Closing California's digital divide

Many readers will be familiar with the “digital divide,” or the gulf that divides those who have modern internet access from those that do not, and how rurality is a factor in the lack of access for many Californians. 

There is bipartisan movement at the national level to close the divide. But why does this gap persist in California, and what is the state doing to support its rural residents needing reliable, modern internet connections?

Unserved communities are found in urban and rural areas, but their difficulties in accessing high-speed internet have different causes. Urban households tend to have the infrastructure in place but run into affordability issues. In contrast, rural areas’ barrier to broadband access stems from a lack broadband of infrastructure altogether. Income also plays a role in access to internet connected devices. Across the board, rural areas tend to have less access to broadband than urban areas. This divide widens as internet speed increases.

In rural areas, the main barriers to broadband internet access come from the difficulty of building infrastructure in remote locations, internet service providers’ (ISPs) lack of interest in building said infrastructure, and difficulty in displacing entrenched incumbent internet providers.

Funding currently exists for rural areas to build internet infrastructure through the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). The CASF provides funding to unserved areas, which are defined as an area that does not have an ISP offering downstream speeds of at least 6 megabits per second (Mbps) and upstream speeds of at least 1 Mbps. These speeds are benchmarks from 1990s-era internet speeds, insufficient for many modern web-based communication apps, especially when multiple users are using the same internet connection.

Current law requires the CASF to fund broadband infrastructure projects of 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps. Though these speeds are faster than the “underserved” benchmark, they are still insufficient because most streaming video applications (including remote learning, telehealth, and video conferencing) require speeds of at least 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream. Downstream and upstream refer to the rates at which an internet-connected machine can receive and send data, respectively.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Senator Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) introduced S.B. 1130, a bill that sought to increase high-speed internet access for Californians by expanding the number of areas and households eligible for CASF funding to build broadband infrastructure. Though the bill died, in no small part to opposition from cable companies, Sen. Gonzalez introduced S.B. 4 this year.  S.B.4 has more modest goals than S.B. 1130 and an improved ability for the CASF to collect revenue. Where S.B. 4 is modest, other bills seek to fill in the gaps S.B. 1130 would have filled.

S.B. 4 would redefine “unserved” as an area that does not have access to facility-based ISP offering speeds of at least 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream. The redefinition would expand the number of communities eligible for CASF grants who previously were not considered unserved. Projects seeking a CASF grant would be required to deploy infrastructure capable of providing speeds of 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream, or the Federal Communication Committee’s most current speed standard, whichever is faster.

Cable companies opposed S.B. 1130 last year, contending that the bill would divert CASF funds away from rural communities behind because money will go towards improving existing infrastructure in urban areas. The assertion that there will only be projects done in urban areas is premised on the assumption that ISPs alone will be taking on infrastructure projects. ISPs base this assumption on their historical behavior of forgoing infrastructure build-outs in rural areas due to low return on investments.

The proposed changes to the CASF could improve broadband access in rural areas by incentivizing infrastructure development where it remains unbuilt. The bill would create a bond program for local governments to borrow long-term, low-interest loans to develop fiber optic infrastructure.

Further bolstering rural communities’ ability to access funding for fiber optic infrastructure projects is Senator Patricia Bates’ (R-Laguna Niguel) S.B. 732. The bill would create the multi-billion dollar Rural Broadband Infrastructure Fund, to be used for broadband infrastructure projects of at least 100 Mbps upstream and 100 Mbps downstream speeds in underserved rural communities. The bill defines underserved rural communities as those without a facility-based (i.e. non-satellite-based) broadband provider offering broadband service at speeds exceeding 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream.

These high speeds may be especially useful in rural areas where laying fiber optic cables is exceedingly difficult because the infrastructure would facilitate fiber to short range wireless towers.

Without the private sector’s single-minded focus on quarterly profits and with a mandate to serve their communities, local governments and co-ops are well situated to bring future-proof broadband to unserved areas. Both bills could also increase competition in the ISP market by giving smaller internet providers, local governments, and co-ops to access CASF funds when building out last-mile infrastructure to rural communities.

