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

Escape from Silicon Valley

[Skyshadow]

Affordible housing, jobs, stability, light traffic, companies with reasonable hours, good schools... All the same things that we in the Silicon Valley have to offer...

(pauses, frowns)

Re:Escape from Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, problem with the south is the education sucks because they just won't tax their citizens enough. They gain a few bucks in the beginning, but lose out in the end. Classic libertarian failure story; low taxes, almost no fair labor practices, anti-union, few environmental regulations, but the economy still sucks.

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...

Re:Escape from Silicon Valley

[deanstevenson]

There is no problem in the South. The South is growing at a rapid clip which is evidenced by new home sales, increased traffic, and an increasing number of jobs of varied skill levels. The economy there certainly does not 'suck' any more than other regions of the country during a recession. It is time to stop using the South as a punching bag and start acknowledging what has actually transpired there in the past 15 years as far as progress is concerned.

Does Distance Matter?

[idfrsr]

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

Does it matter how far you are away now things like distributed systems, video conference calls and such are making the distance less and less of a practical issue.

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.

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.)

Sili-Hudson Valley?

[Lev13than]

I hear their next project is to turn Churchill, Manitoba into Sili-Hudson's Bay.

TECH VALLEY YEAH!

[dasmegabyte]

I live in Tech Valley, (Wynantskill, actually) and I can tell you a few of the reasons why it's so popular:

1) Though taxes are high, the cost of living and operating are low -- at least 20-30% lower than in NYC. Which means you can offer an employee less money and it'll be worth more to them. Insurance is also cheaper.

2) Tons of infrastructure. A lot of big fat unfettered pipes and buildings waiting to be filled.

3) Nice setting. Those pictures of your corporate headquarters at the top of a rolling green hill surrounded by trees sure beat the arrow-pointing-to-an-office-floor stuff some people have to deal with. We've got nice sprawl for your employees, too (not a good thing if you, as i do, live on the street leading to the sprawl, but there you are).

4) RPI. RPI graduates tons of brilliant tech youths with experience in wierd technology. RPI honors and grad students create all sorts of brilliant tech advances, and when they get their sheepskins they'll need some place to hole out for 20-30 years. A wise tech company grabs them while they're young and cheap...we have a dozen consulting companies around for this reason; hell, even Microsoft has a recruitment office here.

5) Dude, you're 2 hours from Canada, 2 hours from the City, 2 hours from the shore, Cape Cod in the summer, Vermont in the winter...it's nice in NY man.

The answer is in the question

[Rupert]

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

slightly further up:

New York State will supply the remaining $210 million

It always feels good to get money back from the government.

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).

One Word Explains it: "Illuminati"

[FortKnox]

Have you ever been to New York state (not the city, but upstate)??

Its well forested, which is wonderful cover for Illuminati complexes.

In desert areas, like Area51, humans eventually figure out something strange is going on; but in well forested areas, people just laugh at hunters "wild" stories.

The Illuminati want the consortium, so they brought it close to home so no good secrets would leak outside their grip, before they allowed it.

Now, I will give you specific coordinates to the entrance to their complex... wait... I hear someone com

Middle of Nowhere

[Oculus Habent]

Some good points about being away from everything:

• At night, you don't here sirens, and gunfire, and cars, and "city noise". You hear crickets, and wind, and a few cars.
• When you want a breath of fresh air, you can get it.
• If you want to go camping or hiking, swimming or fishing, et cetera, you can. You don't have to spend a few thousand planning a getaway when you're almost there.
• At night, you can drive to where there are no street lights, and see the Milky Way. You can count shooting stars - even without meteor showers.
• You can visit big cities and experience all the good things they have to offer if you choose, without having to life with the bad things.

Of course, much of this depends on how far away from everything you are. And for those who want the best of both worlds - most times a large corporate development goes in, the surrounding areas become more metropolitan.

And:

• I don't ACTUALLY want to go to Miami or San Diego. Some people don't enjoy large cities, while others do.
• If you think Albany, NY is the sticks, you've never travelled the open expanses of the Mid-West or the woods of Maine. Check the National Atlas and look at population density.
• There may not be as many places to go, but there's plenty to do.

Just thoughts.

Their Poor Children!

[nick_davison]

Has nobody told them that since the end of the dotcom boom, there's been a mandatory death sentence on anyone coining Silicon[Exciting Geographic Term]?! Their poor children will now have to grow up alone, knowing Daddy was too stupid to avoid buzzword Silicon- prefixes.

Have you noticed how every state seemed have a SiliconSomewhere two years ago that was going to push that state forward and now no one remembers them except for the poor fools who thought moving from SiliconValley to SiliconCornPlanes really was a good career move?

Still, at least he can go to SiliconJail before being executed at SiliconGallows, his body taken along SiliconRoad to SiliconGraveyard and dumped in SiliconHoleintheground.

Of course, whoever came up with this also probably still calls themselves an E-Consultant and still works for an i-deas firm.