Daily Archives: October 25, 2007

Broadband Networks are Critical

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Thanks to Bernadine Joselyn for passing on the following article: Broadband Networks Critical For Regional Viability, Growth.

Here is the quote of the day taken from the article: (those who are on the Baller list may recognize it:

If your municipality isn’t looking at creative ways to develop new strategies that include having a state-of-the-art network infrastructure to support economic growth and development, they will be stagnating your property value and quality of life in your area. This was the message I conveyed in a speech on intelligent business campuses at the RTC last week.

The article recognizes and details the problems and acute need for broadband in rural areas – as discussed at the Rural Telecon Conference earlier this month. For those who couldn’t make the RTC – or even if you did – these topics will also be discussed at the upcoming Blandin Broadband conference, Community Broadband: Making the Right Choices.

USDA Measures Creative Class Areas

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While not directly related to broadband I thought the following announcement from the USDA was very interesting and enlightened:

CREATIVE CLASS COUNTY CODES
The creative class thesis—that towns need to attract engineers, architects, artists, and people in other creative occupations to compete in today’s economy—may be particularly relevant to rural communities, which tend to lose much of their talent when young adults leave. The ERS creative class codes indicate a county’s share of population employed in occupations that require “thinking creatively.” A separate break-out of employment in the arts is also included. Data are provided for all counties in the U.S. for 1990 and 2000.
Released Wednesday, October 17, 2007

I have been trying to find time to do something with this – but I think just pointing to it is the best that I can do these days. There is a great map of Creative Class areas on the web site given above. Minnesota does better than Nebraska but not as well as New Miexico.