News tagged with business climate

This week on the Illinois Channel: Graham Richard discusses broadband's impact on the economy of a community

This week on the Illinois Channel:

From Southern Illinois University in Carbondale
we hear from Graham Richard, the former Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who embraced broadband communications as a way to improve city services and attract more businesses to his community. Mr. Richard spoke to a broadband conference at SIU about the ability of broadband communications to improve the business climate for a community.

Thoughts On Broadband, the Internet, Business Incubation and Jobs

Part of President Obama’s campaign platform was a “stimulus program” designed to create jobs as quickly as possible through the funding of “shovel ready” projects. There were WPA-like objectives in the rhetoric, which would put Americans to work repairing roads, bridges, airports and infrastructure.  Unemployment was at record highs bolstering the demand for jobs and often expressed through the campaign rhetoric of “Jobs, Jobs and Jobs.” Another public policy objective also garnered a great deal of attention:  an assumption that broadband availability in rural areas was important to the regions future economic development.  In fact, the correlation between broadband availability and economic development is very similar to the 1936 Rural Electrification Act (REA) which underscored the importance of, and secured funding for, an infrastructure supporting electricity.  Much of the campaign rhetoric about the need for public support of broadband deployment was similar to the arguments used for the REA.

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This paper is third party research and does not necessarily represent the views or receive the endorsement of The Partnership for a Connected Illinois. It is presented for consideration as a public service to the broadband community.

Partnership for a Connected Illinois 1337 Wabash Ave. Springfield, IL 62704 Phone: (217) 886-4228 Fax: (217) 718-4546 info@broadbandillinois.org