L'espace public nuḿerique ̀a Toledo (Ohio)

In the City of Toledo, Ohio, 253 public computing sites were identified and mapped. Their geospatial pattern, considered against demographics, suggests that commercial sites are located near more affluent residents, university sites near the future technocratic-managerial strata, government sites evenly across the population. As for community-funded sites, they are found near the affluent, as much as near the most impoverished. This pattern leads us to conclude that community-funded public computing plays an important role vis-a-vis the digital divide, with implications for guaranteeing democracy in an information society. A table lays out the social dynamics of these four categories of public computing.