Screw the Valley

Screw the Valley is indeed a coast-to-coast tour of America's new tech start-up culture as its subtitle promises.  The cities featured in Timothy Sprinkle’s work include New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, and Kansas City.  If you are interested in high-tech or entrepreneurship, give this book a look.

Sprinkle aimed the book at those who are contemplating beginning a business, but students who are choosing a college and/or a career would also find information of interest.

Screw the Valley describes the culture and opportunities with a chapter devoted to each of 7 cities well outside of the famed Silicon Valley. While I can understand the author’s ignoring Seattle and other West Coast locations, I was a little surprised not to see anything about Boston. If your favorite is not included in the book, it might appear in this 2011 Business Journals list of America’s Top 100 High-Tech Centers. That chart is a fascinating look at the number of companies and the percentage of adults with master’s and/or doctoral degrees.

Interested readers and students of human geography should also look at earlier works such as  Who's Your City by Richard Florida (2008), My Start-Up Life by Ben Casnocha (2007) or even The Big Sort by Bill Bishop (2008). A somewhat related and more global perspective is offered in Geography of Thought by Richard Nisbett (2004), The Power of Place by Harm DeBlij (2009) and the fascinating picture book, If the World were a Village by David Smith (2002).