One of the largest solar cell manufacturers in the world is relocating their headquarters to San Francisco. While I was interning this summer they were one of the companies I dealt with, so it was exciting for me to read this news. In economic development you get many inquiries but most don’t pan out. It’s great to hear that such a cutting-edge “clean tech” company is moving to SF.
Why does this matter? It matters because this company could have just as easily located in Dallas, San Jose, or Denver. High growth companies like this often “incubate” (get their start) in big cities and then move out to the ‘burbs where costs are lower. This was especially true in the 1990’s tech boom in which many companies started in San Francisco and then as they grew often moved south down the peninsula or across the bay to Oakland. Companies that locate in San Francisco, or New York, or Chicago, or Boston make a conscious decision to put themselves in an environment (albeit a more expensive one) with a highly educated workforce and a political climate that supports the type of business they do.
It is a positive trend, in my opinion, to see young companies like Google, Wikipedia, Suntech, etc. doing the opposite of many older companies and moving some of their operations to San Francisco after they have become well known in their respective industries. This growth in old-line city employment might not seem at all odd to us now, but in light of the trends of the past 60 years, in which major corporations fled from major cities, this could be the beginning of a shift towards once again relocating corporations in certain older cities.
San Francisco, a city which once boasted over 50 Fortune 500 companies now has a paltry 9 remaining. However, as our cultural attitudes about global warming, transportation and housing choice, and economic growth have begun to shift in favor of some older 19th century cities, rather than the sprawling metroplexes of the post-war era, we might begin to see more and more influential companies locating in cities.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/23/BUGOSUAF0.DTL&hw=suntech&sn=001&sc=1000
