Wi Fi Mesh + the Birds and the Bees = Creative Class Attraction

According to this recent article in the New York Times Cities Compete in Hipness Battle to Attract Young, cities are in a pitched battle to attract not only companies and employers, but they are also waging a new battle to attract young knowledgable workers, representatives of the "Creative Class" a demographic category (and new budding one-man industry, by the way) touted by economic development rock-star Richard Florida, formerly of Carnegie Mellon and now at George Mason University and author of the 21st Century Economic Development bible The Rise of the Creative Class and his more recent Cities and the Creative Class, followed by The Flight of the Creative Class. (Watch the Books and Whitepapers section on this website, where I'll add reviews of these best-selling books by Richard Florida, which I consider valuable reading for any student of metropolitan broadband).

Attracting factories, manufacturing plants, corporate headquarters, data centers, and other major employers is old school Eco Dev, the bread and butter of regional competitiveness, and it has not gone away, not by a long shot. It's just been added to, one-upped, first by such cultural amenities as sports franchises, museums and art galleries, and more recently by newer cultural amenities like hiking and bike trails, skate parks, live music venues, all amenities that appeal to the younger more active set of knowledge workers we can refer to, with a nod to Florida, as "Young Creatives." And next on the menu of cultural amenities, so goes my argument, are wireless mesh Hot Zones and city-wide wireless networks.

The benefit of these assets is that they are highly versatile. Not only is a ubiquitous wireless broadband network a practical means to support the more mundane aspects of city government service delivery, such as mobile data access, sensory device support, and public safety and disaster response. That same network is also a means to attract companies and individuals who have come to acknowledge broadband as a new utility, as vital as electricity and telephony, and in some cases more important than television or film as an entertainment medium. It's a one-two Economic Development punch: efficient city government AND attractive social amenities.

The trend line is apparent if you just look. Business enterprises deployed internal wireless LANs to support more efficient business practice and early adopter consumers purchased Wi Fi access points to network their home environments as price points declined. Soon, coffee shops, hotel lobbies, and airport terminals adopted small wireless Hot Spots as a strategy to attract and retain laptop-toting guests. Then began the move outdoors. Almost behind the scenes, college towns around the US saw small campuses become early adopters of wireless mesh zones and Wi Fi technology, promoting a services hospitality trend that continued to expand on college campuses, where masses of students congregate in open-air environments and in the areas surrounding buildings. So, small towns that began to deploy downtown networks as early as 2003 are not altogether different. Large city network plans with signficant media coverage may have shifted our attention away from the small towns and more modest networks, but that hasn't slowed the trend or muted the potential of smaller networks.

As price points come down and the technology matures, Wi Fi mesh begins to look like a very affordable and safe technology to light up a downtown area, in even the smallest towns. A Hot Zone can be a focal point of an economic development strategy for any town, well within the reach of all city budgets. And a Hot Zone, loosely defined as an outdoor network of 10 or less wireless mesh access points, holds the potential to be a first step to a larger network for thousands of towns and cities nationwide. What's missing is a guiding hand and the will to act. But as the New York Times and Richard Florida indicate, creating an attractive environment to target and attract a specific demographic is the new incarnation of economic development and that provides a compelling reason to act on a wireless broadband project.

I'd suggest that Wi Fi Mesh Hot Zones will make a name for themselves in the coming year as a tool to implement these economic development strategies and make a community more attractive. Wach the small college towns next year.