The Divide is Everywhere

I had been searching the technology portion of the New York Times for quite some time trying to find the perfect article that showed the digital divide.  It wasn't until I read articles about the Kindle, new blogs on Google, street lights that could be turned on by cell phones, podcasts, Twitter and chip plants that I realized how much technology our society depends on.  Think about it, if you had no money to buy a computer, or a cell phone, look at how much stuff you would be missing out on.  There would be no blogging, no podcasts, let alone a Kindle.  People on low incomes have to choose which technology is more important to them.  Is it a computer?  A cell phone?  If they choose to have both, maybe that means they don't have a car or can't make the rent payments.  The digital divide is much more prevalent than we think.  Even among those teenagers who have texting and those who don't, the divide shows.  Those that don't have texting tend not to be contacted as much as those who do.  The digital divide is all over the place, just looking through the New York Times reminded me of that.

Health Inequities and Green Areas

An article in the USA Today brought an interesting approach to the idea of inequity and inequality in health. A British study found that health differences between rich and poor could be narrowed with the simple addition of green, open areas.

"Dr. Richard Mitchell, of the University of Glasgow, and his colleagues noted that previous studies have shown that the presence of green space has an independent beneficial effect on health and health-related behaviors.... In areas with the most green space, the health gap between the richest and poorest people was about half as large as that in the least green areas..."

Though this is not directly related to Informational inequalities, the connection between social class and well-being is prevalent. This finding provides support for the idea that if people, regardless of class, have somewhere to be active in a good environment, their health will benefit. This is especially crucial, the article says, for those in poverty because costly health care creates a divide in who can and who cannot receive adequate health treatment.

This study shows how important a natural environment really is. Green areas not only improve standard of living by making people happier and more relaxed; they also can improve health and reduce the mortality rate of all incomes for preventable diseases such as circulatory disease and coronary heart disease.

This article made me think of the those that would be most affected by a hypothetical "green space" in a Metropolitan area. Those in urban settings, where a large minority population can be found, would benefit the most.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-08-green-inequality_n.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Las Vegas's Latest Gamble

The February 8th New York Times article, Roll of the Dice on Las Vegas's Shabby Downtown, investigates the mayor of Las Vegas's decision to raise taxes on the lower-income parts of the city during the present economic decline. Downtown, which is faded and ignored "like a worn-out show girl," is mostly filled with older bars, wedding chapels, cash-checking stores, and a few new things like outlet malls. Mayor Oscar B. Goodman wants to dump cash in the eroding area to revive its glitz. Consider some of the plans for the editions/additions:
The project would include a new city hall (never mind that the existing one, built in 1973, has an addition only six years old), a casino resort (the first in downtown in some three decades) and office, residential and commercial space (because, the developers of this project assert, the eventual economic recovery will create demand for it).

The project would include a new city hall (never mind that the existing one, built in 1973, has an addition only six years old), a casino resort (the first in downtown in some three decades) and office, residential and commercial space (because, the developers of this project assert, the eventual economic recovery will create demand for it).

While the idea of revamping a decaying or tired part of a city is admirable and part of a mayor's responsibility, the timing and choice of neighborhood is unfair to the rest of a city known for swimming in money. "For taxpayers, the bottom line could mean borrowing $150 million to $267 million, with tax revenue from new development paying it back over time," the journalist reports. That is a lot of money to invest in a hope for the "eventual" for an area struggling with rent, mortgages, and business expenses. Especially as the burden is on those who live there and the reason is to clean up the face of the main drag.

He [the mayor] thought little of suggesting that federal stimulus dollars help finance a planned museum — downtown, of course — commemorating the mob’s role in building up Las Vegas...The downtown casinos have, however, never matched the allure of the Strip or its gambling and hotel revenue, and the area, though popular with some locals, has long struggled with crime and blight.

