Broadband Is Key to Economic Development

What is the bottom line for communities in this new century? It's all about the children.

Societies serve many purposes, but one outweighs all others. Societies exist to protect children. Like creatures whose first law is self-preservation, societies ensure their future by safeguarding the children who will bring it into being.

Communities are societies writ small. Whether small villages or immense cities - in developing nations or the industrialized world - their first priority is to be places where families can raise children and where those children can build a future. That starts with access to the basics of human survival: clean water, food, shelter and safety. It also takes what New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman has called the "software of society" - the customs, laws and attitudes that give life meaning and the individual an understandable place in the culture. And it takes economic opportunity. Money may not buy you love, but economic opportunity makes possible everything else we value in a community. Without it, communities can stagnate and die in a few generations.

In 1900, the single largest source of employment in the United States was farming. By the end of the century, fewer than 3 percent of Americans were farmers. As a consequence, the vast middle portions of the country emptied out as children and their parents left rural homes and headed for the cities and then the suburbs and exurbs.

In the first decade of the 21st century, the United Nations estimated that more than half of the world's people were living in cities - the first time in history. Much of the transformation has come from the rural poor in developing nations doing what Americans and Europeans did in earlier decades: fleeing to the cities in search of economic opportunity. They have done it in such numbers as to create a rising group of "mega-cities" with populations exceeding 10 million people. Of the 25 largest mega-cities, 19 are in developing nations. And they are not through yet. The United Nations forecasts that by 2030, three out of five people - or 5 billion people - will live in cities worldwide.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, the same out-migration struck the manufacturing centers of the world's industrial nations. Decades of investment in automation raised productivity and reduced labor needs. At the same time, markets for most manufactured goods in rich nations matured: Consumers only need so many cars, refrigerators, washing machines and light bulbs in a lifetime. Adding to the impact - and making the most headlines - was "the rise of the rest," a surge of economic growth and living standards in developing nations. Manufacturing moved to developing nations not only because they offered low-cost labor, but also because manufacturers expect them to be the next growth market for their products.

As a result, once-proud manufacturing centers like Germany's Ruhr Valley and the American Midwest suffered the same fate as agricultural regions had in the past. A 1982 pop music hit, Allentown, by singer-songwriter Billy Joel captured the spirit of the times in America's Rust Belt:

Every child had a pretty good shot to get at least as far as their old man got. Something happened on the way to that place. They threw an American flag in our face.

While the Rust Belt rusted, developing nations that escaped war and the extremes of bad governance started the long boom that continues today. Once mere assembly centers for components manufactured elsewhere, developing nations are striving with considerable success to become innovative producers of sophisticated equipment, systems and software. From 1990 to 2003, manufactured exports from developing nations rose 11.5 percent compared with 5.1 percent from industrialized nations. This was enough to boost developing nations' share of