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If the pundits are right, then the broad-band digital
fiber-optic information highway
will be as important
in the future as main-line railroads and interstate
highways were in the past. Towns that had them could
thrive, and those that didn't generally suffered.
Salida lost its main-line railroad status years ago, and no interstate comes closer than 75 miles. This may explain a local saying: Salida is a great place to live, but a rotten place to work.
That leaves two options for residents who lack enthusiasm for minimum-wage part-time zero-benefit employment:
1. Live here without working. That was possible a decade ago, but rents have since risen while social spending has been reduced, thereby complicating the sensible life.
2. Live here but work somewhere else. In essence, that's what I do; computers and telephone lines make that possible, though often complicated.
If a high-speed digital network were in place around the state, and if there's a way to make money by gathering, processing and distributing information from that network, then Wray, Mancos and Maybell could all offer the same economic opportunities as Denver or Colorado Springs.
Of course towns would still compete for enterprises, but no longer would they offer subsidies and tax abatements. Their prosperity would result from being congenial places to live, and they would vie to build better parks, trails, schools, libraries, etc.
That's a charming scenario, and all quite possible. But I can safely predict that it will never happen.
The major players in this new order -- telephone and cable companies -- aren't about to serve rural areas when there's so much more money to be made serving denser populations.
When this happened in the past, as with railroads, regional leaders organized improvement districts and sold bonds to raise capital. That's how Denver got its first railroad connection in 1870, and how Denver put itself on the main line with the Moffat Tunnel 65 years ago.
But is there a mechanism today for a rural community to decide that it wants to join the digital network, and then raise the money and make the connection?
Not that I've noticed, and besides, most rural leaders still think of economic development in terms of new four-lane highways to serve some smokestacks.
So private enterprise won't extend the network past the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and local public enterprise hasn't figured out the connection.
Then consider our state government. In 1990, I heard
Gov. Roy Romer on the stump here, and he spoke eloquently
and knowledgeably about how the need for an information
infrastructure
in rural Colorado.
But if Romer's words have been translated into action or policy, I've missed it. Then observe the dominant branch of state government, the General Assembly, which is owned and operated by suburban real-estate developers.
They won't profit if Aguilar or Briggsdale offers as
much opportunity as Arvada or Broomfield. Consequently,
they aren't about to encourage connections between rural
areas and the emerging information economy.
If there
were a connection, you might make a decent living without
supporting their condos and shopping malls, and that would
never do, would it?
At the moment, the window of opportunity
is open
toward building a new Colorado, dispersed and attractive,
where little towns could thrive without selling their souls
to the tourist industry. But it will soon be shuttered in
favor of more business as usual.
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