Oedzge Atzema, Ton van Rietbergen, Jan Lambooy and Sjef van Hoof - Dynamics in economic geography

1.1 Rediscovery of economic geography

Box 1.1 Silicon Valley, the world’s most innovative region

The name Silicon Valley, first used by American journalist Don Hoefler in the early 1970s, referred to the emerging semiconductor industry in the southern San Fran cisco Bay area, a region stretching from Palo Alto to the north to San Francisco airport to the south, and from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the southwest to San José to the west. Prior to the arrival of high-tech companies, the region was known for its excellent plum orchards. The valley had a pleasant climate and none of the manic traffic of American metropolises.

Figure 1.3 Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley, home of the headquarters of Apple, Cisco, Google, Intel and Yahoo, is often considered the nursery for the semiconductor, the personal computer, the Internet and Google. Fredrick Terman, former Dean of the Stanford Engineering Faculty, is generally regarded as the Father of Silicon Valley. His aim was to create jobs for graduates near the university so they would not need to move to the East coast. In 1939, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built an oscillator for the Walt Disney

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