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American Morning

Houston Taking Big Step to Narrow Digital Divide

Aired August 20, 2001 - 11:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The city of Houston, Texas is making a big move to narrow the digital divide for its residents who don't have access to the Internet. In fact, this divide is a big one here in the U.S. where incomes are concerned. Only about a fifth of households with annual incomes of less than $15,000 have Internet access, but 70 percent of households with incomes more than $75,000 are connected.

Today, Houston is launching a program to offer free e-mail and the use of personal computer software to its three million residents, starting in low-income areas. Joining us now to talk about it is the city's mayor, Lee Brown.

Mayor Brown, how are you? It's good to have you with us this morning.

MYR. LEE BROWN, HOUSTON, TEXAS: Leon, it's good to be with you. I'm very excited about this program. We're kicking off a pilot project, whereby every resident of Houston will have access to the computer free of charge. We've taken the first step, in that we've put over 1,000 computers in our libraries. When it's all said and done, we can have computers in our fire stations, police stations, multiservice centers, anyone can have an Internet address; wherever they are, anyplace in the country, then can access their Internet address without being in Houston.

This is very exciting. So regardless of one's socioeconomic status, they will have access to the computer, the Internet, with their Internet address.

HARRIS: Now do you think you can reach everybody by putting computers just in libraries and in fire stations?

BROWN: Yes we can, we can put one in every library. Remember that libraries are neighborhood-oriented. We have one in our neighborhood. We have a fire station in every neighborhood. We have police stations throughout the city, multiservice centers. And so yes, we will be able top reach every person who resides in Houston. Just think, a child can do a book report, and go on vacation and go back into the computer and continue to work on it, and come back to Houston, pull it up, present it to the teacher, have their resumes on file, to be pulled up and shipped anyplace.

We are in the information society. And we recognize that in Houston. We want to make sure that we have Internet accessibility to every resident of Houston.

HARRIS: Let me play devil's advocate here. Say that those who don't have it by now don't have it because they don't want it, or because they don't need it. So you're not necessarily talking about this being a situation because they don't have the money they don't have the computer, and therefore, don't have Internet access. It is not part of their lives, and why should it be?

BROWN: Well, it's available. What we can do in government is make it accessible to everyone.

As I travel throughout the city, I find seniors, for example, in multiservice centers when we are trying to teach kids how to use the computers, who say, what about us? Demand is there. What we can do in good. Make sure it is accessible to everyone who lives in our city. That's what we are doing as we kickoff off this pilot project.

HARRIS: Now you're not talking about setting up individual Internet accounts for everybody, are you?

BROWN: Yes, we are. That's the novelty of what we're doing. Every individual can have their own individual Internet account. They tap into their any place where they are, it will be free of charge; that's the beauty what we are talking about here.

HARRIS: So this is basically like a city Web site where everyone in it could have access to their e-mail accounts, is that right?

BROWN: Well, access technology, this house here in Houston. They developed technology. They're kind of way ahead of themselves, because they are housed here in Houston, this is their headquarters, they wanted to make sure that Houston was the first city in this country to make Internet accessible to everyone, regardless of their ability, and therefore, it's free. And we're kicking off this pilot today. It will be in our libraries, but if you think with me in the future, we have facilities all over the city. We have already purchased number of computers for our libraries. And so any child, adult, any senior, will have their own account, Internet account. It will be free of charge. They can create, store, access and send from any place in the country.

HARRIS: You know, what I would love to see, mayor, is maybe a year from now, after you guys have had this up and running for a while, is someone do a survey and find out exactly what the numbers are and see how these kids are doing in school and doing with the use of the Internet. That would be good.

BROWN Come and visit us in about a year. You will have a good story to tell. We are excited about it.

HARRIS: Well, we love to tell good stories. I'd love to do it.

Mayor Lee Brown, Houston, we'll keep our eye on this story. Hope to talk to you later down the road.

BROWN: Please do, we're exciting about it. HARRIS: Good luck.

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