| Chapter 1: | From “The Valleyof Heart’s Delight” to “Silicon Valley” |
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Even though in 1960 there were still as many as 215 food-processing operations in the area, it was clear by the 1970s that Silicon Valley had emerged as the undisputed leader in global technological productivity (Matthews, 1999).
The decline in agriculture and the concomitant growth of manufacturing made Silicon Valley one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country. In a 30-year time span, between 1950 and 1980, the population of Santa Clara County grew from 290,000 to 1,250,000. In 1951, the Western Electronics Manufacturers Association had 20 members in Santa Clara County. After a period of merely 4 years, the number had risen to 53. By 1974, even before Silicon Valley had become a household name, approximately 800 hi-tech firms had located in the towns that make up Silicon Valley today—Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park—employing a total of 150,000 people (Bylinsky, 1974; Findlay, 1992). The reshaping of Santa Clara Valley after 1940 also entailed a shift from the popu-lation center of San Jose to the industrial economy revolving around the research and technology center emerging at the northern end of the Valley, near Stanford University. The shift, from the “Valley of Heart’s Delight” to “Silicon Valley,” occurred as a result of a combination of military funding and the presence of a university that advocated close links with local industry, creating a dynamic region with a unique technical community.
In the Shadow of the Cold War: The Role of Military Spending
After his retirement in 1965, Frederick Terman, the doyen of Stanford University and often considered the “father of Silicon Valley,” served as a consultant for regions that were trying to boost local economies through investment in hi-tech industries.