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

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.