Spatial, Regional and Population Economics

Essays in honor of Edgar M Hoover

Mark Perlman, Charles J. Leven, Benjamin Chinitz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351594226
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Originally published in 1972. Hoover's first publication, his doctoral dissertation, set the stage for a life-long preoccupation with spatial economics from when it was a relatively new field. His work developed the subject and lead him into the area of regional economics, in which he became well known for his contributions to the New York Metropolitan Region Study. In this book his colleagues and a host of former students and admirers present chapters written within his areas of interest in honor of his work, at the end of his academic career, during which he mostly taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Pittsburgh.

1

Resistance to the Wired City

HAROLD J. BARNETT*

Professor of Economics
Washington University,
St. Louis, Missouri

A major innovation in mass communications is in prospect for developed nations. This is the “wired city.” Many television programs plus hundreds of voice and data services can be carried to homes on a wire. The cost of transmission is small. The variety of services is large. They include entertainment, education, and and other public services. In “The Wired City Innovation,” I characterize technology, costs, and services. In “Implications for Cities,” I illustrate some of the services significant for urban society, particularly in the United States.

But it is charged that the wired city is a dangerous innovation. Arguments are made that rural areas would lose their television service entirely and cities their free TV; that wire monopolies would inevitably arise; and that local governments and advertising excesses would reduce and corrupt television service. Some of the allegations have small elements of truth. To a much larger degree, they are maneuvers by the economic interests that might lose in competition with the innovation and its expanded offerings of entertainment, news, and other services: present TV oligopolists, newspapers, cinemas, and others. In “Alleged Defects or Dangers,” we consider the arguments against the wired-city innovation, and in “Economic Pressure Groups,” we appraise the forces which are resisting it. The paper closes with “Conclusions.”

THE WIRED CITY INNOVATION

Let us pretend that the innovation which we named “the wired city” has already occurred and is present in the society [(3) Barnett and Greenberg, 1967; (32) Smith, 1970].

Network

The wired-city technology is a broadband cable network to homes and other establishments which have TV sets.

In the cable technology which has been developed in the U.S., a pencil-thick coaxial cable of 300 megahertz band width has a theoretical capacity to carry up to 50 television programs (restricted, at the present stage of development, to about 25 in practice, or much larger numbers of other data and voice services). A 150 megahertz cable carries half as many, or dual cables, twice as many. The network is switched for convenient-sized areas but not switched within them and has limited return band width for signals by individual users [(12) EIA, 1969].

A more flexible system has been developed in British cable television technology. This provides a separate connection from a program exchange box to each television set in the homes within a radius of about 500 yards, on very similar lines to a conventional telephone network. The program exchange boxes are linked by a coaxial cable network. But the connection from the program exchange box to the home is several wires of 6 megahertz band width. The subscriber selects the program of his choice from those available at the program exchange by dial impulses [(14), (15) Gabriel, 1967, 1968; (16) Gargini, 1970].

With both techniques, there are at convenient points input studios, stations or other devices. (The British system could accept inputs at each program exchange box, and, indeed, from individual homes.) The output points are the drop lines to individual homes. The wired city provides high-quality sound and pictures irrespective of atmospheric conditions.

The network is operated as a common carrier on public utility principles. It accepts any sender’s signals to any one or several areas. Senders can lease a 6-megahertz TV channel or another channel by the year, month, day or fraction of an hour, subject to a published, nondiscriminating tariff. They use their own input facilities or rent them for the occasion. Wire and other facilities are expanded as demands justify, as in electricity, gas, and telephone industries. Charges in most instances are very low [(4) Barnett and Greenberg, 1969].

TV Programs

Television programs go directly onto the wire from studios without need for towers or transmitters. Present over-the-air broadcasters probably lease full-time channels. In addition, other senders enter broadcasting. They have been frozen out for lack of spectrum assignments [(37) U.S. Department of Commerce, 1966] or because of the high cost of operating an over-the-air station for each signal relative to audience [(1) Barnett, 1964; (18) Greenberg, 1969]. TV program guides are available in magazines and newspapers to inform homes of what is to be broadcast on each channel, or one or two channels may be allocated to provide up-to-date program information on the subscriber’s television screen.

One new entrant into broadcasting is the pay-TV company, which provides programs for a fee [(43) Wiles, 1963; (7) Caine, 1968]. There are series subscriptions for a whole channel, or for a firm that has leased certain hours, or for individual programs. An inexpensive time meter records viewing (where the subscription is not for a full channel).

