The working class has a good reason to oppose public subsidies for sports stadiums. "Econometric studies of the determination of income and employment in US cities find no evidence of positive economic benefits associated with past sports facility construction and some studies find that professional sports facilities and teams have a net negative economic impact on income and employment" (Dennis Coates and Brad R. Humphreys, "Professional Sports Facilities, Franchises and Urban Economic Development," UMBC Economics Department Working Paper 03-103, <http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_03_103.pdf>, p. 2). That is not surprising, because "[t]he majority of the revenues from professional sports go into salaries for players, managers, coaches, trainers, scouts and to income for the ownership. Most of these individuals, especially the more highly paid ones, do not live full time in the city where the games take place" (Coates and Humphreys, <http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_03_103.pdf>, p. 9). How negative an impact can subsidies for stadiums have? "[T]he overall sports environment is frequently statistically significant as a determinant of earnings and that the predicted mean impact of sports on wages in a sample of individuals employed in occupations closely related to professional sports is an annual average decrease in real earnings of $47.95" ("The Effect of Professional Sports on the Earnings of Individuals: Evidence from Microeconomic Data," UMBC Economics Department Working Paper 03-104," <http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_03_104.pdf>, p. 1). Many segments of the electorate appear to know that stadiums are a poor bargain: most importantly, "voting precincts that have a relatively high degree of poverty tend to oppose subsidies for professional sports," and so do the elderly, the college educated, and whites (Dennis Coates and Brad R. Humphreys "Voting on Stadium and Arena Subsidies," UMBC Economics Department Working Paper 03-105, <http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_03_105.pdf>). It is interesting that this is one of the few areas of US politics where Black voters are out of step with poor voters: "those with higher incomes and blacks favor the subsidies" (Coates and Humphreys, <http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_03_105.pdf>, p. 1).
In the case of marinas, environmental as well as economic impacts must be taken into account.
In terms of public benefits, I think that public broadband would be like post-secondary education -- neither as egalitarian as universal health care and public elementary and secondary education nor as costly and potentially harmful as publicly-financed sports stadiums whose profits only a few capture (a sports stadium tends to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, while the cost of the Wireless Philadelphia project in Philadelphia is estimated to be about $10 million by its supporters and to be about $100 million by its opponents [Shawn McCarthy, "U,S, City Cuts Strings from Corporations' Net," <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050507.wwifi07/BNStory/Technology/>, 7 May 2005]). Since the price of a bachelor's degree is higher than the price of a laptop or desktop computer, and costs of college education have been going up while computer prices have been going down, public infrastructure that facilitates universal access to the Internet may be eventually used more widely than public four-year universities.
Computer use and ownership are already relatively widespread: "The proportion of U.S. households with computers reached 61.8 percent in 2003, and 87.6 percent of those households used their computers to access the Internet" (US Department of Commerce, "A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age," <http://www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/anol/NationOnlineBroadband04.htm>, September 2004). In terms of diffusion, that's in the same league as experience of post-secondary education: "More than half the U.S. population 25 and over in 2000 (52 percent) had completed at least some college education" (US Census Bureau, "Educational Attainment: 2000," <a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf">August 2003</a>); and "The rate of completion of some college was 58 percent among those in the 25- to 29-year age group" (US Census Bureau, <a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf">August 2003</a>).
Prices of computers and their components have been rapidly going down and will go down further: e.g., "Overall, over the past 22 years, prices per unit of memory have declined by an average of 32 percent per year" (Congressional Budget Office, "The Role of Computer Technology in the Growth of Productivity," <http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3448&sequence=4>, May 2002); and "The average price of a consumer laptop sold in the United States fell to $1,064 last year from $1,890 in 2000, according to IDC. Over the same period, desktop prices fell to $825 from $1,250" (Seth Schiesel, "Serious Gamers Warm to a New Breed of Laptops," International Herald Tribune, 3 Apr. 2004). MIT is said to be developing "a Linux-based, full-color, full-screen laptop" to be sold for $100 ("$100 Laptop," <http://laptop.media.mit.edu/>). Even without MIT's R&D, one of these days, companies in China, Brazil, India, etc. will probably start selling personal computers and laptops for $100-200, and then computer ownership is likely to come close to that of radios and televisions.
However, fees for oligopolistic commercial ISPs -- especially for broadband and wireless ("About 20% of the U.S. has no way to get broadband Net access, and 5% to 10% more only have one choice: Their local cable-TV provider" [Sarah Lacy, "America: Still the High-speed Laggard," Business Week, <http://www.freepress.net/news/7611>, 6 Apr. 2005]) -- have been stubbornly high. Understandably, many people are less satisfied with their service than before: "Our readers are grumbling loudly over broadband costs, and especially cable ISP prices. Satisfaction with fees dropped to a very low 5.5 after receiving a 6.0 last year and 6.1 in 2002" ("Reader Satisfaction Survey - ISPs," <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1724801,00.asp>). That being the case, public provision of broadband access for free (simply to promote public access) or at low costs (promoting public access while generating a little revenue for the municipality that provides it to pay for maintenance and upgrades) may become a popular idea, uniting existing and potential consumers and small businesses.
>>Free public access to scholarly publications and free public
>>broadband (of which free public WiFi is but one means) are two
>>different issues. I happen to be in favor of both.
>
>I do not disagree but your example of Dayton downtown WiFi is wrong.
>It is wholely private financed and limited to people in a
>particularly area. Even you switched to talking about public
>efforts in your response. I live in a town that has made a few
>token efforts at WiFi (with much public fanfare) and they are
>horrible in their "publicness". They are (as I suspect Dayton is) a
>few weak signals in a patchwork of cafes--which, despite its
>usefulness for the hightech caffeinistas, is not my definition of
>public. I personally think free access to the internet in libraries
>is much more useful and "public".
>
>There are more "public efforts" for WiFI which I am more supportive
>than Dayton (like Philly or Cork). Technically speaking though,
>particularly in bang for your buck terms, WiFi is not currently a
>very good public option. That may change I suppose, but don't count
>on me to come to any "WiFi" meetings.
I mentioned Dayton because I live in Ohio and Dayton bragged about its service being free while Wireless Philadelphia is said to cost "approximately $20 a month" (Robert MacMillan, "Life, Liberty and Free WiFi," Washington Post, 2 May 2005 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/02/AR2005050200449.html>).
Philadelphia: "The initiative is being studied by the Wireless Philadelphia Executive Committee who will make a recommendation to the Mayor on governance and funding strategies. One model could be could be to structured the initiative as a public/private partnership and could be funded through public grants, industry donations/sponsorships, strategic partnerships and collaborations and foundations. On-going maintenance and support would require a funding strategy also" (<http://www.phila.gov/wireless/faqs.html>).
Cork: "Smart Telecom and Cork City Council have teamed up to launch what is believed to be the first citywide high-speed Wi-Fi network in Europe" (<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/25/cork_citiy_wifi_network/>).
The devil is in details, so you may very well be right that the Cork and Philly deals are superior to the Dayton one, but, on the face of them, they appear to be on the same model of "public-private partnership."
Free access in libraries is good and should be encouraged, but, for that to reach many, it would cost a lot to build bigger labs and buy more desktops and peripherals. Media activists have been attracted to the public wireless idea in part because of costs, I think: e.g., Elisa Batista, "Mesh Less Cost of Wireless," Wired, <http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,57617,00.html?tw=wn_story_related>, 13 Feb. 2003. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>