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It seems to imply that because Apple didn't have success making computers in the Bay Area that manufacturing in the Bay Area isn't possible. Not true of course,

It seems to imply that because Apple didn't have success making computers in the Bay Area that manufacturing in the Bay Area isn't possible. Not true of course, Sun manufactured computers here, Force computers made millions of computers here, and there are still manufacturers around. That said, today it is greatly reduced. But it isn't clear to me at least that this is a permanent state. There is definitely a "community" aspect to this stuff (that part the article seems to get right), but the causality is not clear. If people started manufacturing more things in the Bay Area the community would get stronger as supply chains were shortened. As I see it, you start building things, and you order all of your components from far away. Then one of your suppliers creates a local factory / warehouse to cut down on shipping costs, then another. At which point you have a lot of things nearby. Similarly for services such as rework, tooling, and metrology.

CydeWeys 8y ago
Land (and thus labor) are way too expensive in the Bay Area to see a resurgence of high volume manufacturing. It'd be more likely to see manufacturing make a comeback a short flight away from SF where land is plentiful. That way you could easily make day trips to the factory and receive goods via truck within a day.
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  I disagree, there are already quite a few manufacturing facilities in the bay area. They don't grab the headlines but when you drive through the industrial parts of town they are all there. There is the Tesla plant (fairly high volume), there are three glass/window factories in Oakland (fairly high volume), probably a dozen printed circuit board houses of various volumes, a number of tool and die shops around south SF and Berkeley and elsewhere, at least two sheet metal fabrication plants in south San Jose. Intuitive Surgical has a surgical robot factory in Sunnyvale I believe. Nothing like a Foxconn "city factory", that is pretty clear. There is however the Gigafactory which is outside of Reno (to your point of being easy to get to). There is a lot of activity though.

CydeWeys 8y ago

Land (and thus labor) are way too expensive in the Bay Area to see a resurgence of high volume manufacturing. It'd be more likely to see manufacturing make a comeback a short flight away from SF where land is plentiful. That way you could easily make day trips to the factory and receive goods via truck within a day.

ChuckMcM 8y ago
I disagree, there are already quite a few manufacturing facilities in the bay area. They don't grab the headlines but when you drive through the industrial parts of town they are all there. There is the Tesla plant (fairly high volume), there are three glass/window factories in Oakland (fairly high volume), probably a dozen printed circuit board houses of various volumes, a number of tool and die shops around south SF and Berkeley and elsewhere, at least two sheet metal fabrication plants in south San Jose. Intuitive Surgical has a surgical robot factory in Sunnyvale I believe. Nothing like a Foxconn "city factory", that is pretty clear. There is however the Gigafactory which is outside of Reno (to your point of being easy to get to). There is a lot of activity though.