San Francisco's Web 2.0 Government

Very important question. Although it wasn't mentioned in the Rights of Man, the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution, an informed electorate is the foundation and guarantor of a democracy, so it's important. Eisenhower commissioned the National Highway System as necessary for defense, but everyone supported it because it opened up the entire country to greater commerce. So there's a precedent (more than one, actually) for the govt. investing in something that will help every citizen.

Its a great example of the government providing for the people.  However, internet everywhere isn't a right is it?  It is a way to easily provide a valuable commodity to the masses -- cheaply.

Bridging the digital divide is critical to a shared future, but so is access to the data. So many levels of govt -- city, county, school district, state, fed, have so much so data buried, often in archaic mainframe dbs, and so many bureaucrats are afraid of releasing info that might reveal their incompetence or venality, that it's a big problem of democracies like ours -- never mind the even more controlled countries.

In Santa Fe, we first had to get a letter from the Attorney General of the state to show to a county agency that the data they held was public, but then we had to find a private citizen who knew the model of mainframe they were using (or mini, I forget), because their own programmers didn't know how to export data from it in electronic form! (They wanted to give us reams of old green bar paper!) And then we had to figure out the db schema, since none of the fields were labeled intelligibly.

But when we did all that...we found front page headline material for weeks, eventually resulting in major changes.

Almost makes me want to move back to the other SF!

Offering free internet access is the best way to bridge the digital divide and to "improve the city's economy" as said the mayor. I believe this is a good example of governance and If every cities could have this objective in mind, every home will be connected to the  internet in a short period of time.