Here is another bit of information, courtesy Arthur, about another factor contributing to and perhaps altering rural communities.
Bill Gates Wires Rural America (New York Times, November 6, 2002) Bill Gates predicted in 1995 that the Internet would help rural people stay put, in part because they would have the same advantages as city slickers in the virtual world. He made that prophecy in "The Road Ahead," a book whose jacket showed Mr. Gates standing in the middle of an empty highway in remote eastern Washington. But when Mr. Gates, the richest man in the world, returned recently to the land of no stoplights as part of the last phase of a five-year philanthropic effort to put computers in every poor library district in the United States, he acknowledged that the road ahead was full of blind curves. There is scant evidence, for example, that the wiring of rural America has done anything to make Mr. Gates's prediction about population flight come true. The new computers may even be aiding the exodus from rural America, as people go online to find jobs far away. "I thought digital technology would eventually reverse urbanization, and so far that hasn't happened," Mr. Gates said, munching on a cheeseburger and fries at the Top Notch Cafe in Colfax, population 2,880. Among the bib overall set at lunch, he was largely unrecognized. "But people always overestimate how much will change in the next three years," Mr. Gates said, "and they underestimate how much will change over the next 10 years." The charitable group that Mr. Gates started with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is now giving away $1.2 billion a year. Mr. Gates said he was pleased that its first major philanthropic effort, the library project, had helped to narrow the digital divide. More than 95 percent of public libraries now offer free Internet access, including those here in Whitman County, which mainly serve wheat farmers and received $93,000 from the Gates Foundation. Inside the Seattle headquarters of the foundation, a giant map shows the progress of the campaign to give computers to libraries in every state. The campaign started with the poorest regions, mainly in the South and Great Plains, though distressed urban areas are included, too. But if superimposed over a map of population decline, it would show that many of these areas are not holding onto people, no matter how wired they become. "They come into the library, and they may use the computer to get a job and leave," said Kristie Kirkpatrick, who is in charge of a library district in Colfax. This land of rolling wheat fields has lost 10 percent of its population in the last two years alone, Ms. Kirkpatrick said. But she said the new computers had also changed many people's lives for the better, giving them more access to medical and agricultural information. Mr. Gates used to think he would wait until he was in his 60's to give his money away. At 47, Mr. Gates has handed out $5.5 billion for global health issues, education and the library project, which is the first major initiative at the foundation to essentially run its course. "The more I learned, the more I realized there is no time," he said in a recent speech to the United Nations. Patty Stonesifer, the president of the foundation, who started at Microsoft more than 15 years ago, says Mr. Gates was committed to putting computers in every library well before he was labeled a monopolist, and would be committed to it long afterward. "He said, `History will get this right,' " Ms. Stonesifer recalled, referring to Mr. Gates's belief that the Internet can have a democratizing effect. But whether history will show that bringing the digital world to places like Parrotsville, Tenn. (population, 127) or villages in the heart of American Indian Country had the effect that Mr. Gates intended is an open question. Miriam Tarlton, 77, lives alone in a cabin 14 miles from the nearest town in the mountains of northwest Montana. She discovered the Internet at her library in the town of Eureka not long ago, after the Gates Foundation donated a computer and software. "Oh, my gosh, it was like going on a ship to Mars," said Ms. Tarlton, who now uses the Web to find recipes, garden information, quilt sites and to keep up an e-mail correspondence with family members. Andrew C. Gordon, hired by the foundation to evaluate the library project, labeled it a "a success, but not an unqualified one." In his surveys of libraries where the computers were installed, Mr. Gordon found that library use went up and usually not at the expense of books. He also found that most people who used the donated computers were poor, in the income bracket where the digital divide has been greatest. But the No. 1 thing that people used the computers for was to keep in touch with family and friends through e-mail, Mr. Gordon said. He also found that 22 percent of new computer users in the libraries said they helped them find jobs; whether those jobs were in a different location was never tracked. Staff members of the foundation answer questions and provide support to librarians, but that will be phased out in the next two years. The biggest question about the project is whether it will sustain itself once the Gates people walk away, after spending about $250 million on the project. Mr. Gates seems ready to check the library project off his to-do list. His model was Andrew Carnegie, who left hundreds of sturdy libraries standing in small towns as part of his philanthropic legacy. "You know, Carnegie was a pretty hard-core guy," he said, "I'd be happy if I could think that the role of the library was sustained and even enhanced in the age of the computer." 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