But is it legitimate to assume that better information will produce better decisions, or that an improved technological infrastructure for public participation in decision making will actually enhance public participation?

Colloquium on Advanced Technology, Low-Income Communities and the City
Increased access to advanced technology may help low- income populations compete in the labor market for high- end positions in an economy increasingly polarized between high- wage knowledge- workers and low- wage proles. For example, familiarization with computers may help low- income youth to acquire the skills they need for entry into the workforce, and digital communications technologies may enhance their knowledge of and access to entry- level employment. Furthermore, such computational tools as Geographic Information Systems can be used to monitor, represent, and analyze the economic effects on low- income populations, distributed throughout metropolitan areas, of policies and programs designed to increase their access to advanced technology.

On the other hand, it is crucial to ask whether low- income people are cut off from jobs primarily because they lack access to them through transportation or information? Or is it rather than there are just not enough jobs (or non- temporary, non- dead- end jobs) to go around? If so, would access to advanced technology provide greater access to employment?

And when low- income people do succeed in bootstrapping themselves out of poverty (off welfare, to take one prominent example), do they tend to move away from the places in which they have been poor? If so, is the pattern one of selectively "skiving off" the topmost layers of competence and leadership - - as has been claimed about the effects of Great Society programs? Are the more energetic and effective people peeling off and going elsewhere, leaving the remainder weaker, as W.J. Wilson has argued?


On the other hand, it is crucial to ask whether low- income people are cut off from jobs primarily because they lack access to them through transportation or information? Or is it rather than there are just not enough jobs (or non- temporary, non- dead- end jobs) to go around? If so, would access to advanced technology provide greater access to employment?

Low- income urban populations are critically affected by the public services provided and the regulatory activities carried out by urban bureaucracies, such as those associated with land use and maintenance, transportation, police, fire, public safety, health, welfare, mental health, services to children, education, recreation. Low- income populations are also critically affected by the human services made available by local non- profit organizations - - for example, services to the elderly, shelters for the homeless, and services to children and youth.

Computer networks could create new forms of dialogue between public and non- profit bureaucracies and their beneficiaries. Computer- based networks could be a medium through which people at large could contact public bureaucracies serving them, in order to make their interests and views known. Such networks might also enable local organizations - - for example, the Mission Hill Coalition for a Healthy Start, or Mission Pride, in the Mission Hill area of Boston - - to keep in touch with people who might be interested in the agency's doings but unable to attend its meetings. Computer- based networks, coupled with the computer's ability to store, represent, and analyze data, could become the basis for the delivery of more individualized and responsive provision of services to low- income clients.

Even more fundamentally, digital communications technology coupled with decision support systems may be used to create new forms of citizenship, enhancing democratic debate and decision making, fostering a more active and collaborative involvement of people - - especially low- income people - - in making public policy.

But is it legitimate to assume that better information will produce better decisions, or that an improved technological infrastructure for public participation in decision making will actually enhance public participation?
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