Big Idea 2014: Goodbye Silicon Valley, Hello Silicon Cities
Bruce Katz
Vice President and Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at The Brookings Institution
December 10, 2013
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As the United States slowly emerges from the Great Recession, led by our cities and metropolitan areas, a remarkable shift is occurring in the spatial geography of innovation.
For the past fifty years, the landscape of innovation has been epitomized by regions like Silicon Valley — suburban corridors of spatially isolated corporate campuses, accessible only by car, with little emphasis on the quality of life or on integrating work, housing and recreation.
That model now appears outdated.
Innovative companies and talented workers are revaluing the physical assets and attributes of cities. A new spatial geography of innovation is emerging and, in 2014, it will reach a critical mass worthy of recognition and replication.
This new model — the Innovation District — clusters leading-edge anchor institutions and cutting-edge innovative firms, connecting them with supporting and spin-off companies, business incubators, mixed-use housing, office, retail and 21st century urban amenities.
Innovation Districts are already found in the downtowns and midtowns of Atlanta, Cambridge, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco and St. Louis, where existing clusters of advanced research universities, medical complexes, and tech and creative firms are sparking business expansion as well as residential and commercial growth.
Others are taking root in cities such as Boston and Seattle where underutilized areas — particularly older industrial lands — are being re-imagined and remade by leveraging their enviable location near waterfronts and downtowns and along transit lines.
Still others are developing in traditional exurban science parks like Research Triangle Park outside Raleigh-Durham, which is scrambling to urbanize in line with the preferences of their workers for walkable communities and the preferences of their firms to be near other firms and collaborative opportunities.
Why is this happening? Profound demographic, economic and cultural shifts are radically altering the preferences of both firms and people, re-forging the link between economy-shaping and place-making.
The prototypical family of the suburban era — a married couple with school-age children — now represents only 20 percent of households, down from over 40 percent in 1970. “Quality of life” is increasingly understood as proximity to restaurants, retail, cultural and educational institutions, and other urban amenities. Young professionals are starting families later and, in the meantime, demanding a vibrant street life, historic neighborhoods, and public transit.
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