Here's something to ponder for a while...

Here's something to ponder for a while ... Internet penetration across the U.S.  It varies in ways that I find surprising and not immediately explainable.  The map is from this WSJ article.  There's a very high penetration both where we used to live in Southern California, and the semi-rural place we live now in northern Utah.  But where my sister lives (near Charlottesville, Virginia) is a relative Internet desert, and I don't really have any idea why that should be.  Then there's southern New Jersey, where my parents used to live – it has no data.  WTF, New Jersey?  The part of North Carolina where a good friend of mine lives (near Asheville) rather closely resembles the nearby Charlottesville, Virginia area – and yet there, the Internet penetration is high.  What on earth is going on here?  The WSJ article portrays this as largely a rural/urban divide, but their own map belies that.  I see lots of farming areas with high penetration, some with adjoining areas of low penetration.  My first instinct is to be suspicious of the quality of the data underlying this...