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During last week's launch event for Heart of Gold, larta's report on the Southern California life sciences industry, the subject of the panel discussion, and a central theme throughout the report, was the lingering problem of the region's inability to brand itself as a leading bioscience center, despite the fact that it has a larger employment force and more companies then San Diego and the Bay Area, which are recognized as the nation's bioscience hotspots. The branding dilemma issues identified throughout Heart of Gold echo the continuing paradox affecting the other sectors of Southern California's technology industry. The industry's resources and possibilities are present, yet the complex and often cyclical problems cause an ongoing stagnation--, urban sprawl which does not foster easy industry "clustering, the often negative generalizations of California in general and Los Angeles in particular, the lack of media recognition, the area's reputation as a Hollywood-only destination, the chasm between professionals and resources, the low rate of technology transfer. All of these issues have caused the Southern California technology industry to suffer the effects of an identity crisis, a siliconia that is robust yet largely unseen. The Right Start Southern California's technology history was the product of as sudden a boom as its other early twentieth century counterpart, the motion picture industry. *With the mass deployment of utility infrastructures and freeway construction in the early part of the century, the region had established an ample engineering and scientific community. Meanwhile Pasadena-based Caltech, founded in the late 19th century, had also become the nation's most prominent science university by the 30s. After the demand for hard science flourished in the second World War, Southern California saw its most significant ascent in hi-tech activity with the aerospace boom which, between 1947 and 1957, had accounted for almost half of Southern California's economic growth. The area's large pool of scientific and technical talent also spawned "spill-over" sciences, such as computing, medical devices, communications and biotechnology. Despite
the fact that there was significant activity in these areas, Southern
California's technology image centered largely upon aerospace
and defense. Thus, when the downsizing came in the early 1990s,
most economists, the media and government predicted general economic
decline which would have catastrophic effects on the entire region.
Image and Identity "The outside perception is still that LA is not a technology center and it continually runs against these obstacles," said Ross DeVol, a prominent economist with the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. "When we did the America's High Tech Economy report, many people directly and not so directly mentioned that they felt the only reason we included some of the digital entertainment in the high tech definition is because we wanted to boost LA's standing. This is a major branding issue for the region. It's one thing to think you're important yourself but to have other people recognize your importance is a different matter." Aside from living in the Silicon Valley shadow, Southern California's tech industry also has had to struggle with the large amount of negative associations about both California and particularly Los Angeles. The lack of understanding about the geographical reaches of the area led to generalized descriptions which lumped together significantly overachieving areas like Pasadena, Ventura County and Orange County into the negative mix. As DeVol noted, to most people, Los Angeles is, "earthquakes, floods riots," as well as a flurry of other complex and often contradictory perceptions--smog-ridden, a wasteland of crime and gangs, racially hostile, while also overly-decadent, relaxed and frivolous. These perceptions took a particularly harsh turn in the early 1990s during the wave of highly sensationalized violence and disasters, such as the Rodney King beatings and the subsequent riots, the flooding, earthquakes and even the OJ Simpson trial. Mainstream media frequently depicted the region as a corrupt, urban hell whose glamorous veneer was merely a mask for the third world city that lived beneath it. This perceived death of the California dream was evident even in the most frivolous tides of pop culture. When the long awaited 1982 sci-fi cult-favorite Escape From New York was followed up with a sequel in 1995, the film's producer decided to relocate the end-of-the-world tale to Los Angeles because LA was a more "believable" setting for apocalypse. "Remember the headlines?," noted author and economist Joel Kotkin, in a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, The Bashers Are Back. "'California: End of the Dream,' 'California Dream Turns Into a Nightmare,' 'State of Collapse.' The doomsayers were not just trend-jumping journalists but also Wall Street analysts such as Prudential Bache's George Salem, who wrote in 1992 that California, 'appears in the early stages of a long-term economic slide.' It would take at least a decade to recover, he proclaimed, if ever." Despite the continually arguable aspects of what California and Los Angeles offers in terms of quality of life, the state and the region managed to disprove much of the gloomy economic forecasts throughout the 90s, even under the weight of the aerospace cutbacks. *In Los Angeles county, unemployment rates dropped steadily, from below 10 percent in 1995 to 7 percent by 1997. The technology sector also witnessed steady growth, particularly in the biosciences which saw a significant employment boom, where between 1994 and 1996 employment in public bio companies more than doubled. click here for Part 2 of 3: The Sum of Its Parts- The Geographical Struggle by
Wendy Hall Coming
this fall from larta: larta
will premiere its latest regional research report this fall, the
Southern California Technology Innovation Index 2002, an
update to the 2001
report which compared the growth and activity of the region's
technology industry compared to other areas. An economic benchmark
for the Southern California region, with hard data derived from
various statistical indicators, such as numbers of companies and
employees, educational resources, and investments, the new index
will include both updated numbers and new sections on Santa Barbara
and New York, as well as in-depth policy analysis.
*research
from Southern
California in the Information Age, by Joel Kotkin. Joel
Kotkin's writings and information on his best-selling book New
Geography, can be found at his web page, www.newgeography.com. |
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