Mark Andreessen's half a good idea

Mark Andreessen has half a good idea here. He points out that while everyone's trying to create more Silicon Valleys that's not actually what we need. SV is the global agglomeration of the world's computing nerds and their necessary support services. That's what makes the place work. However, what we would rather like to have is similar global agglomerations of the world's materials processing nerds, of the geeks who get organic chemistry and so on. For this is the way that industries manage to develop: building themselves where people already grasp the basics. It's still true, for example, that if you'rte going to set up in non-ferrous metals in the UK you'll do it around Sheffield or Rotherham, if in pottery in the Potteries, chlorine chemistry is Tyne- and Tees- side.

So, politicians who would like a development cluster should look to what areas already have some footing in and then attempt to build upon them. That's sensible and that's the half the good idea. However, we then get to the other half:

Imagine a Bitcoin Valley, for instance, where some country fully legalizes cryptocurrencies for all financial functions. Or a Drone Valley, where a particular region removes all legal barriers to flying unmanned aerial vehicles locally. A Driverless Car Valley in a city that allows experimentation with different autonomous car designs, redesigned roadways and safety laws. A Stem Cell Valley. And so on. There’s a key difference from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come argument of yore. Here, the focus is more on driving regulatory competition between city, state and national governments. There are many new categories of innovation out there and entrepreneurs eager to go after opportunities within each of them. Rethinking the regulatory barriers in specific industries would better draw the startups, researchers and divisions of big companies that want to innovate in the vanguard of a particular domain—while also exploring and addressing many of the difficult regulatory issues along the way.

Selectively reduce the regulatory state in various areas and see what happens. But this doesn't go far enough: as we saw with the Urban Development Corporations of St. Maggie's era. For if reduced regulation is going to increase growth, and we are already assuming that, then why would we reduce regulation in only one geographic area?

Once we've accepted the basic argument, reduce regulation so as to encourage innovation, then our answer should be to reduce regulation everywheree.