Technopole
[1] The term was coined by Allen J. Scott in 1990 to describe regions in Southern California which showed a rapid growth in high technology fields.
The components of a technopole usually comprise local firms, universities, financial institutions and public research organizations.
[6] Governments and corporations tend to continue to heavily invest in technopoles in hopes of gaining economic prosperity.
[13][14] The vicinity around Cambridge has been nicknamed 'Silicon Fen' in some articles due to the agglomeration of software and other tech companies based there, and the university's research output.
Manchester in the North-West of England has attracted several prominent national and international companies to set up presences there, as well as a burgeoning startup scene emerging with the growth and re-invention of the city in the past 20 years.
[15] Writer Joel Stratte-McClure of Time Magazine described a technopole in southern France called Sophia Antipolis which had 1,200 companies in a sprawling development twenty minutes away from the airport in Nice.
[16][17] According to the report, the technopole featured hiking trails and jogging paths and riding stables and golf courses and signs which indicate the names of various species of plants, and with street names which were "slightly pretentious" such as "Rue Dostoevski" and "Rue Albert Einstein" criss-crossing rolling hills with pine trees.
[24] Terman helped his students, such as William Hewlett and David Packard, to initiate their own companies and at times even personally invested in them.
[25] These expanded networks have enabled a rapid exchange of information resulting in the formation of new businesses, research, and development opportunities.
[26] Silicon Valley remains one of the leading technopoles of the world to date with its competitive entrepreneurs, its innovative workforce and its firm base of investors.
Route 128 was a stretch of highway in the Greater Boston Area with many research and industrial facilities[28] The route linked many towns in the greater Boston area and many technology firms relocated there for its proximity to universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge and Harvard.
MIT continues to solicit contracts from corporations and is still highly regarded as an institution that is a leader in technological innovations.
Other technopoles in the United States include places such as Austin, TX; Denver-Boulder, CO; Huntsville, AL; Lafayette, IN; Madison, WI; Philadelphia-Wilmington-Trenton; Raleigh-Durham, NC; San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose and Seattle, Washington.
