silicon Valley




Silicon Valley is a nickname for the southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the northern part of the U.S. state of California. The "valley" in its name refers to the Santa Clara Valley in Santa Clara County, which includes the city of San Jose and surrounding cities and towns, where the region has been traditionally centered. The region has expanded to include the southern half of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County, and southern portions of the East Bay in Alameda County.
The word "silicon" originally referred to the large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers in the region, but the area is now the home to many of the world's largest high-tech corporations, including the headquarters of 39 businesses in the Fortune 1000, and thousands of startup companies. Silicon Valley also accounts for one-third of all of the venture capital investment in the United States, which has helped it to become a leading hub and startup ecosystem for high-tech innovation and scientific development. It was in the Valley that the silicon-based integrated circuit, the microprocessor, and the microcomputer, among other key technologies, were developed. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of a million information technology workers.[1]
As more high-tech companies were established across the Santa Clara Valley, and then north towards the Bay Area's two other major cities, San Francisco and Oakland, the "Silicon Valley" has come to have two definitions: a geographic one, referring to Santa Clara County, and a metonymical one, referring to all high-tech businesses in the Bay Area or even in the United States. The term is now generally used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. The name also became a global synonym for leading high-tech research and enterprises, and thus inspired similar named locations, as well as research parks and technology centerswith a comparable structure all around the world.

Economy

Overview[edit]

Silicon Valley has a social and business ethos that supports innovation and entrepreneurship. Attempts to create "Silicon Valleys" in environments where disruptive innovation does not go over well have a poor track record.[42]
According to a 2008 study by AeA in 2006, Silicon Valley was the third largest high-tech center (cybercity) in the United States, behind the New York metropolitan area and Washington metropolitan area, with 225,300 high-tech jobs. The Bay Area as a whole however, of which Silicon Valley is a part, would rank first with 387,000 high-tech jobs. Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of high-tech workers of any metropolitan area, with 285.9 out of every 1,000 private-sector workers. Silicon Valley has the highest average high-tech salary at $144,800.[43] Largely a result of the high technology sector, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area has the most millionaires and the most billionaires in the United States per capita.[44]
The region is the biggest high-tech manufacturing center in the United States.[45][46] The unemployment rate of the region was 9.4% in January 2009, up from 7.8% in the previous month.[47] Silicon Valley received 41% of all U.S. venture investment in 2011, and 46% in 2012.[48] More traditional industries also recognize the potential of high-tech development, and several car manufacturers have opened offices in Silicon Valley to capitalize on its entrepreneurial ecosystem.[49]
Manufacture of transistors is, or was, the core industry in Silicon Valley. The production workforce[50] was for the most part composed of Asian and Latina immigrants who were paid low wages and worked in hazardous conditions due to the chemicals used in the manufacture of integrated circuits. Technical, engineering, design, and administrative staffs were in large part [51] well compensated.[52]
Many more jobs (400,000 during the period 2010 to 2015) are created in Silicon Valley than housing built (60,000 units during the period 2010 to 2015).[53] Housing prices are extremely high, far out of the range of production workers.[54] As of 2016 a two-bedroom apartment rented for about $2,500 while the median home price was about $1 million.[53] The Financial Post called Silicon Valley the most expensive U.S. housing region.[55] Homelessness is a problem with housing beyond the reach of middle-income residents; there is little shelter space other than in San Jose which, as of 2015, was making an effort to develop shelters by renovating old hotels.[56]


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