Closing the Digital Divide With Community Tech

Citizens' digital access, affordability, and digital ability are now inseparable from fulsome civic life. This study regards community technology initiatives in various forms, sizes, and scopes as resources for urban planners to learn about digital divide solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic's lockdowns highlighted new and existing gaps in government service delivery, renewing a push to ensure digital equity. Research goals aim to understand the roles of non-market initiatives by examining the levels of the digital divide they engage with and what enables them to successfully do so. The regulatory environment of telecommunications in Canada has created an environment where strong oligopolies exist as one of the most detrimental factors to reaching universal, ubiquitous digital inclusion. The study recommends implementing affordability and inclusion metrics into service objectives in recognition of potential oversights or omissions that favor industry.