One Small California Town’s 15-Year Fight for Universal Broadband

Gonzales’ Victory Is a Lesson on Power, and How Communities Can Beat the Odds

If California is really the global tech capital it claims to be, why is it so hard for the state’s small towns to get the top-notch internet broadband service they need?

You’ll find one answer to that question in Gonzales, a city of just 9,000 people in the Salinas Valley, where local leaders spent 15 years seeking to connect all residents to the internet.

Right now, even California’s biggest and richest cities are struggling to provide the internet access necessary for their people to work or study from home. But Gonzales solved …

The Joys of Shearing Ornery, 250-Pound Sheep | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The Joys of Shearing Ornery, 250-Pound Sheep

I Left My Tech Job for a Historic Profession That Is Uniquely Egalitarian, Diverse, and Rewarding

My journey to a vocation as a sheep shearer began in 2007 when I moved to California to take a chance on the man who would, happily, become my husband. …

Guadalajara’s Transition From Tequila to High Tech

Offering a Model for Mexico's Future, the City Reinvented Itself as an R&D Hub

In 2009, as the economy of Silicon Valley started to recover from the financial crisis, Bismarck Lepe, a tech entrepreneur with a Stanford pedigree and a few years working at …

Is A/B Product Testing Turning Us into Silicon Valley’s Lab Rats?

The Tech Industry Says It's Helping Us Shape the Future, But Our Clicks Could Entrap Us

A:
Test me all night, baby.

No, really. Sign me up to be the subject of A/B testing. I’d even be willing to sign a blanket consent form, right now, …

Why the U.S. Should Stop Lecturing the World About “Internet Values”

Clueless Optimism and Bull-Headed Arrogance Make the World Safe for Big Tech, Not Real People

The World Wide Web might have been invented by a Briton working for a European research organization, but let’s face it: The internet is American. The world’s richest tech firms …

California’s Last Stand Against San Francisco Imperialism

Only San Jose Can Stop the City by the Bay from Gaining Too Much Power and Money

Poor San Jose—so far from God, so close to San Francisco.

San Jose is the 10th largest city in the United States, the third most populous in the state of California—and …