Ignored by large telecoms companies, residents of poor Detroit neighbourhoods are building the Internet for themselves. The Equitable Internet Initiative is a programme run by different community collectives that aims to widen a net of Internet access across disadvantaged neighbourhoods, while at the same time teaching the locals how to use it.

Detroit’s digital divide between economically advantaged and disadvantaged communities is, according to the Federal Communications Commission, “among the most extreme in the nation”. The FCC says that 63% of low-income households do not have access to the Internet at home – nearly 40% of the city’s total population.





Digital stewards testing a signal on a roof in Detroit's North End neighbourhood. Photo: North End digital stewards Facebook group

A coalition of different community groups, from local churches to a community technology project, have pulled together to create a grassroots initiative that involves literally building the Internet and installing it in people’s homes, cables and all.

To do this, the project trains volunteer ‘digital stewards’ in the installation of Internet connections using mesh wireless technology. A mesh network is a spider’s web of wireless links between homes, and it enables neighbours to share a connection – thus hooking up a number of different households to the Internet at the same time – and be part of a local intranet network. This intranet, or neighbourhood ‘mesh’, can also act as an offline community portal that works even in the case of an internet outage, enabling members of the community to organise responses to extreme weather or other disasters that may affect the neighbourhood.





A digital steward helping with an installation. Photo: North End digital stewards Facebook group

After 20 weeks of training, the digital stewards head out to install and maintain networks across some of Detroit’s poorest neighbourhoods. But there’s no point setting up the Internet if you don’t know how to use it. The project also focuses on improving digital literacy amongst the locals, and showing people who may not have used the Internet much before how it can help them in their everyday lives.



Three ‘anchor’ organisations manage the running of the project: WNUC Community Radio in the North End neighbourhood, the youth network Grace in Action in Southwest Detroit, and the Church of the Messiah in Southeast Detroit. The latter has created the BLVD Harambee Empowerment Center, which works to equip young black youth with skills for the future.