Just over a year ago, representatives of the Community Preservation and Development Corporation (CPDC), a local, nonprofit neighborhood revitalization organization, approached us in the CCT program with a request: Would we help them evaluate the results of their work under a Federal grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration? Their mission was to create a "community-based residential computer network and electronic village" in their newly renovated Northeast DC apartment complex, Edgewood Terrace. We said, "Of course we'd like to help. What else can we do with you and the Edgewood community?"

From that initial conversation has grown what we hope will be a long-term collaboration between the people of this neighborhood and the faculty and students of Georgetown University.

Their Federal grant, and the additional corporate and foundation support that the grant stimulated, has enabled CPDC to install a broadband telecommunications system that reaches every apartment. Now they are in the process of arranging access to the network for every resident, via personal computer or a CPDC-supplied "thin client" box. The technical challenges have been daunting, but as we speak, the system is adding some seven new residences a week. By year's end there may be 500 people on "Edgenet."

The people of CPDC recognize that newly decorated apartments, landscaped grounds, and computers and wires will not make for a community where there is no common spirit- and community spirit arises where people act together. Therefore, they have arranged for an impressive array of activities to involve people of all ages. There are after-school programs for children, to help them brush up on basic skills and to learn new things- like surfing the Internet. There are job-training and search programs for adults, to help them improve their economic prospects. There are outreach and social programs for seniors, to bring them together to address problems and just to chat.

CCT's response to the situation has been to offer our students an advanced seminar, in which the key objective is to learn about community development and network technology by immersing ourselves in the ongoing process at Edgewood Terrace. Just as there have been technical challenges in getting the Edgenet system up and running, there have been human challenges in forging a network of trust between people here and in this cross-town neighborhood. In our first semester we have made good progress. And the potential rewards of this collaborative effort are significant. If, indeed, people of CCT and Edgewood Terrace together can pioneer ways to create a neighborhood-based, technologically sophisticated learning environment, we may establish a model for urban renewal that offers hope for local communities across America and around the world.

Photo courtesy of HDR Inc.