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One of the things that make Silicon Valley unique is its low density. Almost all other tech hubs are located in extremely dense cities: NYC, London, Seoul, Toky

One of the things that make Silicon Valley unique is its low density. Almost all other tech hubs are located in extremely dense cities: NYC, London, Seoul, Tokyo... Rather than turning Silicon Valley into another one of these, I'd prefer to see other tech hubs flourish and offer viable alternatives. (I don't own a house in Silicon Valley, nor can afford one.)

wavefunction 11y ago
NYC, a tech hub? London, a tech hub? Perhaps you have some persuasive arguments to the contrary but in my direct experience there is far more "tech" going on in places like Seattle, Portland, Denver and Austin than these places which have some tech work.
- peferron 11y ago
  My few examples were not meant to be sorted nor exhaustive. They were meant to illustrate the fact that places that offer a lot of tech jobs tend to be high-density cities, rather than a collection of comparatively lower-density areas like Silicon Valley. The places you mention all seem to be high-density cities as well. Maybe I shouldn't have written "extremely dense" then, I guess Austin isn't that dense compared to NYC—but still much denser than Silicon Valley surely?
  - rpedela 11y ago
    The bay area is quite dense. SF, Oakland, San Jose combined come close to the population of Chicago. Austin and Denver are much less dense than the bay area.
    - pilom 11y ago
      Denver is only recorded as "not dense" because the city technically includes all the land around the airport where there is very little built. If you don't include the airport property the density is pretty close to San Jose.
      - rpedela 11y ago
        If we are discussing tech hubs, then the surrounding area should be included such as Boulder, Broomfield, etc. Just like we should include Mountain View, Palo Alto, etc. Having lived in both places for ~4 years each, the density in the Denver area is not even close to the bay area.
- Ologn 11y ago
  New York has Columbia University and NYU, as well as nearby schools like Stony Brook, Cornell, Princeton and Yale. New York has commercial banks and investment banks and hedge funds based in New York with massive worldwide networks, huge machine learning setups generating billions in trades (I used to administer one machine which had over $1 billion a day flow through it). Someone like Peter Weinberger (the "w" in awk) bounced between Bell Labs and Rentech. Speaking of AlcatelLucent Bell Labs, there are other R&D departments like IBM research. Plus most of the major advertising and design shops. I know the Facebook Android UI is done in Facebook's NYC office. Google owns a huge building in New York, and many Bay Area companies have large offices in New York. Not to mention publishers and their networks - the New York Times, Time-Warner, Viacom and so forth. In 2000-2001, when people like Marc Andreessen were having trouble getting VC, investment banks and hedge funds were splurging on tech investment, even after all the Y2K money they had just spent. One thing is hedge funds don't jump up and down saying look at our algorithms, look at our infrastructure. They tend to be very low key - I only know of one Youtube video with the currnt head of RenTech, which has $65 billion of assets under management, almost all of which is capital from the firm's 300 employees. They are no slouches, and have had some excellent computer scientists, mathematicians and scientists work for them. New York does not have to persuade anyone it is a tech hub, especially relative to Austin, Denver, Portland and Seattle.
  - motxilo 11y ago
    And Cornell Tech campus in NYC starts running business in 2017.
- adamt 11y ago
  London has become a massive tech hub. The digital technology sector employs 200k people [1] and is makes it one of the biggest global tech hubs outside of the Valley. [1] http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500248323/London-steams-ahead-as-most-important-tech-hub-in-Europe http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500248323/London-steams-...
api 11y ago
Pittsburgh, Austin, Portland, and Raleigh - Durham also have a decent tech scene and sane housing prices.
- manyxcxi 11y ago
  Portland's housing market is incredibly hot right now and their prices are definitely edging out of (if not already) sane territory. The big difference is that you don't have to go quite so far out of town to get back to better prices.

wavefunction 11y ago

NYC, a tech hub? London, a tech hub? Perhaps you have some persuasive arguments to the contrary but in my direct experience there is far more "tech" going on in places like Seattle, Portland, Denver and Austin than these places which have some tech work.

peferron 11y ago
My few examples were not meant to be sorted nor exhaustive. They were meant to illustrate the fact that places that offer a lot of tech jobs tend to be high-density cities, rather than a collection of comparatively lower-density areas like Silicon Valley. The places you mention all seem to be high-density cities as well. Maybe I shouldn't have written "extremely dense" then, I guess Austin isn't that dense compared to NYC—but still much denser than Silicon Valley surely?
- rpedela 11y ago
  The bay area is quite dense. SF, Oakland, San Jose combined come close to the population of Chicago. Austin and Denver are much less dense than the bay area.
  - pilom 11y ago
    Denver is only recorded as "not dense" because the city technically includes all the land around the airport where there is very little built. If you don't include the airport property the density is pretty close to San Jose.
    - rpedela 11y ago
      If we are discussing tech hubs, then the surrounding area should be included such as Boulder, Broomfield, etc. Just like we should include Mountain View, Palo Alto, etc. Having lived in both places for ~4 years each, the density in the Denver area is not even close to the bay area.
Ologn 11y ago
New York has Columbia University and NYU, as well as nearby schools like Stony Brook, Cornell, Princeton and Yale. New York has commercial banks and investment banks and hedge funds based in New York with massive worldwide networks, huge machine learning setups generating billions in trades (I used to administer one machine which had over $1 billion a day flow through it). Someone like Peter Weinberger (the "w" in awk) bounced between Bell Labs and Rentech. Speaking of AlcatelLucent Bell Labs, there are other R&D departments like IBM research. Plus most of the major advertising and design shops. I know the Facebook Android UI is done in Facebook's NYC office. Google owns a huge building in New York, and many Bay Area companies have large offices in New York. Not to mention publishers and their networks - the New York Times, Time-Warner, Viacom and so forth. In 2000-2001, when people like Marc Andreessen were having trouble getting VC, investment banks and hedge funds were splurging on tech investment, even after all the Y2K money they had just spent. One thing is hedge funds don't jump up and down saying look at our algorithms, look at our infrastructure. They tend to be very low key - I only know of one Youtube video with the currnt head of RenTech, which has $65 billion of assets under management, almost all of which is capital from the firm's 300 employees. They are no slouches, and have had some excellent computer scientists, mathematicians and scientists work for them. New York does not have to persuade anyone it is a tech hub, especially relative to Austin, Denver, Portland and Seattle.
- motxilo 11y ago
  And Cornell Tech campus in NYC starts running business in 2017.
adamt 11y ago
London has become a massive tech hub. The digital technology sector employs 200k people [1] and is makes it one of the biggest global tech hubs outside of the Valley. [1] http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500248323/London-steams-ahead-as-most-important-tech-hub-in-Europe http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500248323/London-steams-...

api 11y ago

Pittsburgh, Austin, Portland, and Raleigh - Durham also have a decent tech scene and sane housing prices.

manyxcxi 11y ago
Portland's housing market is incredibly hot right now and their prices are definitely edging out of (if not already) sane territory. The big difference is that you don't have to go quite so far out of town to get back to better prices.