Jonathon Weber argues in an article posted by Doug Henwood:
>Dot-coms are dead. Tech companies are bleeding. Easterners gloat over
>Silicon Valley's demise. But the West remains the land of opportunity.
This is mostly a collection of cliches (cliches being refracted partial truths), recycled from a book Joel Kotkin wrote two decades ago, _California Inc_.
>In the age of the Internet, people once thought "place" would be
>irrelevant. But place - particularly the West, and especially Silicon
>Valley - was at the heart of the business and technology revolution
>that came to be known as the Internet Economy. That revolution is now
>in retreat, and its struggle represents nothing so much as the
>triumph of the Eastern establishment over the renegades of the West.
Agreed, place matters. But is regional rivalry in the U.S. so simple as a West Coast-East Coast thang ? What about "Silicon Alley" and the "new media" sector in NYC ? The shards of Route 128 in Boston ? What about the fact that it is Texas and North Carolina capital cutting off California capital's power supply and taking over California capital's counting houses ? Isn't the U.S.' ruling class also divided along "bicoastal vs. heartland" lines ? Seems like the author's (again, partially accurate) construction of East-West rivalry is merely a useful tool for his warm embrace of (sic) "non-hierarchical entrepreneurialism". Believe me, the "West" is not of a piece about this -- I'm sure a "human potential entrepreneur" from Silicon Valley ("West") identifies a lot more with the Brookings Institute ("East") than he does a buckaroo robber baron like Charles Keating ("West").
Brad Mayer, you're always good and provocative on this regional stuff. Any comments ?
John Gulick