10. Conclusion

The number of Community Networks has not expanded much in the last five years. In some ways, CNs remain fragile and vulnerable as AFCN President Amy Borgstrom pointed out in her address to the European Alliance for Community Networking in summer, 1998:

Sustainability is the key pressure on these networks, and the lack of sustainability is, I think, what keeps that number at around three hundred or so. Often our very backgrounds as community activists, and our very structure, as non-profit organizations make it hard for us to raise the funds we need to keep growing our networks.

Borgstrom ends with reminding her audience:

the community network is about people and community capacity building, not technology. We use the community network as a platform to link small businesses with new and emerging markets, with resources both local and distant, with each other, and with other low-income communities around the world. We view the community network as one community asset in a whole range of social capital.

Those CNs that remain active and innovative continue to evolve models for building social capital through community networking. The CN trends towards specialization, partnerships and deliberate networks mirror much of the dynamics of the evolving global economy. It remains to be seen if these small and place-based community networks can provide the leadership needed to survive and nourish their communities.

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