Over two years ago when I began my fellowship with Benton, I recognized how our cities are changing at an incredible pace. The technology being deployed on our sidewalks and streetlights has the potential to improve mobility, sustainability, connectivity, and city services. Of course, technology can be divisive as well as progressive. Does the potential of the 21^st Century data-collecting, responsive, hyperconnected city benefit us all equally? Is it built with resident understanding, feedback, and consent? As my work on Toward Inclusive Urban Technology was nearing completion in late February, I envisioned that the report would act as a guide for any local worker—inside or outside of government—who is helping to plan or implement technological change in their community. The people that inspire me most have always been those peer workers across the country who can speak both tech and civic engagement; they grapple with planning for and implementing new technology in their communities while championing inclusiveness and equity. Many local technology and data projects can and should happen at the speed of consensus. Toward Inclusive Urban Technology catalogs cases of communities doing just that.

[Mayor Pete Buttigieg named Denise Linn Riedl the Chief Innovation Officer for the City of South Bend (IN) at the end of January 2019. Previously, Denise was in charge of Ecosystem Development at Chicago’s City Tech Collaborative.]

Cox Communications is lowering Internet upload speeds in entire neighborhoods to stop what it considers "excessive usage," in a decision that punishes both heavy Internet users and their neighbors. Cox, a cable company with about 5.2 million broadband customers in the United States, has been sending notices to some heavy Internet users warning them to use less data and notifying them of neighborhood-wide speed decreases. In one case, a gigabit customer who was paying $50 extra per month for unlimited data was flagged by Cox because he was using 8TB to 12TB a month. Cox responded by lowering the upload speeds on the gigabit-download plan from 35Mbps to 10Mbps for the customer's whole neighborhood.

Federal Communications Commissioner Geoffrey Starks has created the Digital Opportunity Equity Recognition (DOER) Program to commend organizations, institutions, companies and individuals who, through their actions and responses to the COVID-19 crisis, have helped to make quality affordable broadband service available to unserved or underserved communities. Commissioner Starks calls for nominations of candidates that demonstrate a dedication to public service and community advancement by providing or supporting access to high-speed broadband; creating or advancing affordable options for connectivity to individuals and communities especially those most impacted by the COVID-19 crisis; leveraging the use of broadband to improve healthcare, education, public safety, civic engagement, or other essential services; or promoting digital education and literacy. Nominations for the first round of recognitions should be submitted by July 8, 2020.

Every year, the advocacy group Freedom House releases a survey and analysis of Internet and digital media freedom around the world. Called Freedom on the Net, the report attempts to assess Internet freedom using a 21-question methodology, assessing nations’ obstacles to Internet access, limits on online content, and restrictions on Internet users. Freedom House’s methodology concedes that governments can legitimately restrict access to some information and some forms of freedom expression. However, the report channels John Perry Barlow’s radical libertarian ideology, which holds that the Internet generally should be off-limits for any and all government oversight. For example, the report’s methodology penalizes not just authoritarians like China for widely agreed-upon violations of Internet freedom but also Western democracies, like the United States, for taking steps within the rule of law that are good for society. The report also espouses Internet progressives’ vision of Internet freedom. For example, it states that Internet freedom in the United States has declined because of consolidation in the telecommunications sector, even though there is no evidence for this ideological claim.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, more of the nation’s medical care is being delivered by telephone or videoconference, as in-person care becomes a last resort for both doctors and patients. That’s a problem for tens of millions of Americans without smartphones or speedy home internet connections. For them, the digital divide is exacerbating preexisting disparities in access to health care. Patients unfamiliar with or lacking access to technology already tend not to use online tools that can improve health outcomes and allow them to request appointments and prescription refills, as well as message their doctors directly. Telemedicine was supposed to increase access to health care during a national medical emergency, says Jorge Rodriguez, a physician at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital who also studies health care technology disparities. But for some, it’s just another barrier. “It’s become a lifeline,” he says, “but not across the board.”

Kim Templeton, an orthopedic surgeon with an oncology subspecialty in Kansas City (KS) routinely tries to connect with patients over videoconferencing after biopsies or reconstructive surgeries. But her rural patients often didn’t have the technology or home internet for virtual check-ins. Instead, many drove five or six hours to office visits. “It’s inconvenient, but it’s worth it,” Templeton says. Now, she can’t ask them to travel to her. In some cases, Templeton says, she can’t even receive their x-rays, MRIs, or CAT scans from rural hospitals or doctor’s offices that don’t have the bandwidth to upload image files to the cloud. Those patients are left to describe healing incisions and lingering pain over the phone. “It can be almost impossible to figure out what’s going on,” Templeton says.

While a nation of burned-out, involuntary home schoolers slogs to the finish line of a disrupted academic year, a picture is emerging of the extent of the learning loss among children in America, and the size of the gaps schools will be asked to fill when they reopen. It is not pretty. New research suggests that by September, most students will have fallen behind where they would have been if they had stayed in classrooms, with some losing the equivalent of a full school year’s worth of academic gains. Racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps will most likely widen because of disparities in access to computers, home internet connections and direct instruction from teachers. And the crisis is far from over. The harm to students could grow if schools continue to teach fully or partly online in the fall, or if they reopen with significant budget cuts because of the economic downturn. High school dropout rates could increase, researchers say, while younger children could miss out on foundational concepts in phonics and fractions that prepare them for a lifetime of learning and working.

Charter Communications said that it has begun to accept applications for its 2020 Spectrum Digital Education grant program, part of a $6 million, four-year cash and in-kind commitment to educate consumers on the benefits of broadband and how to use it in their everyday lives. Applications will be accepted until June 26. Grants will be announced in Aug and awarded in Sept. Charter said it opened the application portal two months earlier than planned to meet the needs of nonprofit organizations focused on providing broadband training and education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.