For poor, a gaping digital divide

Chicago heralds itself as one of the largest cities launching WiMax, a wireless network that will provide consumers high-speed Internet access almost anywhere in the city. Yet thousands of its residents, including schoolchildren, won't be logging on because they can't afford home computers or Internet access. The significance of such a barrier isn't lost on Nicol Turner-Lee, founder of the Neighborhood Technology Resource Center. People with computer skills in places like India, China and African countries are quickly advancing in the global economy, Turner-Lee said, while Americans without such skills are slipping further behind. Technology training needs to be ingrained in our culture as it is in many other nations, she said. "We believe that 21st Century technology is creating a tipping point internationally," Turner-Lee said. "People of color and those from diverse backgrounds tend to lag behind, and if this continues they will never achieve full participation in society." A survey of Chicago Public School children in 2006 found that 28 percent did not have home access to the Internet, which means they could fulfill some class assignments only by using friends' computers or visiting the city's 79 public library branches, where demand for computer time requires advance reservations. The digital divide is particularly acute for poor people. As of March, according to the Illinois Tech Policy Bank, 70 percent of households in Illinois earning less than $15,000 annually do not own a computer, and nearly 80 percent have not used the Internet.
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