We will continue to monitor the status of these bills. While the divide remains to be bridged, it is at least heartening to see state legislators from ostensibly metro areas keeping the interests of rural people at the front.

Coronavirus in rural America (Part CXXX): Rural-urban disparities in vaccine uptake in Missouri and Kansas

The Kansas City Star reports today under the headline, "'Pools of infection.'  Vaccinations surge in some parts of KS, MO while other struggle."  Here's the key data point: 

In Kansas, a 26-point gap exists between the county with the highest vaccination rate, Marshall, and the lowest, Geary. In Missouri, the gap is 33 points.

And here's a bit about the implications of the gap: 

Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, said if rural and urban areas aren’t vaccinated at the same rates, it creates the potential for “pools of COVID infection.”

“We’re a mobile society, and if you have adjacent rural towns and rural communities not vaccinated, you’re still allowing this pandemic to continue into the future,” Morgan said.

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/health-care/article251065124.html#storylink=cpy

Rurality as diversity

That's newsman Doug Burns' thesis in this column published yesterday in his Carroll Times Herald. ." Here's the lede for the column, headlined, "Rural Iowans must see themselves as part of nation’s diversity."

In the age of scarcity (for many) and excess (for the few), the language and policies of diversity become zero-sum. What another gets, you lose, so goes the polarized thinking that has turned our public square into a fever swamp of resentments and recriminations.

For too many rural Americans, the term diversity is synonymous with otherness because residents of remote regions don’t realize that we, too, are underrepresented and misunderstood. Policies and structures strand and marginalize us.

We rural Americans need to focus on correcting this, finding allies in other demographics who are similarly left out of the modern American economy and higher education and top levels of the judiciary — and yes, even my profession, journalism, where rural voices can be absent or hard to find in key power centers.

Rural Americans served in wars and farmed and mined coal and built the manufacturing base, and increasingly there is little, if any, role for them in the new economy — one in which wealth is scooped and segregated to coastal tech clusters.

This is something I've written about in the context of higher ed admissions, here, here, and here.  

Coronavirus in rural America (Part CXXIX): More on vaccine hesitancy, religion, and adjacent themes

The dateline for this New York Times story is Greenville, Tennessee, population 15,062, in the eastern part of the state, and Jan Hoffman reports under the dateline, "Faith, Freedom and Fear:  Rural America's Vaccine Skeptics."  Here's an excerpt:  

[A] week here in Greene County reveals a more nuanced, layered hesitancy than surveys suggest. People say that politics isn’t the leading driver of their vaccine attitudes. The most common reason for their apprehension is fear — that the vaccine was developed in haste, that long-term side effects are unknown. Their decisions are also entangled in a web of views about bodily autonomy, science and authority, plus a powerful regional, somewhat romanticized self-image: We don’t like outsiders messing in our business.

Hoffman provides the demographic profile up front--overwhelmingly white, conservative and Christian.  This description of the place is also quite interesting: 

People scrape by on subsistence farming, jobs in small factories, welfare checks and cash flow from retirees who are moving onto the cheap, vista-blissful land. Drug busts for heroin and methamphetamine sustain a humming cottage industry of lawyers and bail bonds services.

And then there's this reference to rural lack of anonymity: 

What’s also lacking is a groundswell that might encourage the hesitant to make the leap: Many people who have gotten vaccinated are remaining tight-lipped.

And this, which highlights the peer pressure angle on what is happening, presumably in urban communities as well as rural ones:

“A lot of times I have to temper my opinions in order to fit in,” Ms. Hayes said, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m walking a line between people refusing to socialize with me or not.”

Ms. Hayes grew up here, left, and returned to care for her mother. Late in 2019, while teaching English online to students in China, she noticed that some were disappearing from her computer monitor. They were succumbing to a mysterious virus.

Later, when her family went into lockdown, neighbors dismissed her fears.

And note this regarding the centrality of work: 

“Appalachians were raised to believe they must work and can’t get sick, no matter what,” said Ms. Hayes, who has a graduate degree in Appalachian studies. She wept in frustration as familiar names appeared on her prayer chain, deathly ill from the virus.

