By John M. Eger, San Diego Union-Tribune, Wednesday, December 18, 1996
The real effects of the telecommunications revolution are redefining America's cities. This rapid change is heralding the rebirth of an age-old concept of the "city-state" or more precisely, the "region-state."
These new quasi-governmental entities, like the ancient city-states of Athens, Sparta and Venice, have the power - - some would call it innate sovereignty - - to control their future in this new world, but only to the extent they recognize that information is power in this new age, and information technology the tool of wealth creation.
Information technology has already changed the world on a global level. A Silicon Valley company recently won a contract to include China in its global satellite telephone network and will soon provide telephone access to hundreds of millions of Chinese who previously enjoyed none.
Similarly, flooding on the Yangtze Delta affects the commodities markets of the United States. And the communications revolution means that there are few things of importance that escape the world's notice, be it violence in Juarez, demagoguery in Calcutta or repression in Rangoon.
The Clinton administration has launched the National Information Initiative, or NII. Other countries - - including Singapore, France and Japan - - have implemented their own national information strategy.
The goals are the same: to mobilize resources and intellectual capital to transform the way life and work is done within the country and in the process to attract the new, valuable, high tech information-sensitive jobs. And, to create a skilled workplace to take advantage of the movement toward a "global information economy," an economy based not on agriculture or manufacturing, but on the production, storage, transfer and dissemination of knowledge of information itself.
But the larger concern I have is not that national information initiatives are faulty or ill-timed. It is that such lofty global or national policies won't work. Why? Because of the reverse flow of power taking place in the world. What we need is to have local and regional communities - - however we define them, those governments closest to the people - - take ownership of these efforts to transform the region, to build their local information infrastructures and in the process, the city-states and region-states of the new economy.
California in general and some cities in particular (such as San Diego) have already taken steps to claim ownership of these transformative technologies.
In July, the state's newly appointed chief information officer, John Flynn, announced formation of the California Information Technology Commission. The commission is dedicated to enabling California to implement the best information technology practices to support and improve critical state functions.
These critical functions can affect almost every segment of society, but the most easily enacted applications address some of our community's most crucial concerns: education, health care and government.
Schools and universities (UC Berkeley's Extension has already grasped this potential) everywhere must find ways of creating new programs that cross the lines between disciplines, cultures and institutions. The world has changed and students and their future employers demand broad-based, interdisciplinary, international curricula that produce a different and more relevant learning experience.
The old curricula, bounded by discipline and tradition, constrained by fixed schedules and limited to assigned space, must be re-evaluated and the tools of telecommunications - - fiber optics, multimedia, high-resolution video, video conferencing, cable and Internet access - - must be employed to provide distance learning and extended access to research, resources and colleagues across the city and across the world. Accordingly, a focus on education and linkages to central libraries and other educational resources within the community are vitally important.
Health Care: Telecommunications can and should play a central role in a new health-care environment in three broad areas:
1)
through creation of a health-care utility linking all the
facilities, labs, insurance companies and educational health-care
organizations in a system allowing for the routine transfer
of information of any kind, at any time, anywhere;
2) establishment of a sustained program of consumer education,
empowering citizens to assist with their own diagnosis and
to provide remote delivery in some instances of health care
itself; and lastly,
3) through a vigorous re-examination and redefinition of primary
care, with an eye to eliminating the problem of a shortage
of primary-care physicians, but importantly, taking the first
step toward using the sophisticated tools of telecommunications.
Government: All over the world, governments are being asked to do more, with less. Increasingly, kiosk-based and Internet-based systems are being deployed to integrate many government services to provide a more user-friendly government. E-mail and electronic bulletin boards are being used to make government officials more accessible, and electronic payment systems enhance the process by which the normal relationship between citizens and their government are conducted.
The infrastructure - fiber-optic cable, affordable network-access computers, WebTV and wireless wonders - - is quickly falling into place to provide for vast changes in the delivery of these services. This is particularly so in the wake of the revolutionary 1996 telecommunications act.
What remains uncertain is whether local and regional communities will reap benefits directly. To do so, we must encourage them to rethink the way they do business - - both to insure the development of their local infrastructure and to accelerate the delivery of vital public and commercial services. And, of special importance, to educate their citizens of the benefits of getting on the information highway. It's the smart thing to do.