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Past
Events
Second
World Forum on Smart Communities
Chicago,
Illinois
September 20-22, 1999
Closing
the Digital Divide:
Building the Smart and Sustainable Communities for Tomorrow
The
technology of telecommunications and information, and the economics
of a global economy, are rapidly converging, ushering in the long-heralded
post-industrial age of information. In the wake of this convergence,
all institutions, both private and public, are being forced to reinvent
themselves. Power is being realigned and wealth redefined. Old forms
of governance are being replaced too with the emergence of the City-State
and the establishment of local and regional, "Smart Communities,"
communities which aggressively embrace the tools of this new age.
Cities
of the past, for example, were built along railroads, highways,
and waterways. Cities of the future will be built along "Information
Highways," new communications infrastructures carrying voice,
video, text and data to every home, school, hospital and business,
large and small, and through the World Wide Web, to the global knowledge-based
economy and society of the new millennium.
This
conference is dedicated to understanding what "Smart Communities"
are doing in Europe, North America, Japan and elsewhere in the world;
how they are using the tools of this new age to connect to the emerging
global information economy and society; and importantly, how they
are using technology to "Close the Digital Divide" by
building smart and sustainable communities for tomorrow.
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