The community networking movement has the same goals as the movements that in the past century brought community centers, public libraries, and public broadcasting stations to cities and towns across the United States. It seeks to rebuild the sense of community which many of us believe our neighborhoods have lost within living memory.
Most of what needs to be said in this section has already been said by other researchers far better than I could say it. This section will therefore consist mainly of quotations.
"Communities are the physical (and to a large degree, mental and emotional) places where people do their living. ... there is also a 'sense of community' ..., in which community members have a sense of belonging to the greater social unity." (Schuler, p.2)
"In the mythic American elm-lined 'Main Street' community, everybody knew everybody, there was time to hang out by the soda fountain and nobody locked their doors. ... Although this picture of community has been scrubbed clean of any inconvenient inequities of the time (such as racial prejudice, unsanitary living conditions, or unsafe working conditions) and preserved as a specimen at various Disneylands around the world, it still serves as an idealized notion that people compare with the realities of today's communities. There is a growing view that the strands of community life are unraveling and that reversing this process may be beyond our control." (Schuler, p.4)
"Communities are a natural focus for addressing today's problems. For one thing, many current problems are community problems -- poverty, crime, unemployment, drug use, and many others. These problems are manifest in the community and are best examined and dealt with by a community. Communities are also a familiar and natural unit. Smaller units can be clannish, unrepresentative, and powerless, while larger units are often too anonymous and unwieldy." (Schuler, p.9)In fairness I must mention that not everyone agrees with this view:
"I think having a sense of community is the first step towards losing the safety of the environment. ... The people living in [Cleveland's] Little Italy have a great sense of 'community' but they have rather biased views of who can belong to it. I think a sense of _humanity_ would be much better for the world in general." (Fifteen)
"The telephone, radio, and television have ... [united] neighborhoods, towns, and cities into a common communication fabric. ... Telecommunications have made it so easy to communicate with individuals that are far removed from the immediate neighborhood of either work or living that bonds between remotely located individuals may be much stronger than between those living in adjacent houses or working in adjacent offices ... The telephone, radio, and television, insofar as they undermine the ecoogical fact of life, tend to destabilize human ecosystems." (Sudia, pp.11-14)This worldwide community was named the "global village" by media prophet Marshall McLuhan. However, lest we think the global village fundamentally unstable, Sudia goes on to say that "Radio and television, more than any other technological devices, have made it possible to synchronize the activity of communities and in this respect they have been great stabilizing influences." (p.14)
If synchronization is good for human ecosystems, what happens when we introduce a communication medium that is not fundamentally synchronous?
"[A] working person who is able to use a computer earns 10-15% more than someone in a similar job who cannot [quoting Kruger, 1995]. ... the expectation of access has taken root." (Jacobs, p.19)
"[I]n an increasingly technologically dominated society, people who are socially and/or economically disadvantaged will become further disadvantaged if they lack access to computers and computer-related technologies." (CTC, p.4)
"There is no such thing as a poor community. Even neighborhoods without much money have substantial human resources. Often, however, the human resources are not appreciated or utilized, partly because people do not have information about each other and about what their neighborhood has to offer. For example, a family whose oil heater is broken may go cold for lack of knowledge that someone just down the block knows how to fix it." (Schuler, p.231)Computers are arguably the most powerful organizational tool ever invented. If our communities are disorganized, might computers be able to help?
"A Community Network (CN) is an association that serves the communications and/or information needs of a group of people who have a common interest via online technology." -- Patrick Finn, Managing Director and Co-Founder of La Plaza Telecommunity Foundation (McComb & Evans, ¶10)
"The technology is such that the Internet could be like TV, something that tends to isolate people and break them into tiny groups, and I think the Free-Nets -- and community networks generally -- are one of the best hopes to use the same technology to make it a community builder instead of something that tends to atomize." -- Tim Connors, Acting Executive Director of NPTNGigantic online services such as America Online and Compuserve have brought people together in ways reminiscent of hometown communities ... but their online "neighbors" are spread out all around the world. Perhaps what is needed is not a giant international service but a grassroots movement.
