Recent research conducted by an Ohio State professor found Chicago ranks first of the 30 most Internet-accessible cities in the United States. Following Chicago were Washington, D.C., Dallas, Atlanta, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
“The purpose of this study was to see whether certain cities in the United States had higher levels of accessibility than other cities,” said Morton O’Kelly, professor of geography, who conducted the research.
Focusing on Internet commercial backbones between various cities in 2000, researchers created maps that overlaid different networks to compare Internet accessibility between cities.
Chicago ranked first because it functions as a geographically centralized location of many network interchanges, O’Kelly said.
Places where air and highway transportation systems are highly developed also have higher Internet accessibility compared to their standing in previous research done in 1997.
Portland jumped to 19th from 40th, Salt Lake City ranked 15th up from 37th, and Kansas City moved to 14th from 21st.
The top seven to 10 cities stayed about the same. There are huge gaps of accessibility above and below 10, O’Kelly said.
Internet accessibility is a significant element in both the public and private sectors as the Internet becomes an essential tool for telecommunication on a daily basis, said Tony Grubesic, a former Ph.D. student at OSU and co-researcher of the study.
Increased accessibility enhances the ability of a city to participate in the infrastructure of information technology, O’Kelly said. This contributes to economic development.
Industry requires infrastructure, O’Kelly said. If the city aspires to get industry and technology, then the city needs to make sure industry is accommodated.
“The role of Internet accessibility in economic development and possibly in providing the infrastructure to revitalize the economy may otherwise be in decline or have trends moving against traditional sectors of the economy,” O’Kelly said. “The emerging new sector of the economy is going to require information technology.”
The ranking of the study raised public intrigue and drew a lot of interest from different cities, O’Kelly said.
Cities like San Jose and Salt Lake City interviewed O’Kelly to learn where they stood and why they fell or rose in the rankings, in order to make sure they are on the competitive edge.
Even though Cleveland is the only city in Ohio ranked in the top 30, Ohio has made some progress over the past few years.
“In the last couple of years, we’ve seen significant growth in the network infrastructure in Ohio with the changes in the telecommunication industry,” said David Matusoff, government relations manager of the Technology Policy Group.
From May of 2000 to June of 2001, about 15 cities in Ohio increased their total network capacity by more than 100 percent, Matusoff said.
Significant investments have been made by the private sector network providers in Ohio, Matusoff said.
“We hope this research can help telecommunication policy analysts, economists, sociologists, planners, geographers, and regional scientists to be more informed on issues pertaining to the digital divide, and help them create new policies to help underperforming areas and improve the Internet experience for everyone,” Grubesic said.
