Abstract
This paper shares the early results of a study that is investigating strategies to bridge the “digital divide” [15, 16, 17, 18] — the gap between those who benefit from new technology and those who do not — by examining the role of community technology for the purpose of community building and economic development in a low-to moderate-income housing development. Since January 2000, the Camfield Estates-MIT Creating Community Connections Project, a partnership between the Camfield Tenants Association and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has taken place at Camfield Estates, a 102-unit, low-to moderate-income housing development in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and its surrounding environs. With support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Hewlett-Packard, RCN Telecom Services, Microsoft, and others, every family at Camfield has been offered a state-of-the-art desktop computer, software, high-speed Internet connection via cable-modem, and eight weeks of comprehensive courses — free of charge. Camfield residents are also supported by the Creating Community Connections (C3) System, a web-based, community building system designed at the MIT Media Laboratory, to establish and strengthen relationships between community residents, local businesses, and neighborhood institutions (e.g., libraries, schools, etc.) and organizations. Of the 102 units at Camfield, approximately 80 are presently occupied, while approximately 60 units have elected to participate in the project in some capacity, from among two rounds of sign-ups in September 2000 and January 2001. This paper is a case study of the Camfield Estates-MIT project to-date, including the history and background of the project, the theoretical frameworks guiding the initiative, the project methodology that has been employed to foster resident engagement and integrate community technology and community building, early results, and a set of recommendations and lessons learned for other initiatives.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Beamish, A. (1999). Approaches to Community Computing: Bringing Technology to Low-Income Groups. High Technology in Low-Income Communities: Prospects for the Positive Use of Information Technology (pp. 349–368) D. Schön, B. Sanyal, & W. J. Mitchell (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Benton Foundation. (1998). Losing Ground Bit by Bit: Low-Income Communities in the Information Age. Washington, DC: Benton Foundation. (http://www.benton.org/Library/Low-Income/home.html)
Bishop, A P., Tidline, T. J., Shoemaker, S., & Salela, P. (1999). Public Libraries and Networked Information Services in Low-Income Communities. Urbana-Champaign, IL: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Cohill, A. M. & Kavanaugh, A. L. (1997). Community Networks: Lessons from Blacksburg, Virginia. Blacksburg, VA: Artech House Telecommunications Library.
Chapman, G. & Rhodes L. (1997). Nurturing Neighborhood Nets. Technology Review, October.
Chow, C., Ellis, J., Mark, J., & Wise, B. (1998). Impact of CTCNet Affiliates: Findings from a National Survey of Users of Community Technology Centers. Newton, MA: Education Development Center, Inc.(http://www.ctcnetorg/impact98.html)
Hooper, P. (1998). They Have Their Own Thoughts: Children’s Learning of Computational Ideas from a Cultural Constructionist Perspective. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Media Laboratory.
Kingsley, G. T., McNeely, J. B., Gibson, J. O. (1999). Community Building Coming of Age. The Urban Institute. (http://www.urban.org/comminity/combuild.htm)
Kretzmann, J. P., & McKnight, J. L. (1993). Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets. Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications.
Lazarus, W. & Mora, F. (2000). On-line Content for Low-Income and Underserved Americans: The Digital Divide’s New Frontier. Santa Monica, CA: The Children’s Partnership.(http://www.childrenspartnership.org)
Mark, J., Cornebise, J., & Wahl, E. (1997). Community Technology Centers: Impact on Individual Participants and their Communities. Newton, MA: Educational Development Center, Inc.(http://www.ctcnetorg/eval.html)
Mattessich, Paul, Monsey, Barbara. (1997). Community Building: What Makes It Work: A Review of Factors Influencing Successful Community Building. Saint Paul, MN: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.
Melchior, A., Thorstensen, B., & Shurkin, M. (1998). The Uses of Technology in Youth-Serving Organizations: An Initial Scan of the Field. Waltham, MA: The Center for Human Resources, Bandeis University.
Morino, M. (1994). Assessment and Evolution of Community Networking. Paper presented at Ties That Bind, at Apple Computer, Cupertino, CA.