"[C]ommunity computer networks are an important community resource that should be built by the community. A global -- or even national or state -- scale is too large because there would be no allowance for particulars. Endeavors of that magnitude are too large, too distant, too inefficient, and too difficult to participate in." (Schuler, p.xi)
"Community Memory of Berkeley, California ... was the world's first community network ... initially begun in the mid-70s ... Their commitment to reducing the barriers to information technology was demonstrated by the simplicity of the system (described in a five-page users' manual), numerous training programs, and the insistence that all Community Memory terminals be located in public places: Terminals could be found in libraries and in laundromats but could not be reached via modem or from the Internet. Community Memory adopted a creative approach to funding: They offered coin-operated terminals through which forums were free to read, but required 25 cents to post an opinion and a dollar to start a new forum. ... Users ... were not required to use their own name or register to use the system. ... The anonymity made it very easy to use the system and gave users almost complete freedom to write what they wanted." (Schuler, p.58)The Public Electronic Network of Santa Monica, CA is one of the most successful community networks, with 7.4% participation and every city organization represented (Schuler, p.119-121). In 1986 the Cleveland Free-Net was founded -- more on that later -- and it soon became the first organization in the world to provide free, public Internet access.
"CWRU [Case Western Reserve University] has helped over a dozen other cities start clones of the Cleveland Free-Net. ... This missionary work looked so promising in early 1990 that Dr. Grundner started the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) as a project within the Office for Information Services at CWRU, and after two years left CWRU to devote full time to this concept. (NPTN has always been a separately incorporated, not-for-profit entity.)" (Neff, 1995)
"The National Public Telecomputing Network conducted one of the first examples of an electronic town hall in 1992 for the Office of Technology Assessment in what they labeled an OTA Teleforum. ... It lasted for six weeks and hundreds of people participated." (Schuler, p.127)NPTN's quest to help communities start their own Free-Nets was limited by the fact that the communities had to find sources of funding.
"In 1994, the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced the first major federal support program for people and organizations using telecommunications in their communities. ... Later that year, the NTIA made 91 awards totalling $170 million to recipients in nearly every state. ... the program was also repeated in 1995." (Schuler, p.379-380)One result of the NTIA grants was a project within NPTN to create "Rural Information Networks" (RINs). Rather than being clones of the giant Cleveland Free-Net, these systems were smaller, cheaper, and easier to use, so that small-town communities could buy them with their grant money and still have some left over. RINs were also configured in advance, so that they could start working as soon as they arrived in town. Other CNs, of course, continued to be started from scratch.
"After a hell of a lot of work I managed to get $58,000 for hardware where every penny had to be strictly accounted for and spent exactly on what I said it was going to be spent on in the first place. It had to go through a local audit, a state audit, and a federal audit, and it passed. Thank you very much. ¶ And what I did is create a community network. And this network is absolutely FREE, not five bucks less than an ISP, but FREE. And you get the Web and e-mail, and some pretty serious databases, and a nice little menu so you won't freak out at the Unix prompt. And in one year we went from 0 to 14,000 subscribers. Not all of them have computers either (38% of households do, according to the latest Wired.). Many of them walk into their local public library and use a computer for free as well. Although everyone pays lip service to the information disenfranchised in this country, it is people running computer networks and places like libraries that are doing something about it." (Schuyler, ¶8-9)
"[T]he Community Memory system is no longer available for the Berkeley community. ... in some sense Berkeley organizations have less need for such a system than organizations in other cities. ... on the other hand ... community organizations and service providers never had a good opportunity to become partners -- or co-owners -- of the system. ... organizations and other community information providers did not put their own information on the system but, rather, handed it off to Community Memory staff or volunteers, who entered it for them. This lack of involvement or investment on the part of the community members not only created a bottleneck for Community Memory staff and volunteers but it helped prevent the type of community ownership that is key to Cleveland Free-Net founder Tom Grundner's vision and is demonstrated by volunteers at community networks all over the world." (Schuler, p.59-60)CNs that rely on users having their own computers will only be able to reach a small percentage of their communities' population. The RAND report on the feasibility of universal e-mail access tells us that "'computer access and use is positively related to higher levels of education and income,' that 'whites are significantly more likely to have access to both than blacks and Hispanics,' and that 'the income- and education-based gaps are widening over time (p.120).'" (Snow, p.18)
Let's also not forget that starting a CN is hard work:
"To start a community network you only need to be a lawyer, a plumber, a computer technician, a bookkeeper, a marketing executive, an accountant, a politician, a fund-raiser, an administrator, a community developer, a therapist, a teacher..... and if you are not, you better know at least two of each. The most important one is the therapist. People have to be nuts to start a community network. I know, we did and we are." -- Patrick Finn, Managing Director and Co-Founder of La Plaza Telecommunity Foundation (McComb & Evans, ¶10)