Update on Project Activities
This week we had our first meeting with our project partners, Alex Andrade, the Economic Development Manager for the City of Mountain View, and Christina Gilmore, Assistant to the City Manager for the City of Mountain View. Our meeting focused on developing context regarding the demographics of Mountain View, existing digital/civic literacy resources and programs for low-resource individuals to access the internet. While this project will focus on exploring the demographics of Mountain View residents that have access to computers and the wifi, as well as their knowledge of pre-existing programs, the motivation is rooted in the 2020 Census. The 2020 census will likely be distributed digitally, thus making digital inclusion a higher priority now more than ever. If an individual or family does not have the resources able to register for the census, there can be widespread economic impacts such as decreased funding for federal projects. While the individuals without a digital access face hurdles to civic engagement, they also face economic disadvantages. For example, if unemployed, an individual will be employed seven times faster if he/she has access to the internet. What We Observed and Learned Housing costs in Mountain View are incredibly high, with the median cost of a single-family home in the millions. These skyrocketing housing prices have attributed to the homelessness population in Mountain View tripling. Many residents now live in cars or RVs. In addition, Mountain View residents include immigrants, some undocumented, that do not speak English. It is hypothesized that these groups also have lower rates of digital access. Engaging with both of these populations is crucial to ensure that the 2020 census represents all demographics of Mountain View residents. As our team ponders a future without a digital divide, we question the competing nature of the sustainabilities defined by Mariam Greenberg in “What on Earth Is Sustainable?” Access to the internet provides economic benefits, as well as civic involvement: the City of Mountain View relies on its website as its main communication platform. While digital access favors justice oriented sustainability by ensuring that all residents have the same access to jobs and information regarding programs like AT&T and Comcast’s reduced cost internet, it may compete with eco-oriented sustainability. Wifi connections and necessary hardware like computers increase energy consumption and the ecological impacts of some hardware components, like lithium batteries, are immense. In addition, we wonder about the impact on community. We need to be observant. Perhaps central places where residents go to gain access, like a library for example, are important cultural institutions and public meeting places. Eliminating the need to commute for digital access may impact the cultural aspect of sustainability. The idea of free, public wifi in certain areas of Mountain View was mentioned. We wonder if that would result in a similar phenomena as environmental gentrification. Would free wifi in residential areas result in increased home prices, which are filled by residents that can afford to have their own personal internet connection? Critical Analysis/Moving Forward In the next week, we hope to create an initial draft of the survey that we will distribute to determine who in Mountain View has digital access, how they practice that access, and awareness about digital literacy programs. Our biggest question is in regards to distribution. How will we best engage residents that are not connected? Traditional means, like an online survey, won’t reach the entire citizen population. Christina has suggested talking with members of the City of Mountain View’s ambassador program that is composed of monolingual and bilingual residents that learn about civic resources, and can then share that information with their communities. Alex has suggested connecting with residents at Council Neighbourhood Meetings and seeing if we can distribute the survey through them. While the citizens at these meetings are more civically engaged than their peers, their current roles involve disseminating information to their communities, and can perhaps serve in that same capacity for distributing our survey. Comments are closed.
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