Why The Valley Will Rule
Sep 28, 2009
2 Comments
Recently I attended a "green" event in a certain neighborhood in Los Angeles. The gathering started on a dubious note. I had skipped the raw vegan dinner, which I suppose could have been appetizing. But when I showed up, I was informed the crew was running late, and the start of the discussion ended up running one hour after the planned time. Then there was the dinner scene. Dining was outside, which is always a bonus, but it was in a parking lot, which would have been acceptable had there not been a few garbage dumpsters in the lot--and the food was placed between those dumpsters and a row of garbage bins. Finally the event started, and we were welcomed to this "monumental event," hosted in what may have been a yoga room--though it felt like bikram yoga to me. I think this was supposed to be a salon of the green intelligentsia--except there wasn't much intelligence. Diversity was praised and preached--though there were zero non-white people in the room. Granted, this was an extreme example, but the experience reminded me why the epicenter of the "green revolution" will be in an area at which the the far-left activist crowd sneer: Silicon Valley.As much as I enjoy living in Los Angeles, I do not see much happening here in renewable energy, and sustainability in general, besides solar. In fact, Orange County could have a larger green tech presence than the City of Angels. One issue is that the area just does not scream sustainability--public transportation is lacking and there are far too many extremes of wealth here. The venture capital community is small. Finally, it's an unruly area. You have the City of LA itself, which is over-regulated, allowing the LADWP to strangle its customers with inflexible sourcing of fossil-based fuels. Add another 90 or so cities within LA County that have its own agendas, and you have a business climate that turns you shades of red out of frustration instead providing shades of green innovation.
Enter Silicon Valley. First of all, the area benefits enormously from the huge number of innovators and entrepreneurs that already live there. They have witnesses the hype, promise, and frustration of dot-com and biotechnology. The area's politicians are pragmatic: Democrats and Republicans gravitate towards the middle, focusing on getting tasks done instead of maintaining rigid ideology. There is a huge venture capital presence here, which of course is now smaller, but is experienced in vetting companies and seeing what works. It's a population that pushes itself, unlike the activist crowd about which I just mentioned, which just applauds itself. Plus, Silicon Valley does not preach diversity: it is diverse. People come from all over the USA and abroad to work, work, and then . . . work. Add the fact that the area benefits from two top universities with stellar business and engineering schools, the graduates of whom generally want to stay. Then add alumni of other public and private regional universities, and you have a skilled, motivated workforce. Finally, while the transportation system is not ideal, it's decent for the west coast: tracks are everywhere from San Jose's light rail to BART to CalTrain. Many visitors blanch at what looks like tepid suburbia, but overall, the area is sustainable: there are bike lanes everywhere, well maintained sidewalks are omnipresent, and most kids can walk to school. Most residents can walk to services and shops; remember that this area was once a collection of villages that just grew into each other over time.
I'm always asked: how do I find a green job? I think I need to start answering, "Move up north!"
That is very interesting that you are bringing up the fact that greenie people stick together in an area where it is easier to stick together–where access to green information is not hard to come by. Living in San Francisco I would run into the once a month Friday Mass Bicyclists who would clog the streets, pounding on peoples cars and yelling negative slurs at those driving fossil fuel transportation. How do they think their food and natural moisturizer get to the city? I would always think “why are they here and not in other places where they could teach conservation? It’s just more fun to harass in a glamorous city where they can wear funky clothes and hang with their buddies at a cool nightspot having an imported beer that had to cross the Atlantic on ship and where their buying the latest exotic foods in the supermarket containing palm kernel oil”. Now, I love funky clothes and cool night spots–but I admire those who pioneer and say what they want and concentrate on that rather than what they don’t want. I guess since I know the way of small farm life and a lot of them don’t–it just sort of irks me that many might not be doing it if they weren’t in a progressive city. They are however on the right path and I see they do want to make a difference, even if it may seem it is being done in a youthful, foolhardy way. Maybe all of those I saw riding by me on Friday Night Mass have spread out to other parts of the country and world and that was their baby steps. We all have to start somewhere and their somewhere is admirable.
Thank you, Melanie. I completely agree. Events like this irk me because it’s full of self-congratulation and people feeling smug. Quite often, they are only preaching to the choir–while assuming other’s who are not like them are clueless and inferior. That’s why I just had to write this! GGP