Should Your General Plan Have A Technology Element?

Technology infrastructure will increasingly be an integral part of any successful community, whether that is 311 services in Chicago and New York, physical infrastructure such as fiber optic or wireless networks, or e-government. The only way you can determine what your community needs is to do a comprehensive inventory, needs assessment, and a plan, much the way you would for any urban facility. Planning efforts in many parts of the nation aim at harnessing technology to provide a strong economy and improved quality of life. A survey we conducted of more than 30 technology plans and projects shows that communities have not, for the most part, adopted coherent, wide-ranging strategies. Rather, various approaches to technology infrastructure, with disparate origins, have evolved over time.