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Want to close America’s rural-urban divide? Digital infrastructure is the key.

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In his State of the Union speech earlier this month, President Trump touched briefly on an area where he and Democrats could easily make common cause for the sake of the country: infrastructure. Yet by skipping over the details he missed an important opportunity to connect his rhetoric of greatness to something tangible, impactful and transformational.

The omission is particularly striking when you consider what the right kind of infrastructure program could do for rural America, a core part of Trump’s base. While metropolitan America surges forward, rural areas continue to be riven by an onslaught of demographic decline, loss of manufacturing jobs, rising poverty, opioid abuse, blight, insufficient capital, anemic investment, poor infrastructure and an abysmally low participation rate in the global digital economy.

Jem Spectar is president of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown

 

(Many thanks to Governor Steve Bullock for sharing)

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