P.S.  Don't miss the complimentary podcast to this story on The Daily, dated May 10, 2021.  Great audio of a local Greenville doctor coaching his patients to get the vaccine.   

Carnegie Fellowship awarded for study of "rural future" by University of Nebraska's Jessica Shoemaker

 Jessica Shoemaker of the University of Nebraska has been awarded a Carnegie Fellowship to study "rural America's challenges and opportunities."  The project is titled “Remaking a Land of Opportunity: America’s Rural Future.”

Here's an excerpt from the University of Nebraska's press release.  

Rural America is at a critical point — in the past, a vision of bucolic agrarianism; ahead, increasing industrialization and absentee land ownership that raises serious questions about its future. It’s also at the heart of many grand global challenges, ranging from climate change to racial justice. A Nebraska law professor will explore rural America’s challenges and opportunities as a 2021 Andrew Carnegie Fellow.

Jessica Shoemaker is only the second University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty member to receive the prestigious honor — and one of 26 nationwide this year. The award grants each recipient $200,000 over two years to complete a major project. 

And this is from Shoemaker:

Modern agriculture is highly industrialized and increasingly characterized by concentrated, absentee land ownership. Many rural places face a crisis of depopulation, political alienation, environmental decline and racial injustice. While 98% of farmlands are owned by people who are white, the people who work the low-wage, often dangerous agricultural sector jobs are overwhelmingly not white and more likely to live in segregated rural geographies of concentrated, persistent poverty. This project analyzes the overlooked role of property law — including our most fundamental land-tenure choices — in constructing these dynamics.

Walter Mondale as rural: reflections on the occasion of his death

I found myself engaged by reflections on former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale's death over the past few days.  It's been a walk down memory lane for me; I was in middle school and just starting to follow politics seriously when the Carter-Mondale ticket won in 1976.  Some of the tributes to Mondale have mentioned that he was a product of rural America, including this piece by U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who Mondale mentored:  

He was a small-town boy, the son of a minister who rose to the second-highest office in the land, with a strong moral core that defined his every action.

And here's a quote from the New York Times obituary of Mondale:

Walter Frederick Mondale was born on Jan. 5, 1928, in the hamlet of Ceylon, in southern Minnesota, in a lake region less than five miles from the Iowa border.

* * * 

Mr. Mondale’s father lost a series of farms in the 1920s and moved from town to town, subsisting on meager earnings while Mr. Mondale’s mother gave music lessons and led the choir in each of Theodore’s parishes. His parents believed in helping the less fortunate and never making a show of it.

Once asked whether he would be a good president, Mr. Mondale said: “I have trouble answering that. If my father had ever heard me tell him that I would make a good president, I would have been taken directly to the woodshed. In my family, the two things you were sure to get spanked for were lying or bragging about yourself.” 

These references to Fritz' Mondale's rural roots tend not to indicate explicitly how that rurality shaped the man.  It's something I'd like to hear fleshed out, though I suspect I know what these writers are getting at, and I suspect what they are getting at is based on a big dose of nostalgia about the nature of rural community. 

On the role of sports in rural high schools, and resilience amidst a pandemic

There are layers to these three LA Times stories--two news stories and a video feature--but in the interest of time, I'll just post the links here, here and here.  The dateline for all three is Weaverville, California, in remote Trinity County.  I'll also say that these stories are a testament to how sports keep kids in school, and provide motivation for them to try.  Sports also represent a key opportunity for socialization, something that's been lost in many a school, whether rural or urban.  

Improving transgender health care in rural Colorado

The Colorado Sun reports out of Cripple Creek, Colorado, population 1,189, under the headline, "New program aims to teach rural Colorado health providers about transgender care."  Here's an excerpt:

Called the Extension for Community Health Outcomes, or ECHO, this nonprofit offers virtual, interactive classes on complex health issues to providers outside of major metropolitan areas.

