A Rural Lens on a Research Agenda for Intelligent Infrastructure

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of including rural communities in the development of intelligent infrastructure, highlighting unique opportunities and proposing coordinated actions to ensure equitable technological advancement across rural America.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive research agenda focused on rural needs, advocating for inclusive policies and innovations in infrastructure to benefit rural populations and the broader economy.

Findings

Rural communities have unique needs and opportunities for intelligent infrastructure.

Inclusive policies can bridge digital divides in rural areas.

Rural innovation can positively impact the national economy.

Abstract

A National Agenda for Intelligent Infrastructure is not complete without explicit consideration of the needs of rural communities. While the American population has urbanized, the United States depends on rural communities for agriculture, fishing, forestry, manufacturing and mining. Approximately 20% of the US population lives in rural areas with a skew towards aging adults. Further, nearly 25% of Veterans live in rural America. And yet, when intelligent infrastructure is imagined, it is often done so with implicit or explicit bias towards cities. In this brief we describe the unique opportunities for rural communities and offer an inclusive vision of intelligent infrastructure research. In this paper, we argue for a set of coordinated actions to ensure that rural Americans are not left behind in this digital revolution. These technological platforms and applications, supported by appropriate policy, will address key issues in transportation, energy, agriculture, public safety and health. We believe that rather than being a set of needs, the rural United States presents a set of exciting possibilities for novel innovation benefiting not just those living there, but the American economy more broadly