Want Wifi? Move to Oregon

I keep reading about cities moving toward citywide wifi. Seems logical to assume a city full of techies would be one of the pioneers in this field. Instead it turns out to be a rural region of Oregon with 11,000 residents and 700 square miles of wifi service that is, get this, FREE to the general public. How is it this stretch of land gets free wifi, while urban areas are still struggling to get it done? Politics. Not tech. Not the market. Simply the work of big companies trying to keep us paying for service we could be getting for free. Makes me wish I was farming in Oregon.