The rise and decline of a technological city

Abstract

Renown for its intellectual vitality and economic dynamism, Silicon Valley is widely praised as the working model of what an advanced urban landscape has to offer: dynamic corporations, jobs, growing incomes, and intellectual excitement. While the standard origin myth praises bold entrepreneurs as the source of the Valley 's magic, a closer look shows that several decades of public spending on defense and aerospace technology laid the foundation for what later became private initiatives in computers and digital electronics for domestic markets. In the end, however, neither government involvement nor the creativity of high tech business succeed in producing a well formed urban environment. Those who inhabit the «Silicon Valley Super Region» today face a chaotic sprawl of roadways, long commuting times and stressful patterns of social life. Intensive infusions of information technology seem to exacerbate rather than solve these problems.