The digital divide has been a persistent challenge in the United States, with rural America historically at the forefront of broadband divide research due to the severe lack of affordable and reliable broadband access. Scholars have focused on the gap between rural and urban regions, investigating the absence of affordable broadband in rural areas. However, this rural-urban dichotomy risks oversimplifying the complexities of broadband access across different types of communities. To develop robust policy rationales that address the digital divide, scholars and policymakers should recognize that urban, suburban, and rural areas each face unique and shared challenges in broadband access. Broadband divide research should move beyond the rural-urban comparison and consider the specific issues that affect all types of communities.

March 2024

The Limitations of the Rural-Urban Dichotomy

Rural-urban comparisons in broadband divide research often describe rural areas as being disadvantaged in terms of deployed technologies, such as DSL or fiber, while urban areas are depicted as having better broadband access. This narrative is driven by the higher deployment costs for providers in rural areas compared to urban areas, and, consequently, higher subscription fees for consumers. As a result, many rural residents experience poor access and high prices, leading to lower adoption rates compared to their urban counterparts.

However, focusing solely on this rural-urban divide risks overlooking access and other critical challenges in urban areas. While some urban regions may have better infrastructure and more service providers, this does not necessarily translate to equitable and affordable access for all residents. Many urban communities— particularly those with households making lower incomes and higher concentrations of people of color—face substantial barriers to broadband access. Furthermore, suburban regions are often regarded as wealthier than urban areas and we should investigate these communities separately.

 

Urban Areas Need Closer Observation: Disparities Within Urban Regions

Urban America is often perceived as having more affordable broadband access, but this perception masks significant disparities within cities. According to the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA, 2020), many residents in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia still lack access to wireline broadband, such as cable, fiber optic, or DSL. For example, 28.71 percent of New York City residents, 26.70 percent of Los Angeles residents, 31.71 percent of Chicago residents, 31.50 percent of Houston residents, and 29.62 percent of Philadelphia residents lack wireline broadband access. Additionally, in 2021, 20 percent of residents in 905 cities in the US lacked broadband access (Li et al., 2023). These statistics indicate that urban America also faces a serious broadband challenge.

Although urban areas have shown higher broadband adoption rates than rural communities, not every urban region has equal broadband access. This phenomenon, known as digital redlining, refers to unequal investment and deployment of broadband based on income, ethnicity, and other socioeconomic variables (Diep et al., 2023). For instance, there is evidence that metropolitan areas with higher percentages of people of color have lower broadband access compared to areas with lower percentages (see Figure 1). Similarly, Reddick et al. (2020) analyzed San Antonio, Texas, the seventh-largest city in the U.S., and found a broadband divide within the city, particularly in lower-income neighborhoods such as southern San Antonio, which showed less broadband access than other parts of the city. This experience is not confined to a few urban areas. The MarkUp analyzed 800,000 internet service offers from AT&T, Verizon, Earthlink, and CenturyLink across 38 U.S. cities, an analysis that revealed start disparities in ISP pricing. These ISPs frequently offered faster speeds ( 200 Mbps or higher) in some neighborhoods for the same price as much slower speeds (below 25 Mbps) in other areas. Households that received slower speeds for higher prices are usually located in low-income, less White, and historically redlined areas. [Specifically those graded C (definitely declining) and D (hazardous) under redlining practice, which restricted access to mortgage and investment and reinforced economic and racial inequalities.] All these findings indicate the necessity of careful attention to various communities within urban areas.

 

Figure 1. Comparison of Broadband Access by Neighborhood Size and Ethnicity

Source: Zahnd et al. (2022)

 

Suburbia: The Traditionally Overlooked Middle Ground

Various data indicate potential disparities not only between suburban and urban areas, but within suburban areas. The phenomena has not received significant attention from scholars. As mentioned earlier, ISPs have invested in broadband networks and priced internet plans based on socioeconomic factors, leading to inequitable services in suburban and urban areas. For example, inequitable deployment was observed in Dayton, Ohio (with a population of 137, 644). NDIA and Connect Your Community analyzed AT&T’s broadband availability data submitted to the Federal Communications Commission in 2016 and found that AT&T did not invest infrastructure in low-income neighborhoods, but upgraded infrastructure to fiber networks in wealthier suburban areas (Callahan, 2017). These findings indicate the need to scrutinize urban and suburban broadband deployment with an eye on socio-economic factors.

