Over 20 years of data mangling, I’ve bought my share of demographics databases.

They’ve often turned out to be little more than slices of the US Census Bureau data. But early on it was worth it. Buying tapes from the Government was too time consuming, expensive and painful.

The dawn of the Internet brought a slight lifting of the Government’s skirt.

But while some data was posted to the web, it was too limited. And using the site was, well, stupid.

Eventually, I gave up. Cycled the Census Bureau site out of my short term memory. Zapped it.

That brings us to this morning.

The Background:

My town is trying to determine what, if any, wireless services make sense for a small midwestern city to offer without suppressing private investment. In the process, I posted the concerns of the Bettendorf Wireless Task Force (WTF), and asked you for input.

The response has been better than a guy has a right to expect… And by better, I mean higher quality.

Nearly every commenter brought important insight, with the result that you really got me thinking about the digital divide. I called our local Economic Development director, Steve Van Dyke, for more detailed demographics than I shared and linked to in the earlier article.

Van Dyke, who offers no pretense of being a web whiz, stepped me through the selections at… you guessed it… the US Census Bureau, to gems like this:


P87. POVERTY STATUS IN 1999 BY AGE - Universe: Population for whom poverty status is determined
Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3)

ZIP: 52722

Total:

33,466

Income in 1999 below poverty level:

1,596

Under 5 years

166

5 years

32

6 to 11 years

172

12 to 17 years

128

18 to 64 years

912

65 to 74 years

95

75 years and over

91

Income in 1999 at or above poverty level:

31,870

Under 5 years

1,928

5 years

422

6 to 11 years

2,828

12 to 17 years

3,194

18 to 64 years

19,793

65 to 74 years

2,087

75 years and over

1,618

U.S. Census Bureau: Census 2000.

Other Census data revealed that our town of 33K has just 285 households below the poverty line, out of 12,000. That makes closing the digital divide sound almost possible… at least the income-based portion of the divide.

I’m slowly hatching a plot that might work. And once again, I need your insight.

My Big Idea:

  1. Work with local groups, like the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, churches, synagogues, mosques, etc, to get govt and biz to donate decommissioned PCs to our local non-profit computer group (QCS);
  2. Talk QCS (or similar) into creating a Special Interest Group (ReSIG) that recycles the PCs;
  3. Have ReSIG load an image of desktop Linux with OpenOffice, Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email client (or similar) on each;
  4. Encourage ReSIGgers (or others, like Boy Scouts or DeMolay) to deliver pcs and train the beneficiaries;
  5. Convince a local provider to offer free or low cost service;
  6. Beg local NGOs to help subsidize what’s left.

It seems to me that everybody wins. Local donaters and NGOs get free publicity for supporting a good, focused cause, and donatees get Internet access with zero government cost. The program’s even environmentally friendly, as throwaways are re-used locally, saving freight and gas. My kind of city program.

Could it work? Any ideas on how to help it go with minimal effort? Have a snappy name? What works in your town?

Oh. And if you’re thinking about stealing my Big Idea… feel free. Let the rest of us know how your project worked out.