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infrastructure, to conjure up makes images of potholes and rusty water pipes, often overlooked; politicians would rather be associated with cutting lanes than maintaining systems. Paradoxically, this means that big jumps in American infrastructure often result from moments of great lack: the bigger the crisis, the greater the potential investment. The Great Depression led to the New Deal, which established the Federal Housing Administration and brought electricity to rural areas of the United States; The Great Recession led to the American Improvement and Reinvestment Act, which directly funded 2,700 bridges and 42,000 miles of road improvements.

Modernizing the country in the 1930s meant electricity. It means broadband in the 2020s. “Our economy is evolving and changing,” says Todd Schmit, an associate professor of applied economics and management at Cornell University, “and now it’s really necessary to think about broadband in an infrastructure space.” The digital divide in the United States is sharp: Census Bureau data shows broadband access is concentrated in cities and the Northeast, Florida and West Coast. Far fewer Americans have access in rural areas and in the South, West, and Midwest. In the south, broadband subscription rates are 55 percent or less in 111 counties. The split is often sharp even in one state: In Virginia counties adjacent to Washington and Richmond, 85 percent of households have broadband; In counties in the center of the state, less than 65 percent of households have subscriptions. According to BroadbandNow’s research, the majority of counties in Alaska have zero broadband access; In Mississippi and West Virginia, less than 60 percent of households have broadband access. A 2019 Arizona State University study found that about one-fifth of tribal reservation residents do not have internet access at home.

All of this was true before the pandemic, but when Americans are suddenly forced to work, learn, socialize, and seek medical care online, the inequality in access has been glaringly obvious – so obvious that lawmakers had no choice but to address it. The CARES Act turned the tap a bit and allocated $100 million for broadband in rural areas. In December 2020, the Consolidated Allowances Act provided more than $1.5 billion in broadband grants, including nearly $1 billion, for tribes facing some of the worst internet access in the country. The American Recovery Plan included $20.4 billion for broadband access alone and gave states and territories approximately $388 billion in flexible financing that could be used for broadband. Across the country, that money is already preparing projects that address digital inequalities: satellite connectivity for remote tribes in Alaska, a grant program in rural Colorado, last-mile broadband distribution programs in Virginia, fiber cabling in Arizona, outdoor connectivity. improving Georgia.

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, passed into law on November 15, will allow states to raise funds related to Covid. The CARES Act and ARP enabled local districts and companies to move forward rather than retreat during the pandemic; The infrastructure bill, which includes $312 billion in transportation, $65 billion in broadband and $108 billion in electricity, takes another important step in this direction. But neither source of funding includes the long-term investment needed for sustainable progress.

Let’s take the broadband structure as a key example: Most of the $65 billion allocated for broadband in the last infrastructure bill – $45 billion – is for broadband installation, and $17 billion for ongoing access and subsidy grants. “We’re going to invest heavily in infrastructure and capital expenditures to build this system, but then we need to provide some subsidized assistance each year along the way to keep this going for the long term,” says Schmit. “If you can build it and then they get things going and everybody gets broadband and everybody goes bankrupt in five years, then what have we figured out?” Billions of dollars in federal funds can provide access to broadband, but offer no guarantees to maintain it, which is especially crucial for rural broadband access that this legislation is trying to address. Schmit explores broadband access in areas of New York that have fewer than 10 subscribers per mile and are often not cost-effective to provide the service.

“If we agree that broadband access is a public good – to educate our children, to access healthcare, to expand job opportunities – there must be a defensible basis for government assistance in funding the operations of these programs,” he says. . “But I think that’s a harder story to tell.”

charley lock He is a writer, editor, and story maker who frequently works on articles for The New York Times for Kids. Christopher Payne is a photographer specializing in architecture and American industry. He has documented many industrial processes for the journal, including one of America’s last pencil factories, Martin guitars and The Times’ own printing house.