Olshan Real Estate Law Blog

Infrastructure Needed to Cure Digital Divide in the U.S.

Thomas Friedman’s column in today’s New York Times highlights the digital divide hurting rural areas in the U.S.  Are Opportunity Zones a partial solution?   

Tom Friedman’s column discusses the significant digital divide hurting rural areas in the U.S. The lack of high speed broadband internet connections is restricting development of high tech services and impacting on education particularly during the pandemic. My techie nephew, an executive with one of the tech power houses, described the many infrastructure issues affecting the lack of broadband service in rural areas that we take for granted in New York. We need federal action to help those areas from falling farther behind. 

Friedman quotes a representative of the Center on Rural Innovation which helps rural areas with economic development and has used Opportunity Zones to help create development in rural areas.