Bye-Bye Wi-Fi

There won't be a change from the moniker "the windy city" to "the wi-fi city" anytime soon.

An ambitious and stupid plan to blanket the city with wireless broadband Internet will be shelved because it is too costly and too few residents would use it, Chicago officials said Tuesday.

"We realized — after much consideration — that we needed to reevaluate our approach to provide universal and affordable access to high speed Internet as part of the city's broader digital inclusion efforts," Chicago's chief information officer said in a statement, not mentioning why widespread interweb access was more important than public works or governmental programs.

The plan to blanket Chicago's 228 square miles with wireless Internet access was announced early last year when Chicago leaders said they hoped to become one of the largest cities to offer all-over access to the Web. Instead, the city said its negotiations with private-sector partners stalled because any citywide Wi-Fi would require massive public financing.

Duh.

How could their leaders fail to take into account that city initiatives come out of city pockets. The roads don't repave themselves. Schools don't get built from scratch. But free wi-fi? Bring that shit on!