Starting in 2020, ECHO Colorado launched a monthly class dedicated to teaching people about gender-affirming care, which attracted 45 providers, including Bullis, from Colorado and surrounding states. Classes covered topics including proper terminology, creating an inclusive environment and managing a patient’s hormones. The hope moving forward is that a growing number of providers across rural America will learn these lessons, thus expanding access to gender-affirming health care.

The ECHO approach was created in 2003 by liver disease specialist Dr. Sanjeev Arora, at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. His goal was to mentor rural providers on how to treat hepatitis C patients who lacked adequate care and couldn’t make the trip to a city. Almost two decades later, the program has spread to many other states and offers classes on health conditions including opioid addiction, diabetes and HIV.

The shortages in rural America

Recent studies have shown that there is a shortage of doctors in rural America. However, doctors aren’t the only professionals missing in rural America. There is also a shortage of both teachers and lawyers in these areas.

As someone who grew up in small town which some may argue was at least slightly rural, the headlines were no surprise. There are no lawyers in my small town. There is and for as long as I can remember has been a shortage of teachers. Most teachers commute into our town from bigger cities, some even driving an hour each way. The largest health center in town has one M.D. and two physician’s assistants. Thus, I wasn’t surprised to read that rural areas are experiencing a shortage of professionals in these three fields. Nevertheless, one may wonder, how bad is the shortage? What causes it? Is there anything being done about it?

Roughly 20% of the U.S. population live in rural areas, yet only 11% of physicians practice in these areas. In addition, of the more than 7,000 “federally designated health professional shortage areas, 3 out of 5 are in rural regions.” The shortage of physicians in rural America is a pressing problem. Rural Americans have “disproportionately higher healthcare needs” and “are less likely to receive preventative services.” This means that the shortage of physicians in rural areas is incredibly dangerous for an already vulnerable population.

However, it’s not all about the number of current doctors. The number of rural students pursing a medical degree is also playing a role in the shortage. According to researchers, “growing up in a rural setting is a strong predictor of future rural practice for physicians.” Thus, the shortage of physicians in rural areas indicates that there is also a pipeline problem. The number of rural students entering medical programs decreased by 18% between 2002 and 2017 while the number of urban students increased by 59% during the same period.

In sum, the research would seem to indicate that increasing the number of physicians in the U.S. wouldn’t necessarily address the shortage in rural areas. Rather, an increase in the number of rural students going to medical school and returning to their communities might a better solution.

The shortage of teachers in rural areas is equivalent or worse to the shortage of doctors. More than nine million children, or one in five, attend public schools in rural America. Despite the high number of students in rural areas, there aren’t enough teachers in these areas. The state of Montana, which has the highest share of rural schools, reported that “65% of rural schools in remote settings reported difficulty filling vacancies, compared with 35% of non-rural schools.” So, what’s causing the teacher shortage? Well, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact reason but it may have something to do with the fact that rural teachers are paid less than their urban counterparts. Some rural teachers were found to make almost $12,000 less than teachers in urban areas. The lower salaries make it difficult to both attract and retain new teachers. Rural areas have higher turnover rates than urban areas when it comes to both teachers and principals. Furthermore, new teachers and people going into the teaching industry are becoming scarce. In Colorado, there has been a decline of 24.4% in the number of graduates from teacher preparation programs. Some states have gotten creative and have upped their loan forgiveness programs, provided more scholarships for students going into teaching and have expanded programs that promote teaching. The state of Colorado which has been severely impacted by the shortage of teachers passed a bill allowing “retired teachers to be rehired without affecting their pensions.” Although rural areas are working hard to address the shortage, there is still much work to be done.

