Book Review: High Technology and Low-Income Communities: Prospects for the Positive Use of Advanced Information Technology

High technology and low-income communities found its beginnings during a colloquium organized at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning in the spring of 1996. The goal of the colloquium was to bring together two groups with seemingly disparate professional pursuits: community leaders involved in advocating for and organizing the urban poor, and urban planners interested in advanced information technology. This union was to produce heretofore unheard-of conversations about the collision of these interests: how technology can or will help or hurt those living in poor urban areas. The book is a compilation of writings resulting from the colloquium, as disparate as the groupswho came together to talk about the issues of technology and the urban poor, although the community leaders seem to have less of a presence in the collection. The editors arranged the text into three loosely organized sections. The first section focuses on theoretical issues, and arguments are crafted to convince the reader that some sweeping change is taking place in America related to technology. These articles serve the purpose of fleshing out the main thesis of the book, which is stated clearly by Schön: