5 ms·

Every city thinks they could be the "next silicon valley" because how hard can it be? Just need some office buildings and internet cables.

samstave 3y ago
I love your comment, but whats interesting is the need for CHEAP housing. AND internet cables, and cafes, and etc... But it is easier and cheaper to build this in detroit as infra should be cheaper; grab a quote from a micro-trenching vendor in detroit with their planning dept and tell me how much cheaper it is v california....
- throwawaylinux 3y ago
  You really think cheap housing is a big factor? You're looking to attract investors, entrepreneurs, and highly skilled engineers. You might stand to be a little cheaper than the bay area, but Detroit cheap isn't necessary surely. You actually want "nice" areas, and you'd want to have rapidly rising property values to encourage people to buy in and stay in the community. Silicon valley isn't silicon valley because it had cheap property or cafes or internet cables -- lots of places had cheap housing, and the internet didn't exist when SV was kicking off. The reasons are (among other things) that it is close to some of the best technology universities in the world, had significant defense and government technology opportunities and investment over a hundred years or so. You can't just spend a few billion and pop up a new one of those somewhere. And I'm speculating here, but the hip vibe of California and San Francisco in the 60s and 70s, and the relatively large proportion of Asian immigrants at the time quite possibly helped to draw in young, creative, talented people. Also something that's difficult to conjure up out of nowhere. It's actually a confluence of things that won't be possible to reproduce again because hundreds of cities are trying to do it so there will be no such singular center of gravity.
  - samstave 3y ago
    Im not disagreeing with you, but some context to my statement ;; My grand parent bought their house in Saratoga, California in 1959 for 24,000. They sold it in ~1999 for ~2.5 million The area was all apple apricot and orange orchards. Gramps wasa nuclear engineer building bombs for General Elecrtic (one of the designers of Hanford -- manahattan shit) Silicon valley was built - literally upon the design of the IC - out of the founders of Intel from Fairchild (sunnyvale) (When I work at intl, andy grove and I had the same pee schedule (my cube was right next to his, and for some reason the only place we intereacted was the restroom, when we peed) Anyway - I have seen silicon valley evolve from orchards to chips... I've been here the whole time. Detroit can do it too.
CPLX 3y ago
Pretty much all the real high tech hubs had their seed in some large scale government program.
- throwawaylinux 3y ago
  A city is a large scale government program by definition. Of course a "new silicon valley" needs conducive government infrastructure, laws, support, that is necessary. But not sufficient. You can't just government programme you way to the next silicon valley.

samstave 3y ago

I love your comment, but whats interesting is the need for CHEAP housing. AND internet cables, and cafes, and etc... But it is easier and cheaper to build this in detroit as infra should be cheaper; grab a quote from a micro-trenching vendor in detroit with their planning dept and tell me how much cheaper it is v california....

throwawaylinux 3y ago
You really think cheap housing is a big factor? You're looking to attract investors, entrepreneurs, and highly skilled engineers. You might stand to be a little cheaper than the bay area, but Detroit cheap isn't necessary surely. You actually want "nice" areas, and you'd want to have rapidly rising property values to encourage people to buy in and stay in the community. Silicon valley isn't silicon valley because it had cheap property or cafes or internet cables -- lots of places had cheap housing, and the internet didn't exist when SV was kicking off. The reasons are (among other things) that it is close to some of the best technology universities in the world, had significant defense and government technology opportunities and investment over a hundred years or so. You can't just spend a few billion and pop up a new one of those somewhere. And I'm speculating here, but the hip vibe of California and San Francisco in the 60s and 70s, and the relatively large proportion of Asian immigrants at the time quite possibly helped to draw in young, creative, talented people. Also something that's difficult to conjure up out of nowhere. It's actually a confluence of things that won't be possible to reproduce again because hundreds of cities are trying to do it so there will be no such singular center of gravity.
- samstave 3y ago
  Im not disagreeing with you, but some context to my statement ;; My grand parent bought their house in Saratoga, California in 1959 for 24,000. They sold it in ~1999 for ~2.5 million The area was all apple apricot and orange orchards. Gramps wasa nuclear engineer building bombs for General Elecrtic (one of the designers of Hanford -- manahattan shit) Silicon valley was built - literally upon the design of the IC - out of the founders of Intel from Fairchild (sunnyvale) (When I work at intl, andy grove and I had the same pee schedule (my cube was right next to his, and for some reason the only place we intereacted was the restroom, when we peed) Anyway - I have seen silicon valley evolve from orchards to chips... I've been here the whole time. Detroit can do it too.

CPLX 3y ago

Pretty much all the real high tech hubs had their seed in some large scale government program.

throwawaylinux 3y ago
A city is a large scale government program by definition. Of course a "new silicon valley" needs conducive government infrastructure, laws, support, that is necessary. But not sufficient. You can't just government programme you way to the next silicon valley.