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Impact of Rural Broadband Overlooked

In a compelling and heartfelt, if depressing Op Ed in the NY Times this week (see Lost Town Blues), author Tim Egan laments the decline of rural job opportunities and a sense of bitterness and despair over the ultimate fate of these once pleasant towns where a "real" life was possible.

People who live in small towns that have been passed over don't need to be told that they're bitter, or heroic. They're stuck, is what they are. The honest ones say they would follow their kids out of town, if only they had the means. A few years ago, a University of Nebraska survey of 3,087 people in rural counties asked people how they felt about their lives. Only 11 percent of them said they were satisfied with where they lived. Optimism, as much a part of the landscape as winter wheat, was disappearing.

This sentiment, real but wrapped up in pride over place, may be in part why the polls show little change in Barack Obama's standing since his comments about the bitterness of small towns and the working class. The pundits and voters are having two different conversations, not for the first time.

But what is often overlooked is that once remote jobs become possible with cheap access to broadband, the nature of Where one is located is far less vital than is How one is connected. Suddenly, it makes sense to locate where workers are available, where real estate is cheap, and where broadband is plentiful ... in short, rural America starts to look better than the Third World, or urban America, for that matter, for certain jobs.

As broadband spreads, I hope this will become more and more apparent.

Still, Tim Egan suggests, don't hold your breathe.

More after the jump.

So, solutions? On John McCain's Web site, he talks as much about reviving small town America as he does about Lindsay Lohan's love life - zilch. Clinton and Obama each have detailed, multi-point proposals. They're heavy on new energy solutions - solar, wind, converting crops to fuel, with faded factory towns doing the work. The problem, as we've seen with the huge rise in commodity crop prices, is that when food and fuel compete for the same source, family budgets strain. Hillary is out with a new ad in Indiana, promising to keep defense jobs in the state - pork as public policy, another sleight-of-hand trick for small town America.

Is it too much to ask one of these candidates for an honest but painful statement suggesting that perhaps a lot of these towns may never come back? Or that the way to economic revival is to lose the pipe dream that Google is going to relocate to an old steel town because they have a tax-free enterprise zone and some cool mountain-bike trails?

Maybe not Google, but countless small business opportunities become much more viable with the low costs and high connectivity that rural towns represent. While most of the comments overlook this fact, at least one commenter gets it,

He may dismiss the promise of telecommunications in the Rust Belt, and yes, it's unlikely that data centers will spring up willy-nilly (although many corporations are indeed looking at North Country locations because the cost of cooling data centers in them is much lower than in sunnier climes).

But one can gain expertise in numerous occupations in an urban center, then find much lower real estate prices and much more relaxed quality of life in any town well-equipped with broadband. It is up to these communities to equip and market themselves for the future of remote work.

Look for a few small towns to differentiate themselves with connectivity and strategies that emphasize quality of life, low real estate costs and lower overall Cost of Living, and great broadband connectivity. In time, this path holds tremendous potential for rural and rust-belt America. It won't solve all problems, and doubtless, many towns will dry up and blow away. But many will survive in this way, and some will thrive. No town or city has a lock on a secure future, but some have more attractive potential than others.

Future Success for any town is an alchemy that involves natural beauty, climate, personality, attitude, strategy, community cohesion, and CONNECTIVITY.

Posted on April 20, 2008 at 06:40 AM

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