Like doctors and teachers, lawyers can also be difficult to find in rural areas. Despite being home to “about a fifth of the nation’s population,” rural America “[is] home to only 2% of small law practices.” Again, there are many reasons offered as to why this shortage exists. Similar to rural teachers, rural lawyers are often paid less than urban lawyers. In an attempt to motivate lawyers to practice in rural areas, South Dakota has created a program which offers an economic incentive to lawyers if they practice in a rural area. Alaska has also attempted to address the lawyer shortage through their newly-created medical-legal partnership program. This program has “embed[ded] legal services attorneys in six hospitals.” The health care professionals recommend their patients to the lawyers if the patient turned client has legal issues such as matters relating to housing. However, not many states have followed South Dakota or Alaska’s unique approaches. As this article recommends, it would be wise for states to offer similar programs to incentivize lawyers into rural areas and reduce the disparities in the access to justice.

To summarize, rural areas are struggling with doctor, teacher and lawyer shortages. Although states have begun to implement various policies and programs to address the issue, the shortages persist.

Iowa DNR approves expanded concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in rural Northeast Iowa

This week I have paid especially close attention to agricultural news from my home state, Iowa. Specifically, I heard about a new CAFO, originally proposed in 2017, finally gaining approval from Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources.

Supreme Beef’s operation resides in the small town of Monona, Iowa, whose population was only 1,635 in 2019. The facility is owned and managed by one family in Clayton County, the Walz’s. The eventual capacity of the CAFO will be massive, feeding over 11,000 cows when it fully opens.

Back in 2017, the project was proposed as a natural gas operation that would convert manure into “energy”. The CAFO attempted to combine traditional Iowan agriculture and progressive renewable energy. Locals were weary. Tammy Thompson, mom of two, feared chemical leaks into local wells.

I feel like it’s just a waiting game…We’re waiting until something bad happens.

Now, nearly four years later, the CAFO is open with a few thousand cows and will soon quintuple in size. Since its inception, environmental activists in the Iowa Sierra Club (ISP) have expressed concern about the CAFO’s proposed location. The operation sits near the top of Bloody Run Creek, which has been identified by IDNR as one of Iowa’s few ‘Outstanding Iowa Waters’. These waters are classified by IDNR as: “an outstanding state resource water in the water quality standards.”

Also concerning to the ISP is the farms manure management plan. The local karst geology is porous and vulnerable to manure seeping into groundwater below. Many of Iowa's best trout are in the Bloody Run Creek area, and Supreme Beef's manure management practices put those natural resources at risk. The facility was required to get a nutrient management plan (NMP) approved from the IDNR. Agency rules require public notice of the NMP for CAFOs and response to public comments.

The IDNR responses to comments were brief. Tammy Thompson submitted comments, asking:

…the NMP is not clear on the handling and store of manure in the lagoon…How will they control the smell? A lagoon full of 30 million gallons of manure will be overwhelmingly odorous, causing neighbors to be unable to enjoy the outdoors.

In response, the IDNR referenced the NMP without addressing her concerns about smell and its impacts on local residents. However, public opposition was able to delay the operation. The first NMP was so unpopular that the IDNR approved the facility under a reduced capacity of 2,700 cows, which the CAFO currently houses. The smaller facility is estimated to generate seven million gallons of manure per year.

The second NMP, and current expansion of the CAFO is an open feedlot and is no longer claimed to be a waste-to-energy operation. Supreme Beef's plan does not explain how the manure will be stored  or handled and does not account for the erodible nature of the topography of forty-two of the forty-five manure application fields. 

Interestingly, the majority of the articles I found that examined opposition to the Supreme Beef plant highlighted advocacy on degradation of nearby environmental resources. Few of the articles discussed advocacy on behalf of rural residents and farmers fearing the impact the CAFO would bring to their community. 

This reminded me of Professor Pruitt and Linda Sobczynski’s discussion of the conservationist lens of environmental litigation in their article I read this week, Protecting people, protecting places: What environmental litigation conceals and reveals about rurality. Professor Pruitt discussed a Newton County, Arkansas CAFO in that article and on the blog extensively and here.

It is no surprise that the Iowa DNR approved a management plan lacking details for manure and anti-degradation. The state has a long pattern of deciding in favor of industrialized agriculture. This industrialized agriculture is going to arrive in Monona whether residents like it or not. However, I hope that future advocates account for the rural perspective in their opposition to the siting of CAFOs to show a more complete picture of who is impacted by these industries.