Stokab is a public company 100% owned by the city of Stockholm that provides dark fiber across the city region. Today, 90% of all houses and 100% of companies are fiber-connected – but this municipal network grew in careful steps without public funding. It’s a lesson for any city or county that plans to build a broadband network - from Connect Your Community to Opportunity in ICF's Community Accelerator video training courses. 

Starting in 1950, the collapse of employment in textile manufacturing and tobacco processing nearly drove Danville, Virginia into the ground. But in the 21st Century, out-migration yielded to new businesses and new residents, leading Site Selection magazine to twice name it one of the top 10 “micropolitan cities” in America. It took hard work, good luck and one more thing: the Community Accelerator Strategy.

High-speed broadband is not evenly distributed. Rural areas with populations scattered across the land get left behind because of the high cost of connecting them. But they are hardly alone. Small communities located next to big ones can suffer, too, because the big city offers such a tempting opportunity to network operators in search of profit. One prosperous American city faced that challenge – and found an affordable way to overcome it that also transformed its economy for the better.

How does a community step up to challenges? How does a city or region shift into gear when it is clear that the old ways of doing things are no longer working? Community visioning is a powerful answer - if you get it right. It requires a big effort to engage citizens and organizations in thinking through the community's values, opportunities and challenges, then giving voice to what they want most. But the payoff can be just as big. 

Whenever a new technology promises to change our lives for the better, you can be sure that big cities will be first in line. That's where the customers are, so private-sector providers are eager to invest. Smaller cities and rural counties can't offer the same density that makes markets profitable. That's why many places are challenged to provide reliable, affordable high-speed broadband to businesses and residents. 

Is Robby the Robot casting a covetous eye on your job?  Or on the jobs of your friends, colleagues, citizens and taxpayers?  A 2013 study by an Oxford University researcher forecast that as many as 47% of jobs in the United States were at risk of being automated out of existence in the future.  These are jobs with a lot of routine work in them that do not, on the other hand, require the soft skills of interaction with human beings.