This New York Times article (free subscription required) notes something that urban planners like Anthony Townsend have been saying for a while: If you want to attract creative, entrepreneurial people and enterprises to a city core, installing free WiFi is a cost-effective way to do it.

The city of Long Beach, Calif., plans to announce on Friday that it will

make free wireless Internet access available in its downtown area as part of

an effort to attract visitors and companies to the business district. The

city will use the increasingly popular standard known as Wi-Fi, which lets

personal computers and other hand-held devices connect to the Internet

without wires at high speed.