I suggest analyzing broadband investment disparities between urban and suburban areas, including factors such as median household income, housing value, and other socio-economic factors. As an example, I compared Philadelphia County (the city of Philadelphia) and Bucks County (a northern suburb of Philadelphia) using Internet Xplorer, a tool created by X-lab. Internet Xplorer provides street-level data regarding advertised services in served, underserved, unserved, and underperforming locations, measuring the gap between advertised and actual services. Table 1 compares basic socioeconomic factors between Philadelphia and Bucks County. The results (see Figure2) indicate that more people in North Philadelphia are likely to receive less than 50 percent of the advertised speed compared to other areas, while people in suburban Philadelphia are likely to attain speeds closer to what was advertised, compared to people in Philadelphia. Furthermore, a few red points in Bucks County receive less than 20 percent of their advertised speed. Since not everyone in suburban areas is wealthy and White, future studies should explore whether households at the poverty level and non-White residents in suburban communities face discrimination.

 

Table 1. Comparison of Philadelphia County (urban) and Bucks County (Suburban)

	Bucks County	Philadelphia County
Median household income	$107,826	$57,537
Median listing house value	$569 K	$284.9  K
% of HHs White	83.77%	37.09%
% of HHs Black or African American	3.90%	40.10%
% of households receiving food stamps/SNAP	7.4%	27.3%

 

Source: 2022 ACS 5-Year Estimates, and Realtor.com

 

Figure 2. Comparison of Philadelphia and Bucks County: Gap Between Advertised and Actual Speed.

Source. Internet Xplorer

 

Conclusion

Focusing solely on the rural-urban broadband divide can perpetuate a narrow narrative in which rural areas are consistently seen as disadvantaged compared to urban regions. This limited perspective overlooks the complex and varied challenges faced by urban communities as well. To thoroughly understand the digital divide, researchers should expand to encompass these nuances, ensuring that all communities are equally considered as having broadband divide issues. Thus, there is a need for more research that examine the broadband divide across rural, urban, and suburban areas, addressing specific challenges in each. Dr. Christopher Ali’s Farm Fresh Broadband (2021) is an excellent academic reference in this regard. Dr. Ali employs the lived policy method to explore rural broadband issues by analyzing historical contexts of rural broadband and interviewing rural residents. Similar studies focusing on urban and suburban broadband challenges would provide valuable insights and support for developing more comprehensive policies.

 

References

Ali, C. (2021). Farm Fresh Broadband. MIT Press.

 

Callahan, B. (2017 Mar 22). AT&T broadband deployment skipped low-income Dayton neighborhoods. NDIA. https://www.digitalinclusion.org/blog/2017/03/22/att-skipped-low-income-dayton-neighborhoods/ 

Diep, M. (2023). Reducing digital discrimination and stressors by improving broadband adoption in historically redlined areas. Journal of Science Policy & Governance, 21(3). https://doi.org/10.38126/JSPG210301

Li, Y., Spoer, B. R., Lampe, T. M., Hsieh, P. Y., Nelson, I. S., Vierse, A., Thorpe, L. E., & Gourevitch, M. N. (2023). Racial/ethnic and income disparities in neighborhood-level broadband access in 905 US cities, 2017-2021. Public Health, 217, 205-211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2023.02.001

NDIA (2020). Worst cities 2019. Retrieved from https://www.digitalinclusion.org/worst-connected-cities-2019/

Reddick, C. G., Enriquez, R., Harris, R. J., & Sharma, B. (2020). Determinants of broadband access and affordability: An analysis of a community survey on the digital divide. Cities, 106, 102904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2020.102904

Zahnd, W. E., Bell, N., & Larson, A. E. (2022). Geographic, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic inequities in broadband access. The Journal of Rural Health, 38(3), 519-526. https://doi.org/10.1111/jrh.12635