Silicon Valley Isn't Really Over

Last week, Justin Fox at Bloomberg points out, more than one columnist—himself included—predicted the end of Silicon Valley, citing all the things that make it hard to live there: housing costs, tax rates and traffic, not to mention drought, fire, flood and earthquakes. 

But, Fox writes, his analysis of new employment numbers released at the beginning of this week show "the opposite of an exodus." 

"[M]etro San Jose is back to adding jobs at more than twice the pace of the U.S., and metro San Francisco appears to be bouncing back, too. Among the nation's 50 largest metro areas, San Jose ranked seventh in the rate of job growth from January 2017 through January 2018, and San Francisco was more or less tied for 17th with Houston. The nearby Sacramento metro area came in tenth." 

It turns out that predicting the end of Silicon Valley, then debunking the prediction, then making it again, is something of a regular occurrence (Fox has a link to an 18-year-old article along the same lines). 

So, though '[t]he argument that Silicon Valley will soon pass its peak may well be right," Fox writes, "I'd be cautious about predicting any kind of precipitous decline."