The announcement from Mountain View this morning is that Google’s high-speed broadband service - “Google Fiber” - is looking to expand to 34 new cities in 9 metro areas from Atlanta to Portland, via Nashville and Salt Lake City.

Without stepping into the debate on the relative merits of Obamacare, all sides agree that the technical rollout of the healthcare.gov site was less than ideal -- botched, some would say. And according to a number of commentators, the root cause of the problem is “the government’s habit of buying outdated, costly and buggy technology.” In other words -- the entire system of federal IT procurement. Luckily for us, there are two bills in Congress that want to revolutionize the process and improve the way government delivers services.

We use the internet every day to work, read, watch and play. But for residents of low-income neighborhoods, internet access can be useful for more than solving “first world problems”. It can mean a plan during disasters, better health, safer streets, a stronger community, and economic opportunity. The Red Hook Initiative is helping one community in Brooklyn turn things around.