Monday, July 16, 2012

NYC Internet Speeds and Infrastructure Map - Inequity at Play?

While doing research about smartphones and urban access I came across this great map of Internet speeds and infrastructure in NYC.


From this map it seems as though low-income neighborhoods have slower internet speeds on the megabytes per second scale and that this is related to the amount of fiber optic in areas. A possible explanation is that there are not many commercial office uses in low-income neighborhoods. However, if you consider the Lower East Side (LES) that is not exactly bustling with commercial office spaces and yet there is an abundance of fiber optic infrastructure it is hard to wonder if this is not just another example of systematic inequities at play.

No comments: