LETTERS TO THE EDITOR — Infrastructure, not imagination, buoys high-technology industry

A recent editorial, “Ears to hear” (T.N.M., Nov. 23-29/98), commented on Premier Glen Clark’s efforts to launch British Columbia into high-tech industries. This reminds me of the proposal put forward about 10 years ago by then-governor of Arizona Bruce Babbitt, now secretary of the interior.

Babbitt’s plan was to convert the cities of Phoenix and Tuscon into “high-tech” centres and the rest of the state into a de facto park to provide weekend recreation to these high-tech workers. No more mining, logging or ranching; just nice, green parks for the high-techies and vistas untouched by any person or industry.

Mining in Arizona decreased while growth of the high-tech industry increased, but not exactly as imagined by Babbitt. What Arizona received was an increase in minimum-wage, assembly-line work, not the design engineering or entrepreneurial derring-do of Silicon Valley in California or Route 128 near Boston. What Babbitt, and I suspect Clark, overlooked is that the infrastructure required for a truly high-tech industry includes world-class research facilities — such as Stanford, Berkley, M.I.T. — and a local venture capital industry ready to back engineering innovations with high-risk equity investment. Both Arizona and British Columbia have quality universities, but has the government of either jurisdiction actually provided the resources that are needed to support first-class research?

What economic advice should the governor and premier receive? For starters, killing a high-wattage industry in favor of one comprising low-wage, assembly-line work is economic hara-kiri. All economic opportunities must be seized at flood tide, lest they evaporate before the eyes of our politicians.

Kenneth Arne

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

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