Sili-Hudson Valley?

guttentag writes "The New York Times reports Sematech (the international consortium of computer chip makers that turned Austin, TX into a tech center) plans to turn Albany, NY into a research hub. The consortium, which represents IBM, Intel, Motorola, HP, TI, AMD, Philips and others, will put up $193 million for the project while New York State will supply the remaining $210 million. The really unusual thing about the deal is that the state isn't offering any tax breaks or loans to lure the consortium to its capital. Why are they so excited about a location that is over 100 miles from their nearest constituent company (IBM)?"

Comments

why would they move?

[Maeryk]

Well, Albany is nicely located in NYS. Its also close enough to Canada that drawing people over the border to work there is feasible. Add to that the fact that its not a terrible part of the country weather/climate wise. (We dont get earthquakes, typhoons, torrential flooding, mudslides, wildfires a-la the west, and damn few tornados) and you have a safe place for your busines.

It is also considered NE corridor (or close to it) and they can probably suck in a lot of people who have been downsized/lost here due to the horrible economical situations of late. Many people probably wouldnt relocate to California or Texas, but might move an hour west to be in Albany from NYC.

Plus, you get all the people from NYC who dont want to live IN NYC but want to be close enough to visit.

I live about 2.5 hours from NYC, and we have people living here who work there, and *drive* there daily. the number of cars that sat empty in train and bus station lots after 9-11 kind of pointed that one home pretty hard.

Its not a bad part of the country.. NY state may also have much more lenient laws on things like pollution, building, etc etc. Probably lower land prices has a lot to do with it as well. And lower taxes.

Maeryk

Re:why would they move?

[catfood]

But I'm all for seeing New England revitalizing itself.

What does this article have to do with New England?

(Hint: New York isn't part of New England, even though York is part of England.)

Re:Does Distance Matter?

[Ioldanach]

Why are they so excited about a location that is over 100 miles from their nearest constituent company (IBM)?

Don't forget there are a few good colleges around here. Among them is RPI, which I recall being one of the first to get a chip going over 1GHz (1.2 GHz if I recall, before it melted). Add to that SUNY Albany, which is a pretty good state school, and there's GE Power Systems down the street, as well as Plug Power (Fuel Cell developers). Quite a few technical developments have come out of this area.

Re:I don't understand

[lucabrasi999]

The reason they aren't putting it in Charleston, SC is because Albany has RPI, Syracuse University, Cornell, NYU, Columbia, Yale, MIT and a whole slew of SUNY colleges all within about a three hour drive.

SC has Clemson and a bunch of Cocks (Gamecocks, that is).

Because Albany IS a hub already...

[Levendis47]

I went to school at RPI in Troy, NY (mmmm, how I miss Troy-gray skies)...
A few plusses for the Albany, NY area:

1) RPI has an excellent BigBlue-funded circuit design and nano/micro-tech program that's been growing and growing and growing over the past 10 years. Esp. now with Shirley Anne Jackson (the new Institute Prez) pushing hard for commerciallizing of the research and grad programs a la MIT.

2) Cost of living is dirt cheap. I live in Richmond,VA now, but the decade I spent in Albany pre/post-graduation, I never paid more than $500/month for rent and that got me a nice 800+ sqft. apartment on the Hudson waterfront.

3) It's close to everything that deams itself important in the Northeast... 3 hours to Manhatten, 5 hours to Philly, 2.5 hours to Boston, 1-3 hours to skiing and manufacturing in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachussetts, Connecticut, and PA, 3.5 hours to Canada.

4) There's still good money to be invested in NYC and investors there are now looking for business plans that cut overhead and operations costs from the get-go... what better a place than one that takes less time to drive to than Hoboken or Hartford?

Of course, I'm saying the same thing about Richmond, VA now... 8^) but kudos to them for seeing that area as greener pastures and not just a has-been relic that so many want to make it out to be.

ciao,
Levendis47

Re:Escape from Silicon Valley

[Preposterous Coward]

the housing isn't so affordable, the traffic isn't that light

Compared with what? This says the median house in Albany sold for $120,000 in January of this year. People living in most of the traditional tech-heavy parts of the country would consider that laughably inexpensive.

This source (Google cache, HTML) calls Albany the second-most affordable city (prices relative to income) in the nation, and says, "Outside New York City, Tri-State rental space deemed suitable for industrial R&D is one-third to one-quarter the cost of similar space in Silicon Valley, Boston, Dallas, or Seattle." And according to this, the overall cost of living in the Bay Area ranges from 75% higher (Berkeley) to 285% higher (Atherton, admittedly an exceptional case).

As for traffic: "Drivers in other urban areas such as Albany or Hartford experience only about one-quarter the delay of a West Coast driver."

I'd actually like to hear what you consider affordable housing or light traffic...