Progress Illinois

Chicago's Western Avenue Overpass, which crosses busy Belmont and Clybourn avenues on the city's Northwest Side, shares one crucial aspect with 2,238 other bridges in urban, suburban, and rural communities across the state: federal regulators consider it "structurally deficient," meaning at least one key component of the bridge is rated in poor shape or worse. You can see this easily at Western and Belmont. In many places, the overpass' concrete has chipped away, exposing its internal rebar to the elements.

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Thanks to timely public and private investments, the digital divide is slowly shrinking in Illinois. As part of the federal stimulus program, Congress allocated $7.2 billion in grants to fund broadband Internet projects nationwide. Illinois has benefited greatly, taking in almost $250 million in infrastructure and adoption dollars. Just this past week, Gov. Pat Quinn unveiled four of those projects, which his administration says will create 600 jobs and connect 1,000 institutions like schools and hospitals to the information superhighway. The state and private companies are getting involved, as well. Lawmakers in Springfield earmarked $50 million in funds from last year's capital construction plan to support broadband projects while communications companies like Frontier are expanding their own service.

Still, there's lots of work to do if Illinois wants to achieve universal broadband access. Statewide, roughly 35 to 40 percent of residents still don't have broadband in their homes, either because it's too expensive or not available locally. As Connect Illinois' interactive map shows, there are huge access disparities in rural and low-income urban neighborhoods. Even if someone in those towns can get online, Internet-access speed is also considerably slower. In June, the Pew Center on the States released a report examining "the challenging steps states must take to improve broadband access." Check it out here.