Will Silicon Valley turn into Detroit?
baglady.dreamhosters.comWith all the layoffs over there and the cost of living and the ability for technomads to live anywhere and build great companies, I see no reason for Silicon Valley to remain there.
I know they were using the term as a metaphor, but SV people have their head in the clouds. Startups go there because the VCs are there, but the VCs are going under. They made bad investments in a lot of Web 2.0 companies with little value to the world. The cost of starting up is lower so entrepreneurs need less of their money and are demanding higher valuations. VCs don't call the shots as much anymore, so, at least internet, companies are starting up in other places.
But more to the point, as indicated in another article here about the higher ed bubble, we don't need to be investing more money in higher education. There's plenty of room to educate more people in the engineering, mathematics, and practical sciences in the United States. What we need to do is shift our culture from one emphasizing popularity and entertainment to one of value and productivity.
Spend more money helping, guiding, and encouraging the best and the brightest, and start leaving some children behind. It sounds callous, but we have to do it. We have to think about our future and the achievers and the motivated students who want to learn need a place to do it. This needs to happen way before higher education. It needs to start in kindergarten.
Stop the federal subsidies for sports stadiums and start buying books and computers for our schools. Stop buying gyms and helmets and football fields and start buying chemistry sets, magnets and tesla coils!
We have to refocus our culture into one that sees benefits of productivity, intelligence, and rationality instead of entertainment, gluttony, and waste.
Silicon Valley is its own culture. If it were to actually die, it would be gone forever - there would be no replacement. There are enough people dedicated to the preservation of this culture to ensure that it will survive, even in the face of such dire economic straits (which will get worse). Every other place on Earth is, well, culturally unable to replicate the advantages of Silicon Valley. You can't buy it, you can't build it... Attempts to do so look like faux Roman statues in the backyard of a McMansion.
That being said, I really wish I could build a time machine and transport myself to Silicon Valley circa 1999. Felt as though it was the center of the universe, a place where you could become a mogul overnight, and where anything was just a Series A away from becoming reality. Yeah, it was totally ridiculous, but I find ridiculous things to be quite enjoyable.
I hated it because it was so silly. I am fundamentally a builder, but that era wasn't about smart people building cool stuff, it was a gold rush. I was happy to get out.
Good article ... though the point made about research scholars going back to their native land (India/China, particularly) to excel in their field, is little far fetched. Because in those countries, the daily grind of life is little overwhelming, so much energy is lost. But its all improving ... The schooling system and methods of teaching are very different as in India (from my own experience) and US, at least in elementary/high schools. And in USA, they have to emphasize on the grade school education system, if they have to remain competitive globally.
no.
Not that we couldn't use better government priorities. Also, per guidelines, better link would have been to TFA:
Well... other problems aside, SV has some things going for it that won't change, like climate and topography, that Detroit will never have.
SV has some things going for it [...] topography, that Detroit will never have.
SV is a port area located next to a bay. Detroit is a port city located next to a river. How is SV's topography better than Detroit's?
The highest point in the entire state of Michigan is lower than the hills west of SV.
Flat topography would be an economic advantage, would it not?
Which is why Detroit is a thriving city, and hilly San Francisco is run down and derelict...? Maybe 100 years ago that was some kind of advantage, but not these days in the industries that SV relies on.
Maybe 100 years ago that was some kind of advantage
Interesting choice of date. 100 years ago SF was rebuilding from the giant earthquake that had leveled most of the city three years before.
So, yeah, Detroit's got certain topographical advantages. People just can't remember that, because essentially none of the current residents of the Bay Area were living there in 1906, and human memory is short. But there may come a day when you remember. It'll be one day after one third of the buildings fall down and the water taps stop working.
And now for the public service announcement: If you live in the Bay Area, stockpile some drinking water and bolt your shelves to the wall!
Seismography != Topography :-) They had a big earthquake in 1989, right? So it's not that old a memory in any case.
They had a big earthquake in 1989, right?
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/prepare/future
There are two things wrong with that. First, Loma Prieta was not the big one. It was a moderately big one, certainly destructive to some parts of the Bay Area, but nowhere near the size of the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. [...] The new report also says that the next one will most likely strike farther north than Loma Prieta, somewhere between San Jose and Santa Rosa on either side of the Bay. The epicenter of the October 1989 quake was in a sparsely populated area. The next one, according to the study, will likely be centered in a more populated area.
Detroit is a thriving city, and hilly San Francisco is run down
Actually, the opposite is true, and hilliness is not the only factor in play. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spurious_relationship
Hilliness is not an economic factor at all. Well, perhaps with the exception of some hill towns in central Italy that are still fairly inaccessible, I don't think it really matters in this day and age, in our industry, except for the fact that it makes a place more pleasant to live for many people, like me.
This is where I live now, and the economy isn't that bad:
http://www.welton.it/photos/innsbruck/innsbruck_panorama.htm...
Hilliness is not a factor at all.
Did you not just post several messages claiming the opposite?
Are you seriously arguing that Detroit is a better place to be a programmer/"knowledge worker" because it's flat?
My question was: "How is SV's topography better than Detroit's?". Your answer to that question was essentially that SV's advantage is hilliness:
SV has some things going for it [...] topography, that Detroit will never have. [...] The highest point in the entire state of Michigan is lower than the hills west of SV.
Am I chatting with M-x doctor or what?
Flat places are boring. Hills are nice. There are lots of sports where having some hills is more or less necessary. Who likes to go hiking in the corn fields? Grapes for wine are best grown on hills. Thus, SV (and California in general, outside of the valley) is better.
Subjective? Entirely.
But probably true for more people than those who absolutely love monotonous flat places. In terms of voting with their feet, SV beats the rust belt "hands down". If someone simply doesn't care about having some hills or mountains, than perhaps that's not an advantage for them in SV. But the climate is still quite nice, as well as access to the ocean, for some people.
I actually wouldn't want to go back there, but it's got a lot of attractive things.
Points to detroit for proximity to plentiful fresh water and arable land. SoCal is in a long term freshwater pickle, remember.
Exactly - even if the tech economy completely disappeared, people would still want to live there.