

It’s Not About Creating Another Silicon Valley but Preventing Another Motor City - prostoalex
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/17/entrepreneurial-ecosystem-global-lessons-its-not-about-creating-another-silicon-valley-but-preventing-another-motor-city/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

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Sanddancer
It's an interesting piece, however, I think it's misguided as to what needs to
be done. Detroit fell not as much because the auto makers moved away, but
because once they did, there was nothing left. This is a huge problem that I
see in this area; friends with skills and desire in professions like medicine
end up having to become sysadmins because it's the only way to make ends meet
in the upside down economy of this area. You can't have a sustainable area
economy if the working class has to commute from Stockton to do the "menial
jobs".

Among other things, I think it's high time that the big players -- Google,
Facebook, etc -- started growing upward rather than outwards. Sprawl is a
terrible waste of land, and pushes prices that much higher, and that much more
out of the way of the other people who live in the area. In order for this
area to remain awesome, we really do need the Google Tower, the Facebook
Tower, etc, in order to give enough space for new and small people to be able
to get a foothold. Otherwise, I have a bad feeling that the Fabulous Ruins of
the Silicon Valley is going to have stark photographs of abandoned sprawling
compounds, much like Detroit's ruin porn has now.

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jinushaun
Likelihood of towers being approved by Bay Area city councils?

