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Official: Delta communities must include broadband in economic development efforts Tuesday, Mar 25, 2008 By Jason Wiest Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Some Delta communities are drying up and struggling because of outdated economic development plans on the local level that don't focus on information technology, the alternate federal co-chairman of the Delta Regional Authority said Monday. "Too many of our communities are stuck in the old 1950s and 1960s mode of economic development," when the goal was to recruit industries from the North, co-chairman Rex Nelson told legislators at a joint meeting of the House and Senate committees on advanced communications and information technology. Many communities are converting pastures on the edge of town into speculative industrial parks equipped with water and sewer lines, access roads and rail connectors only to have the parks sit empty, he said. "We haven't taken a holistic approach to economic development," Nelson said. To lure jobs, communities can't focus only on concrete an asphalt highways, he said. The "information superhighway," or broadband Internet access must also be available. State government and other groups are looking at ways to extend broadband Internet access to rural areas of the state. Arkansas ranks 47th nationally in deployment of broadband telecommunications and 49th in percentage of population online. Broadband can improve the education local schools can provide and the care at hospitals, which both figure into the economic development equation. High-speed Internet access is important to economic development in some industries because the work force may demand it, Arkansas Science and Technology Authority president John Ahlen said. "Broadband has become a quality of life issue for the kind of professionals that drive the economy in the 21st century," Ahlen said. |
