🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 20 Jan 1999 17:45:03 GMT, rslade@sprint.ca (Rob Slade, doting
grandpa of Ryan and Trevor) squawked in alt.poverty:

>BKHTALIC.RVW   981108
>
>"High Technology and Low-Income Communities", Donald A. Schon/Bish
>Sanyal/William J. Mitchell (eds.), 1999, 0-262-69199-X, U$25.00
>%E   Donald A. Schon
>%E   Bish Sanyal
>%E   William J. Mitchell
>%C   55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA   02142-1399
>%D   1999
>%G   0-262-69199-X
>%I   MIT Press
>%O   U$25.00 800-356-0343 fax: 617-625-6660 www-mitpress.mit.edu
>%P   411 p.
>%T   "High Technology and Low-Income Communities"
>
>In the spring of 1996, MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning
>held a colloquium to look at potential and actual effects of
>information technology on (generally low income) inner city urban
>areas.  This was prompted by eagerness to use computer models for
>urban planning, concern on the part of the technology community about
>access inequities, and increased interest in providing technology
>access and training to enhance opportunity for those in low income
>situations.  In addition, there was a concern about large numbers of
>people from all backgrounds who considered technology irrelevant to
>poverty and vice versa.  These are the colloquium papers: transcripts
>of the sessions themselves can be found at
>http://sap.mit.edu/projects/colloquium/.  The papers come from a
>variety of sources and viewpoints but are overall a disappointing lot,
>stating that technology is changing society, technology is making new
>opportunities, technology is widening disparities, computers have
>problems, computers can be fun, and we all need more education.
>
>In chapter one, Manuel Castells makes an important point that social
>and economic disadvantage is also arranged spatially within cities,
>and that barriers of space and distance are added to the others. 
>Technophiles, of course, would immediately dispute this, saying the
>net breaks down space.  While Castells' point can be made applicable
>to technology, he does not do so in his paper.  Peter Hall certainly
>disagrees, in chapter two, but his own reading of statistics makes him
>admit that cities are not in decline.  Using his own illustration of
>the Model T it is easy to see why: there is a much greater need for
>someone to fix the machines when they fail than there is for
>"theoretical abstract intelligence" tied to urban centres.  Some
>slight knowledge of the technology might be more helpful to his
>analysis than his constant references to an army of social scientists. 
>The questions and statistics presented by Julian Wolpert show plenty
>of poverty but few answers in chapter three.  (Very little relation to
>technology, either.)  William Mitchell reiterates his "need for
>design" thesis from "City of Bits" (cf. BKCITBIT.RVW) in chapter four,
>but the most telling statement is his assertion that "Nobody really
>knows what the digital revolution will ultimately mean for towns and
>cities."  (In a change of pace, this paper says even less about
>poverty than it does about technology.)  From a historical
>perspective, Leo Marx finds the rise of information technology
>irrelevant, in chapter five.  Viewing the more recent claims for the
>educational value of television, and the hideously ironic quality of
>offerings on the "500 channel universe" of today, I find it hard to
>disagree.
>
>William Mitchell starts off part two, in chapter six, with a
>principled statement against the kind of asymmetric information flow
>involved in cable modems and ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber
>Line), thus using a democratic ideal to negate the need to analyze the
>type of information flow needed in work situations today.  The rest of
>his chapter is a fairly superficial overview of the Web. Joseph
>Ferreira got me all excited by promising to address "the prospective
>benefits for service providers and service recipients of decentralized
>access to information about populations and their needs, service
>systems, and operations" which sounds useful and right on target until
>you realize that neither providers nor recipients are going to be
>defined and that the chapter is spent formulating SQL queries to find
>variant spellings on title deeds.  For no apparent reason.  Various
>types of community "nets" and educational technologies used for
>collaborative planning are cited by Michael Shiffer in chapter eight. 
>This comes closest to addressing the issues raised by the title, with
>two provisos.  One is that the experiences cited are anecdotal.  The
>other is that while the community systems are said to be accessible
>with a low cost PC and a modem, the collaborative programs illustrated
>require reasonably high end graphical machines with sound capability. 
>Chapter nine is even better, where Amsden and Clark do a first rate
>job of exploding the myth that a few computers in the inner city would
>catapult the "disadvantaged" population to the heights of software
>entrepreneurship.  Jeanne Bamberger's piece in chapter ten is
>interesting to an old teacher, but seems to have neither a point
>(other than that some kids learn kinesthetically) nor a relation to
>the book.  Chapter eleven tells some stories from the Computer
>Clubhouse project.  These are apposite, but have few details that
>might allow a successful transfer to another location.  A more
>detailed account of the Community Computer Street Library Project is
>given in chapter twelve.  A look at community nets in chapter thirteen
>is limited by its singular account of the Multi-User Sessions In
>Community program.  Sherry Turkle says something about personal
>empowerment through learning and understanding, but not much about low
>income in chapter fourteen.  Anne Beamish, in chapter fifteen, looks
>briefly at a number of models for getting computers and computer
>access into low income communities.  Again, details are sketchy, but
>references, mostly online, are provided.
>
>Chapter sixteen concludes by noting that there was much agreement
>between participants in the colloquium, but has to admit that the
>agreement was only "implicit" in the discussions.  A number of
>motherhood statements are made in regard to public policy on
>technology access.
>
>While one cannot doubt the sincerity, intentions, and (within their
>fields) scholarship of the authors, it is dismaying to look in vain
>for a solid understanding of the technology that might have informed
>some possible answers to problems, or even an insightful analysis of
>the problems themselves.  While raising some issues for debate, few of
>the papers do more than that.
>
>copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKHTALIC.RVW   981108

As you said, at least the intention was good.  Let's hope that more
enlightening things come from ideas sparked by these.

--
Peace,                           news:alt.thebird

Deneen Sparks, editor, THE GREAT SPECKLED BIRD
http://thebird.org
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