Community technology centers: Narrowing the digital divide in low-income, urban communities

As access to information technology (IT) and the ability to use it increasingly become part of the toolkit necessary to participate and prosper in an information-based society, many fear that the IT revolution is bypassing low-income, urban communities. In the absence of comprehensive public or private efforts to close the technology gap, community technology centers (CTCs) have emerged at the grassroots level. The purpose of this article is to describe the work CTCs are doing to address the economic and social impacts of the shift to an information society. In addition, we develop a typology of CTCs by organizational type and programmatic goal that is helpful in conceptualizing CTCs. This exploratory work is an important first step that must occur before answering tougher questions concerning their effectiveness, outcomes, and capacity.