This has been predicted for decades now, but always misses a key point for SV being so successful. The SF Bay Area is one of the most diverse places to live and work in the US. Your managers, colleagues, and the area are from very different backgrounds, and when you bring together this diverse set of people, you end up creating things that 99% of the world uses.
Outside of LA and the NY metro area, diversity drops drastically. So while there maybe a growth in research parks/tax advantaged zones to attract satellite offices and software startups, HQ’s are still going to be based where the diverse talent lives.
The second point is Americans simply are not pursuing the highest levels of education. Masters and PhD programs are filled with immigrants, and new departments are frequently established by hiring such highly educated people. And it turns out, it’s safer and more enjoyable for immigrants to live where they’re accepted and already have communities.
One can hope that America becoming more diverse in the future will cause other more diverse areas to be established, but that depends on the politics of the area. Educated people tend to not associate with right wing/republican policies, and these areas will have to embrace that and not just devolve to gerrymandering. And that means your neighbors and communities also have to embrace diversity.
Immigrants are pursuing advanced degrees because a) the immigration system incentivizes it and b) specific immigrant populations have specific experiences in living memory where education was the only path from medieval subsistence farming to modern industrialized life in the cities, and/or the only asset that Communists couldn’t effectively seize.
I don’t think it’s at all the case that CS PhD programs are causally responsible for Silicon Valley’s progress, except to the extent that brilliant people were also incentivized by immigration authorities or their families to be in PhD programs at some point.
Outside of LA and the NY metro area, diversity drops drastically. So while there maybe a growth in research parks/tax advantaged zones to attract satellite offices and software startups, HQ’s are still going to be based where the diverse talent lives.
The second point is Americans simply are not pursuing the highest levels of education. Masters and PhD programs are filled with immigrants, and new departments are frequently established by hiring such highly educated people. And it turns out, it’s safer and more enjoyable for immigrants to live where they’re accepted and already have communities.
One can hope that America becoming more diverse in the future will cause other more diverse areas to be established, but that depends on the politics of the area. Educated people tend to not associate with right wing/republican policies, and these areas will have to embrace that and not just devolve to gerrymandering. And that means your neighbors and communities also have to embrace diversity.