Community Broadband as a Path to Thriving Local Economies and Neighborhood
Development is an online dialogue scheduled for Wednesday, October 24th at 10am PST / 1pm EST (for
60 minutes)
In the last several years local communities, governments, non-profit
organizations and neighborhood residents from across the U.S. have
successfully launched community broadband initiatives. 54 U.S. cities own
citywide fiber networks and another 79 own citywide cable networks. These
local initiatives, in rural and urban areas alike, have served as community
scale infrastructures that have helped revitalize local economies. They are
sustainable and allow participation and decision-making on the most local
level.
For community media advocates it’s not just about having access to
broadband services, it’s also about owning the infrastructure and gaining
access, rights and power to media that provide marginalized community
members with needed broadband access. Recently, city and state legislation
have surfaced that would prevent community owned broadband networks,
panelists will touch on the motives behind these bills and ways to fight
them. This digital dialogue will feature advocates, experts and organizers
who have been working on building community broadband networks, they will
reflect on lessons learned, best practices, case studies and challenges.
*Featured Speakers:*
– Chris Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
– Fabiola Carrion, Progressive States Network
– Danielle Chynoweth, Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center
Moderated by Betty Yu, Center for Media Justice
Email betty@centerformediajustice.org for more info.
