Why exactly does the UK want a Silicon Valley again

The info revolution has actually brought the US very little. The country in the midst of battling crippling debt, rising unemployment it can’t deal with, and an economy that has largely relative ground to a halt. Oh, nearly forgot crumbling infrastructure and lack of anything resembling a social support system. Yet the bubble around Silicon Valley just keeps on expanding and enveloping what little common sense might be left anywhere else people want to make software.

Here in the UK, there is a slight but quickly fading amount of intelligence around what to do about this internet/innovation/technology beast, business and the government eventually getting its piece of the latter. Most of the talk seems to be about just copying what’s happening in the bubble. This of course would automatically replicate itself into sort of new British Silicon Empire built on software developers in hoodies in overpriced former slums of London instead of tea, textiles and ships. So the powers that be which have no idea in general about the technology and the people building it have decided this is the UK’s way out of the recession from which we’ve never really recovered.

The fact is that Silicon Valley, and what will soon be known as the Third Big Burst when photo apps stop being worth billions, has done very little for the US’s economy besides drive up house prices in small parts of California, New York and a smattering of other hastily gentrified cities. The US did best economically before this alleged ‘Information Revolution’ when Silicon Valley actually made things out of silicon instead of things made out of people talking about themselves.