Will Silicon Valley turn into Detroit?

With 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.

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:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/181392

Well... other problems aside, SV has some things going for it that won't change, like climate and topography, that Detroit will never have.