Is Silicon Valley no longer start-up central in the US? 5 southern cities drawing tech companies like Tesla and Apple away from California to Texas, Georgia, Arizona and Florida

Author: South China Morning Post

For tech giants as well as aspiring wannabes, California’s Silicon Valley has long been the promised land but that may now be changing with even Apple itself decentralising to other parts of the US, joining an exodus that ramped up last year to unprecedented levels.

According to research by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, factors such as high tax rates (specifically on real estate), punitive regulations, high labour costs and declining quality of life are all contributing factors. Texas is the most popular state for relocation, already home to Oracle Corp and Hewlett Packard (HP) offices, as well as Tesla, Elon Musk’s game-changing carmaker. Arizona, newly dubbed the “Silicon Desert”, is a start-up hotbed, attracting the likes of Uber, Yelp and Shutterfly, while Atlanta, Georgia – where giants such as Apple and Microsoft have expanded in recent years – is climbing up the tech hub rankings.

And as companies relocate, developers are meeting their workforce’s accommodation needs with new luxury residential projects that provide a Silicon Valley/New York-inspired urban live-work-play lifestyle.

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