Politicians use the system for electioneering, confining themselves to one or more particular constituencies. Instructional stations send programs on the wire to homes or schools. In the U.S., public television is offered by so-called ETV stations. Other public service programs are available from legislative bodies, municipal bands, chapters of the League of Women Voters, the Art Museum, and the Zoo. The franchise conditions of the wired city may provide for free channels for educational and public-service programming, as today governmental units enjoy tax-free gasoline and non-profit organizations, other free or subsidized services. Newspapers are likely to lease channels. Political action groups such as trade unions, Black organizations, veteran groups, and peace societies rent time on occasion. So do music societies, drama groups, dog lovers and bowling leagues. In each case, there is advertising or not, depending on the sender’s desires and his willingness to bear the whole cost of the program and channel time. In addition, department stores and other advertisers rent channel time to present sales pitches, straight or diluted with programs, if they think it worthwhile [(41) President’s Task Force, 1968; (3) Barnett and Greenberg, 1967; (32) Smith, 1970].

Not all programs are local. There are ground stations connected to the wired city. They receive inputs on tall antennae by microwave and from communication satellites. Satellites are already economical for point-to-point transmission in telephone. But they are enormously more efficient for relays to many ground stations at one time in broadcasting. A program sent to a communication satellite can be simultaneously relayed to 100 ground stations in America at only slightly greater cost than to one station. In Europe, programs can be sent to all the ground stations on the continent at only slightly greater cost than to one. Such reduction in transmission cost per receiver increases the volume and variety of TV programs potentially available. It gives access to the whole world’s output of programs [(9) d’Arcy, 1969; (30) Rydbeck and Ploman, 1969].

Wire Services

Other services are also available from the wired city. [(41) President’s Task Force, 1968; (38) FCC, 1968; (32) Smith, 1970; (12) EIA, 1969; (4) Barnett and Greenberg, 1969; (17) Goldmark, 1970]. Unmanned television cameras are placed at appropriate traffic points, street and dock areas, etc., to provide surveillance for police and fire stations on one or more of the channels not available for general use. The same channels can be used for circulating notices and pictures to the stations. It is possible that another private channel will be useful in health activities—for hospitals, doctors and nurses. In homes with proper connections to telephone, gas, electric, and water meters, automatic readings of these measuring devices can be taken.

When facsimile printers become cheap enough, first-class mail can be delivered and printed in individual homes by electronic addressing. This may be done late at night when the wire network is not fully in use. Even before then, facsimile printers can be economical in business and government offices. First-class mail is in crisis in the United States because it continues as a labor intensive industry. About 80 per cent of cost is wages and salaries, with manual or foot performance in many of the tasks. Crises will develop in other countries also as living levels rise and postmen’s wages increase. The need is to devise labor-saving techniques, to substitute capital for labor. One way to do this is to use wire transmission. Facsimile transmission on telephone lines is now in use, but equipment costs and the unsuitable wire rental costs are too high.

As equipment is perfected and costs reduced, the facsimile mail innovation could be generally extended. Materials other than the usual run of letters can be sent (i.e., library, reference, and data bank materials). Twenty years ago in a demonstration at the U.S. Library of Congress, the entire text of Gone With The Wind was transmitted in facsimile over a television micro-wave circuit in slightly over two minutes [(12) EIA, 1969, p. 21]. Even before printers are widespread, video or “soft copy” display is possible, as in stock price quotations and weather notices.

The computer interacts with these and other uses. Computer use in data banks, time-sharing, and computation is facilitated by existence of the wired city. And computers assist development of the wired city in the first instance by providing switching between people and information sources and for storage and queues. Computer programs also provide controls for use of open electronic spaces in other signals.

Recently, TV tape casettes have been developed for home use. They also permit tape-rental libraries on unused channels through dial-a-program service in wired cities. Such service increases availability and reduces cost. Eventually, tape libraries could respond to requests automatically as in jukebox record selection. Just as a book lending library economizes on numbers of books and radio broadcasting on records by reducing inventories relative to use, so also would this form of tape rental be inexpensive—to an extraordinary degree since the tape would be “out” only when actually being played.

