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Silicon With the Wind
San Jose is making a grab for the valley's fabled appellation
By Brian D. Rossman
Warning: the following is a biased, uneven, one-sided rant of provincialism.
By now you are familiar with the copycat epithets given to areas throughout the world attempting to cash in on our high-tech cachet. I am talking about Silicon Alley in New York, Silicon Gulch in Austin, Texas, and my personal favorite, Silicon Bog in Ireland. It seems that every city, county or town has silicon sticking out of its aspirations.
The phenomenon of naming a geographic region based on its indigenous commercial exploits derives by all accounts from the medieval era. During the period that gave rise to the Knights of the Round Table, it was quite common for travelers looking for the Holy Grail to cross Pillage Point on their way to Plunderville. In the 1970s, this practice began its resurgence when the Santa Clara Valley was dubbed Silicon Valley.
As with any homage that has been overdone (Woodstock III, The Phantom Menace, Dennis Rodman's tattoos), the name-game has gotten a bit out of hand. Have you heard of Silicon Valais? Or Silicorn Valley? No? Apparently, like me, you are still unfamiliar with the thriving high-tech sectors located in Valais, Switzerland, or Fairfield, Iowa.
Another erstwhile remnant of Siliconanity is the infighting that occurs when a municipality claims the designation as its own. Take, for instance, our own Silicon Valley. Since electronics writer Don Hoeffler coined the term in 1972, Silicon Valley has almost become synonymous with the entire Bay Area, moving well beyond the boundaries of the Santa Clara Valley. Meanwhile, during the last couple of years, the city of San Jose has begun a subtle campaign to claim the appellation as its own. Take a peek at its website, or at the business card of a city employee. Both trumpet the claim that San Jose is the "Capital of Silicon Valley."
I did not write this column to sound the alarm about San Jose's manifest destiny. As any native of unincorporated Santa Clara County can attest, however, the city of San Jose will keep encroaching on an unsovereign area (be it real or intellectual property) until it has full rein over it. Ask formerly unincorporated Willow Glen. When it was founded in 1927, Willow Glen was its own entity. Little by little, San Jose kept inching closer until one day, KA-BOOM: Willow Glen was part of the "Capital of Silicon Valley."
My old block on Midway Street once faced the same fate. But our beloved city of Campbell came to the rescue by offering its city services instead. "Join us," it crooned. "We won't ignore you. We are strip malls and stoplights, not a sprawling metropolis."
Accordingly, to return the favor in kind, I suggest we claim "Silicon Valley," or some derivative, for our beloved city. Sunnyvalians unite! We have just as much right to be the Capital of Silicon Valley as does San Jose. We have bigger Internet companies.
We know that Silicon Valley was, is and always will be northern Santa Clara County. And that Sunnyvale was and always will be "the heart of Silicon Valley."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