National Telecommunication and Information Administration (1995). Falling Through the Net Full Report. (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fallingthru.html)
National Telecommunication and Information Administration (1997). Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide. Full Report. (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/net2/falling.html)
National Telecommunication and Information Administration (1999). Falling Through the Net III: Defining the Digital Divide. Full Report. (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/digitaldivide/)
National Telecommunication and Information Administration (2000). Falling Through the Net:Toward Digital Inclusion. Full Report. (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fttn00/contents00.html)
O’Bryant, R. (2001). Establishing Neighborhood Technology Centers in Low-Income Communities: A Crossroads for Social Science and Computer Information Technology. Forthcoming in Projections: The MIT Student Journal of Planning-Making Places through Information Technology (2)2.
Papert, S., A. (1993). Instructionism vs. Constructionism. In Papert, S. The Children’s Machine. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Pinkett, R. D. (2002). The Camfield Estates-MIT Creating Community Connections Project: High-Technology in a Low-to Moderate-Income Community. Forthcoming in Managing IT/Community Partnerships in the 21st Century. Lazar, J. (Ed.). Hershey, PA: Idea Publishing Group.
Pinkett, R. D. (2000). Bridging the Digital Divide: Sociocultural Constructionism and an Asset-Based Approach to Community Technology and Community Building. Paper presented at the 81st Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), New Orleans, LA, April 24–28. (http://www.media.mit.edu/~rpinkett/papers/aera2000.pdf)
Resnick, M., Bruckman, A. & Martin, F. (1996). Pianos Not Stereos: Creating Computational Construction Kits. Interactions, (3)6, September/October. (http://el.www.media.mit.edu/el/Papers/mres/chi-98/digital-manip.html)
Resnick, M, Rusk, N. & Cooke, S. (1998). The Computer Clubhouse: Technological Fluency in the Inner City. High Technology in Low-Income Communities: Prospects for the Positive Use of Information Technology (pp. 263–286) Schön, D., Sanyal B., & Mitchell, W. J. (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Robinson, R. (2000). The Role of Information Technology in Economic Development of the Inner City. In Proceedings of the 2000 Inner City Business Leadership Conference, Boston, MA, November.
Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency (2001). MHFA’s Demonstration Disposition (DemoDispo) Program History. (http://www.mhfa.com/dev/dp_ddhistory.htm)
Schön, Donald A., Sanyal, Bish, & Mitchell, William J. (Eds.). (1999). High Technology and Low-Income Communities: Prospects for he Positive Use Of Advanced Information Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shaw, Alan C. (1995). Social Constructionism and the Inner City: Designing Environments for Social Development and Urban Renewal. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Media Laboratory.
Shaw, A. & Shaw M. (1998). Social Empowerment Through Community Networks. High Technology in Low-Income Communities: Prospects for the Positive Use of Information Technology (pp. 316–335) D. Schön, B. Sanyal, & W. J. Mitchell (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
The Aspen Institute. (1997). Voices from the Field: Learning from the Early Work of Comprehensive Community Initiatives. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute. (http://www.aspenroundtable.org/voices/index.htm)
Turner, N. E., & Pinkett, R. D. (2000). An Asset-Based Approach to Community Technology and Community Building. Proceedings of Shaping the Network Society: The Future of the Public Sphere in Cyberspace, Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing Symposium 2000 (DIAC-2000), Seattle, WA, May 20–23. (http://www.media.mit.edu/~rpinkett/papers/diac2000.pdf)
Hess, D. R. (1999). Community Organizing, Building and Developing: Their Relationship to Comprehensive Community Initiatives. Working paper series for COMM-ORG: The On-Line Conference on Community Organizing and Development, June. (http://comm-org.utoledo.edu/papers99/hess.html)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Pinkett, R.D. (2002). The Camfield Estates-MIT Creating Community Connections Project: Strategies for Active Participation in a Low- to Moderate-Income Community. In: Tanabe, M., van den Besselaar, P., Ishida, T. (eds) Digital Cities II: Computational and Sociological Approaches. Digital Cities 2001. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2362. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45636-8_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45636-8_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43963-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45636-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive