[Overtonwindow]

Libraries are an excellent place to put some money. They provide learning opportunities, but many also provide resume and job search training, community meeting places, free internet access, and I think is one of the few "neutral" places in American society. Neutral in that there are few, if any politics involved, and it's an equal opportunity benefit to a community that most people can get behind. Even if they don't use the library, few I think would speak against.

[adventured]

I overwhelmingly agree with that.

I grew up in one of the poorer places in America - Appalachia. Despite that, we had a nice library, donated initially by a wealthy individual and then sustained by various forms of private funding over the decades.

It didn't always have the absolute latest books, the selection was decent though. It had Internet access very early on and was a valuable, inexpensive resource for young and old people alike. It was also relatively well maintained; pre mid 1990's Web, if you needed to really know a subject in-depth, it was easily the best local resource. The local community benefited immensely from it.

I'd like to see Bezos (and ideally matching contributors) put together an effort to modernize the concept for the 21st century. Virtual reality for example will become an important access technology over the next 20 years, that many lower income people won't be able to afford and will have future job importance in many fields.

[csours]

Was it a Carnegie library?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library

[goialoq]

It's much more efficient to move people from rural areas into the cities, than to build micro-cities all across the country.

[elihu]

Much of our civilization depends on food and natural resources that come from sparsely populated areas of the country. On top of that, real estate and rent are ludicrously expensive in most of the nicer large cities. It makes sense economically for people to spread out if they can find the employment, education, and services they need in smaller towns.