Digital Divide and Planning

It's that time again, time to take the census. Every 10 years, the country decides to attempt to keep track of all those millions of people and activities. While this is a good idea, the difficulty lies in its expense and the time it takes to collect the data. No one will be able to accurately argue that the data is bad, but I would suggest that our methods are a bit antiquated and could be expedited but for one thing: the digital divide.



Hopefully, many people are not under the illusion that the next census (or the census after that) will continue to use citizens moving door to door to collect information. That practice is good for building communities, but is better suited to a city rather than a nation or even a state. The best method will be to use a website to enter information, and allow citizens to fill said information out for themselves.

It is time for cities and states to start prioritizing computer centers so that data like this can be collected, and proper planning decisions can be made. After all, people who planned on having the luxury of a car are seriously scratching their heads and wondering if all the planning sacrifices and the expense of maintaining the roads of the nation for everyone was worth it.