[10933] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Two-way Internet service from Continental Cable?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dick St.Peters)
Tue Mar 15 01:13:40 1994
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 94 19:38:35 EST
From: stpeters@bird.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
To: barney@databus.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
Reply-To: <stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com>
>From: Barney Wolff <barney@databus.com>
>May I ask, as a genuine rather than rhetorical question, in what other
>arena are the costs of living in the country higher than in the city?
Minor luxuries like fuel and food. :-)
In the country housing and labor are cheap. Just about everything else
is more expensive.
>Sure jobs are scarce, but when was the last time an auto manufacturer
>opened a plant in a city? Have we in fact seen a revival of the
>long-term urbanization trend in recent years, with a gain in per-capita
>income in cities and a loss in the country?
Well, my impression was that per-capita income is going down in cities
too, if you count the urban poor. What we've really had for quite some
time now is a long-term trend of suburbanization undoing an earlier
urbanization. First the people moved out, then businesses moved out,
but most businesses couldn't move too far, which kept the people tied
to them from moving too far.
I think a lot of us have looked at networking as something likely to
loosen the physical ties of people to business and of businesses to each
other. Maybe I'm remembering my own thoughts as I read Tom Stewart's
Netplex article in Fortune, but I think he commented on the irony of
this engine for dispersal leading to concentration of those who provide
it. (Sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth, Tom.)
Anyway, what we're seeing is only the very early view anyway. Life has
a way of working out in unexpected ways.
--
Dick St.Peters, Gatekeeper, The Pearly Gateway; currently at:
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
