I have a sense that what happened to Detroit is about to happen to Silicon Valley. Detroit once had some of the highest median salaries (and home values) in the

I have a sense that what happened to Detroit is about to happen to Silicon Valley. Detroit once had some of the highest median salaries (and home values) in the nation. Then Japan came and decimated what had become a fat and lazy domestic auto industry. China could easily do this to American chip makers, removing a key cornerstone of Silicon Valley's tech leadership. Meanwhile a lot of newer innovators in areas like software and custom hardware have already gone elsewhere. People are rationally concluding that the benefits of Silicon Valley are outweighed by its insane cost of living and that those same benefits can be obtained in other ways, so they're doing their work elsewhere. I personally know of several startups that maintain fake Silicon Valley mailing addresses while being located in places like Southern California, Denver, Indianapolis, or Nashville. They keep the address for its silly prestige value since if it says "Palo Alto" on your contact page people who aren't knowledgeable think it means you're cutting edge. Another big benefit of the Bay Area -- namely one of the most interesting cultural environments in the world -- has also been largely priced out and decimated by the local real estate bubble. That eliminates yet another draw. People might pay a lot to live in a fascinating city full of cutting edge culture and interesting people but not to live in a glorified office park. I see a future SV tech scene that's largely hollowed out and dominated by social media, an industry toward which the public is becoming increasingly hostile as they realize it's all about surveillance and mass manipulation. Chips go to China and newer startups go to cities with saner costs of living.