results of a pioneering study by UIC and the University of Iowa. It shows that 25 percent of all Chicagoans do not use the internet at all and that another 15 percent have only limited access.

Daley openly acknowledged that he’s one of the 25 percent. He says he has “enough to do” and is “too busy” to use computers.

Question: How big might the digital divide be in our communities?