Partnerships, sustained federal help key to ending 'digital redlining,' city leaders say
Source: SmartCities Dive | By: Chris Teale, Reporter
Dive Brief:
If cities are to close the digital divide and end so-called "digital redlining," they must partner with the private sector to help locally, but they also will need sustained federal help, speakers said at a virtual event Wednesday.
Partnering with telecommunication companies and public entities like schools and recreation centers has been effective during the pandemic in bringing reliable high-speed internet access to majority-minority communities where too many residents were lacking the service, local leaders said at the event, which the news organization Route Fifty hosted. Those efforts also could work in a post-COVID-19 world, they said.
The immediate infusion of dollars from the American Rescue Plan is helping some cities accelerate their digital equity plans, but these leaders said the federal government must step up with more sustained funding to help support the long-term build-out of broadband internet. A $1 trillion infrastructure deal that has received bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate contains $65 billion for broadband, but speakers said there must be repeated federal and state investments to truly close the digital divide.