Lit up and left dark: Failures of imagination in urban broadband networks

Abstract

The design and deployment of urban broadband infrastructures inscribe particular imaginations of Internet access onto city streets. The different manifestations and locations of these networks, their uses, and access points often expose material excesses of urban broadband networks, as well as failures of Internet service providers, urban planners, and public officials to imagine the diverse ways that people incorporate Internet connection into their everyday lives. We approach the study of urban broadband networks through the juxtaposition of invisible networks that are buried under the streets and have always been "turned off" (dark fiber) versus hypervisible that are "turned on" and prominently displayed on city streets (LinkNYC). In our analysis of these two case studies, we critique themes of visibility and invisibility as indexes of power and access. Our findings are meant to provide a critical analysis of urban technology policy as well as theories of infrastructure, visibility, and access.

Equality in the City: Imaginaries of the Smart Future

“…In addition to the numerous limitations of this type of participation (see , representations of end users exclude vulnerable populations such as low-income and poorly connected communities who rely heavily on freely accessible Wi-Fi systems. Indeed, while end users of the kiosks and benches are understood by corporations as mobile and connected, this does not reflect the actual uses of these infrastructures and the ways in which these are adopted and reappropriated by different groups of users, such as, for example, the use of the kiosks' free call facility by the homeless population (see Halegoua and Lingel [2018] for failure to include marginalized groups in the vision of the LinkNYC). As pointed out by Halegoua and Lingel (2018: 4647), one of the issues behind this type of smart street furniture is that they 'need to adopt more inclusive imaginations of the public and imagine more varied uses of public connection'.…”

The Design and Public Imaginaries of Smart Street Furniture

“…In addition to the numerous limitations of this type of participation (see Cardullo and Kitchin 2019a), representations of end users exclude vulnerable populations such as low-income and poorly connected communities who rely heavily on freely accessible Wi-Fi systems. Indeed, while end users of the kiosks and benches are understood by corporations as mobile and connected, this does not reflect the actual uses of these infrastructures and the ways in which these are adopted and reappropriated by different groups of users, such as, for example, the use of the kiosks' free call facility by the homeless population (see Halegoua and Lingel [2018] for failure to include marginalized groups in the vision of the LinkNYC). As pointed out by Halegoua and Lingel (2018: 4647), one of the issues behind this type of smart street furniture is that they 'need to adopt more inclusive imaginations of the public and imagine more varied uses of public connection'.…”

Urban furniture in digital placemaking: Adapting a storytelling payphone across Los Angeles

“…Digital placemaking efforts may need to embrace persistent design values even as they simultaneously open the door for interative insights and differing neighborhood priorities. In terms of scale, the ethics of adaptation are clearly more capable of supporting neighborhood-level customization and local power structures than citywide implementations with a fixed template (e.g., New York City's payphone replacement initiative, per Halegoua and Lingel, 2018). A clear limitation is the cost and time required to customize and localize for each place or to selectively adapt only the digital or the physical elements in isolation, rather than a more integrated and holistic approach.…”