The injustice of imposing taxes on struggling communities to build and buy sports teams, arenas, more casinos, land, unnecessary city buildings, 1,000-room hotels, etc. is unnecessary padding of reputation for the wealthy without concern for the critical economic climate of less-prosperous areas or impoverished areas. It's not unlawful injustice, but it's inconsiderate social injustice. The downtown will not gain the most from this makeover--even if the will accrue more business, it will take more than newly-painted walls and fresh pavement to make it safe, and welcoming, and the fall before the eventual decline could be widespread and caused by one man concerned with appearance. Improvements can only be made when people can afford it, and the mayor is risking the entire low-income downtown by raising taxes.

Technoligical Inequality

While researching the topic of this assignment, I came across an article that was very relevant to our class discussions and the overall theme of this class. This article explained the trends of homeowners owning a computer with Internet access. It concluded that the percent of families owning a computer and utilizing the Internet increases as the households income increased, and that income was the main reason why a family would or would not own a computer. The authors also discovered that African Americans and Hispanics still owned less computers than Caucasians, even if they were making the same amount of money. They explain that this may be due to the fact that Whites have a higher percentage of high school and college graduates than African Americans and Hispanics. In other words, just because one can afford the Internet doesn't mean they have the proper education to know how to use it. The article then goes on to talk about a program called "Computers for Youth" based out of New York, which basically gives out computers and educates inner-city students and faculty about how to use them. This is a very good way to increase the knowledge and use of the Internet, but there is still going to be a lot of work to do before inequality does not exist among everyone who should have a computer, no matter what their race or income is.

http://www.usca.edu/essays/vol112004/kleiman.pdf

Health Technology

The article I was reviewing dealt with expanding health information technology in hospitals. It was not only focused on the large complex hospitals, but also on the smaller local hospitals. The basis of my article was that hospitals were adding computerized technology to decrease the risk of error and provide better care to the patients. Things like computerized physician order entry, computerized decision support systems and barcoding for medication administration were all being introduced into the hospitals to improve the quality of care. Not only did they believe that these new systems would improve care, they also thought that the efficiency of the hospital would increase. Today it is certain that we are living in a technological based society. Everything is run on technology now, but 50 years ago it was not. Thinking about all of these computer based programs being introduced into the hospitals you have to wondering if the elderly people are going to be able to figure them out. Young adults have been around computers for long enough that they know the basic functions of them. Older adults, or people without access to computers are not going to be as competent with the computer systems and they are going to struggle. So are these technologies really improving efficiency? For many people YES but for many others NO.

I compared New York City and Chappaqua, both located in New York. The differences I found were the the city of New York has a service population of 3,313, 573 and has 5 buroughs with 1 central library throughout them. The library has a circulation of 15,710, 007. Chappaqua is almost all white in population 91% and New York has 44.1% white members. The economic status of Chappaqua is generally speaking, higher than New York which explains the difference in race and visitors.

Cell Phone Rings Annoy

I read an article on regarding cell phone usage (cnn) that piqued my interest as it was in regard to cell phone rings, an all so common topic in today's modern society. In the beginning of the article there is controversy on whether or not ringtones are appropriate depending on the location-- one woman in Virginia had "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" as her ringtone and it went off at her wedding rehearsal dinner, causing upheaval and mistrust among the groom and his family. The article also discusses how the older generations (that don't necessarily understand how to customize ringtones or retrieve them) are allowing their younger counterparts to customize and set their phones to ringtones of their choice. When the phone goes off, a message is sent (regarding the political and message of the song choice) to the outside world that the older member of society who has an unequal view of technology might not have chosen, might not approve of, and might not know how to remove. Lasty, the article talks about the million dollar industry that is being created  as people are intrigued by this "new" feature and constantly purchase. People that can not spend money on rent, per se, are therefore buying  on average, about 10 ringtones, at about $2.99 a piece. It add's up. Money is being wasted on a fleeting trend that people may not know how to use, may not know is hurtful to their image and may not be able to remove.