Broadband is the New Railroad

Again, and again, I’ve heard that when people live in areas unserved and underserved by broadband networks, businesses are hard-pressed to start, grow, or stay there. Without the economic development and individual prospects enabled by competitive, advanced, and affordable broadband, people will find it harder to secure good-paying jobs, get training for future positions, or seek higher wages. The link between broadband and local economic growth reminds me of the railroads, which makes sense in a way because today, May 10^th, is the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Remember that Abraham Lincoln was a railroad man. He ran for president pledging to build the first railroad that would link the East and West Coasts. Once in office, he put the weight of his presidency behind the passage of the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, which supported construction of that transcontinental railroad with government loans and grants of land. In succeeding decades after the Golden Spike was driven, the transcontinental railroad re-worked the American economy. Railroads were reliable and fast, lowering the cost of shipping, which boosted manufacturing.  As a consequence, goods were cheaper and consumer choices greater. And the nation was transformed as a result — its commerce, its laws, its business arrangements, its settlement, even the way it told time.

[Jonathan Sallet is a Benton Senior Fellow]