Network Costs

Costs have been estimated from experience with cable television (CATV) in the United States and Canada, wire relay exchanges in Britain and other countries, and telephone and electricity wiring [(31) Seiden, 1965; (3) Barnett and Greenberg, 1967; (15) Gabriel, 1967]. Under average conditions, the installed street wire for a twelve-channel system costs roughly $4,000 per mile for overhead construction, and the dropline to the home perhaps $10 or $20. Costs would rise slightly for double this number of channels, and substantially to put cables underground. If the bulk of homes were connected under public utility conditions, the average cost of the wired network per home might be between $2 and $5 per month in the United States, and possibly less in other countries where labor costs for installation are lower. (CATV companies in the United States and Canada have been charging about $5 per month per home. Their density of subscribers is frequently less than 50 per cent of the homes, which increases cost per home; and their profits have been high. Also, they provide some TV services, beyond simple provision of the wire network.) The cost could be entirely borne by the program senders, rather than the homes. Or the drop line which connects the home to the street cable could be viewed as consumer equipment and borne by him; he saves much more than that amount in cost and maintenance of antenna and television receiver. An outside antenna costs $40 to $80; and in Britain, a wire-TV set costs one-third less than an identical over-the-air set. Maintenance costs are correspondingly lower also. The British form of wire service also provides high fidelity FM radio service through the TV set or on a high fidelity speaker; an FM receiver is unnecessary. The wired city network costs are quite small relative to the national investments in receivers and annual costs for operating and maintaining them, as may be seen from the cost data in Table 1 and in various references.

National Implications

The wired city innovation has implications for nations and the world society. It has always been widely believed (although quite without proof) that if communications improved and thereby nations knew each other better, they would be less likely to wage war. Large changes are occurring in money and credit systems. Computers and wire are moving us to a cashless society. Advanced nations are beginning to drown in paper records; wired services can reduce the volume of paper and improve access to record storage. Mail delivery is becoming increasing expensive. Securities exchanges are moving to wire cum computer in transfers, storage, and evidence of ownership of shares and bonds, in place of present paper, bank vaults, and certificates. The wired city, thus, has important implications for national politics, economic welfare, and TV diversity [(3) Barnett and Greenberg, 1967; (41) President’s Task Force, 1968; (38) FCC, 1968; (32) Smith, 1970; (22) Johnson, 1970; (19) Greenberg and Barnett, 1971].

IMPLICATIONS FOR CITIES

Without attempting to be exhaustive, we wish now to show that the innovation has important implications for cities. The Sloan Commission on Cable Communications is currently (1970) engaged in a very large-scale study of these; results will be available in 1971.

Localism and Community Ethos

The present crises in cities derive in part from their decline as cohesive societies. Communal identification of people has lessened. The sense of community is disappearing. Community pride and spirit are down, and with them, citizen willingness to participate and serve. Responsibility is less. The results are unsafe and dirty streets, neglected and cannibalized buildings, political apathy and indifference. There is helplessness in the dispossessed. There is widespread a sense that there really is no community but only a mindless, corrupt, bureaucratic monster termed city government.

The wired city provides for powerful mass communication in cities and neighborhoods. With great efficiency and vitality, it offers the equivalent of town meeting, village square assembly, and neighborhood newspaper. The electronic moving pictures and voices are in some respects stronger, more intimate, and more moving. On the video screen, one sees close up and hears well. One does not even have to be a “reader.” Moreover, local video permits one to be seen and heard himself. In his own belief, he becomes more real because others see him and are listening. He is encouraged to participate.

The significance of local wire “stations” in building...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Edgar M. Hoover (Edward S. Mason)
• 1. Resistance to the Wired City (Harold J. Barnett).
• 2. The Spatial Dimension of the Economy as a Social Outcome: Some Theoretical and Empirical Issues (James L. Barr and Charles L. Leven)
• 3. Federalism and Regional Policy (Jesse Burkhead)
• 4. The Economy of the Central City: An Appraisal (Benjamin Chinitz)
• 5. The Demography of Constantly Changing Birth Rates (Ansley Coale)
• 6. High Fertility Impairs Credit Worthiness of Developing Nations (Stephen Enke)
• 7. Thünen, Weber and the Spatial Structure of the Nineteenth Century City (Raymond L. Fales and Leon N. Moses)
• 8. Directions for Metropolitan Policy (Joseph L. Fisher and Low don Wingo)
• 9. Externalities and Urban Decision-Making (Britton Harris)
• 10. Policy Location Games: Some Applications of Location Theory to Political Decision-Making (Walter Isard and Tony Smith)
• 11. Population Policy, Welfare, and Regional Development (Ira S. Lowry)
• 12. Regional and Interregional Input-Output Models: A Reappraisal (William H. Miernyk)
• 13. On Health, Population Change, and Economic Development (Mark Perlman)
• 14. National Urban Policy: Stage I: Building and Foundation (Harvey S. Perloff)
• 15. Fertility and the Business Cycle (Pinhas Schwinger)
• 16. Place Prosperity and People Prosperity: The Delineation of Optimum Policy Areas (Marina v. N. Whitman)
• Publications of Edgar M. Hoover
• List of Contributors