ABSTRACT
The technologies that now dominate production and distribution have irrevocably changed the demand for and return to labor. Thousands of office, factory, and retail jobs demand a facility with computers that they did not require ten years ago. Employment in specific IT occupations, such as computer programming and systems analysis, has increased at double the rate of U.S. non-farm employment overall since the mid-1990s (U.S. Department of Commerce 2000), and a recent Information Technology Association of America report demonstrates that even during a slow economy, IT skills remain in heavy demand (ITAA 2001). People’s earning power-and the prosperity of the communities in which they live-have become increasingly linked to their ability to manipulate information. Nowhere is this more true than in urban areas.
