The Internet and Community Networks: Case Studies of Five U.S. Cities

Abstract: This paper looks at five U.S. cities (Austin, Cleveland, Nashville, Portland, and Washington, DC) and explores strategies being employed by community activists and local governments to create and sustain community networking projects. In some cities, community networking initiatives are relatively mature, while in others they are in early or intermediate stages. The paper looks at several factors that help explain the evolution of community networks in cities: 1) Local government support; 2) Federal support 3) Degree of community activism, often reflected by public-private partnerships that help support community networks. In addition to these (more or less) measurable elements of local support, the case studies enable description of the different objectives of community networks in different cities. Several community networking projects aim to improve the delivery of government services (e.g., Portland and Cleveland), some have a job-training focus (e.g., Austin, Washington, DC), others are oriented very explicitly toward community building (Nashville, DC), and others toward neighborhood entrepreneurship (Portland and Cleveland). The paper ties the case studies together by asking whether community technology initiatives contribute to social capital in the cities studied.