IT is like a car...

One way of thinking about access and its place in society is by comparing using the Internet to owning a car. Once can still live a “normal” life without a car in the United States, and many people do. One’s boundaries are simply more transcribed. If one lacks a car, one is reliant on public transportation. A large segment of the economy is off limits, due to job requirements or location. Similarly, a great many jobs, including entry-level jobs that provide a salary and experience above those in the service industry, require knowledge of a computer and involve work performed in an information environment. Those who lack cars are reliant on public transportation; their abilities are thus bound by the limits of that transportation. Winner’s famous example of Robert Moses and the Long Island Expressway helps show the limits of public facilities. Moses felt that his public beaches and parks should not be visited by the commoners who rely on public buses and thus built the overpasses on the roads leading to them too low to allow for buses. Similarly, public computing facilities can be very useful, but relying on them exclusively can pose dangers. Other factors in a technology system must be reliable and acessible. Government websites can go down, or may fail to provide full means of feedback. Communities should not be dependent on information systems designed from the top down by processes in which their own role may be marginalized. Individual Internet access, either in the home, or in community institutions, can allow for more organic, grassroots information networks to grow, and allow communities to help themselves.

Allan Friedman
January, 2002