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I think the way to do it is not to compete with silicon valley directly but follow the path of Singapore and they caymans in betting big on a niche. Rather than

I think the way to do it is not to compete with silicon valley directly but follow the path of Singapore and they caymans in betting big on a niche. Rather than trying to be the best at everything like SV is, aim to be truly world class in just a few areas. I think there's probably a dozen cities in the world that could be world leaders in cloud computing simply by offering great deals on data centers as long as research and development work is also being done there. A city could leap to world class status for mobile/location based services by offering to buy every citizen a smartphone and then inviting startups to come experiment. Really, cities sho:ld take the exact same advice startups take: find a niche and serve it well rather than trying to crack the mass market with some luke warm offering.

pg 18y ago
The Valley itself started out working on what was initially a fairly small niche. And whatever displaces it will probably do the same. But to do this deliberately, the city would have to pick the niche that's going to explode, and that would be really hard. The Valley didn't pick semiconductors; more like the other way around.
russell 18y ago
Some of the niches have gigantic potential. Iceland and California should have a huge lead in geothermal. Germany has a couple of leading companies in solar panels. Denmark in wind. China is at the top of the list in coal pollution; solving that puts them at the head of the class in clean coal. Twenty-first century manufacturing is up for grabs; MI and PA should be in the running.