Fading Italian City Reinvents Itself As Technology Haven

The Italian village of Colletta di Castelbianco, dating back to the 13th century, was on the verge of extinction, says Fast Company magazine, until it got a new design and the Internet helped bring it back to life. "Colletta's ancient dwellings were barely visible when land surveyor Alessandro Pampirio and two colleagues stumbled upon the village during a Sunday stroll back in 1991," says the article, "La Dolce Vita, Internet Style." Today, underneath the village, "a 10-mile network of fiber optics and copper delivers a level of connectivity that the largest Italian cities would envy. Each home in Colletta has an Internet line, an ISDN port that supports videophone and videoconferencing services, a radiophone for use around the village, and cable for video-on-demand and interactive TV."