Well before the Covid-19 epidemic, in 2017, the European Union set the goal of providing every member state with free Wi-Fi in the main urban centres (WiFi4EU) by 2020. This initiative stems from the awareness that Internet Access reduces inequalities caused by the digital divide. Its importance in the exercise of fundamental rights contrasts with the peppered development of infrastructural networks. This creates digital vulnerabilities for those who are left with incomplete—or even partial—access to the network. Most of these issues, at least in Italy, affect the inland areas of the Peninsula, which are home to about 13 million people and are dotted with villages at risk of depopulation. This chapter aims to investigate to what extent the digital divide may contribute to the violation of fundamental rights for residents of small towns. It also seeks to lay out a “right to the village”, drawing from the right to the city. The expression represents the need, on the part of the inhabitants of villages, to claim a standard of quality of life and equal dignity of development compared to geographically more advantaged areas.

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The Residential Digital Divide and the ‘Right to the Village’

  • Manlio Lisanti

摘要

Well before the Covid-19 epidemic, in 2017, the European Union set the goal of providing every member state with free Wi-Fi in the main urban centres (WiFi4EU) by 2020. This initiative stems from the awareness that Internet Access reduces inequalities caused by the digital divide. Its importance in the exercise of fundamental rights contrasts with the peppered development of infrastructural networks. This creates digital vulnerabilities for those who are left with incomplete—or even partial—access to the network. Most of these issues, at least in Italy, affect the inland areas of the Peninsula, which are home to about 13 million people and are dotted with villages at risk of depopulation. This chapter aims to investigate to what extent the digital divide may contribute to the violation of fundamental rights for residents of small towns. It also seeks to lay out a “right to the village”, drawing from the right to the city. The expression represents the need, on the part of the inhabitants of villages, to claim a standard of quality of life and equal dignity of development compared to geographically more advantaged areas.