One look at this map (From the Public Internet Project via Werblog) showing Manhattan’s wi-fi nodes should be enough to prove that the biggest digital divide of all is the one that runs roughly North-South down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. What would a similar map of London, Paris or Berlin look like? Sparse, I’ll bet. The distribution of nodes within Manhattan also speaks volumes of the divide at ground level, though.
If I’ve got this right, the big, empty zone at top right is dominated by social housing likely to be light on Wi-Fi. The graphic recalls Booth’s extraordinary 1889 map of London, visualising Victorian urban poverty for the first time in startling, block-by-block detail. (got this wrong yesterday and credited the maps to Mayhew who wrote about the London poor. Luckily nobody visits this weblog so I think I got away with it).
Bobby Womack and Wifi
Adam Greenfield has redesigned V-2.org, making one of the most well-considered sites writing about technology, humans and cities even more