I don't get the city competition, but maybe that's because I didn't grow up in my city (Philadelphia) and I was never a recognized member of my previous small-town community (for various reasons, none important). Who cares if your city is the "Silicon Valley of the East Coast"? Suddenly that means tech isn't going on in all the other East Coast cities? You show me even a <i>small town</i> that <i>doesn't</i> have at least 5 different tech companies.<p>Why does a particular city <i>need</i> a "startup scene"? How is having NYC known as a place that tech companies like to call home, versus tech companies just going about their business without drawing attention to the fact that they are in NYC because it doesn't mean anything to the 90% of their customers who don't live there, going to do anything for NYC? Attract more businesses for more tax revenue? Then why would the type of business matter at all?<p>Reversing that question, why does any startup <i>need</i> a particular city? What does it matter that DuckDuckGo is in Valley Forge, PA (even though everyone says Philly, because Valley Forge is toootally inside Philadelphia city limits when it's down the Turnpike past even King of Prussia. Might as well say New Ark, DE is in Philly)? It's still a decent upstart search engine, and would be the same decent site if it were in Bethesda, MD (where people would probably say it was in DC).<p>If the price is right, you can find talent anywhere (cities don't have a monopoly on growing smart people out of test tubes), and if the biz is right you can find funding anywhere (or would an investor seriously give up a good opportunity just because the company's HQ is more than a lunch-hour drive away?). None of these things have particular geographical components, unless you're in some dead-end, old, mining enclave on the side of a mountain in up-state Pennsylvania. Or maybe not, maybe you got so good of a deal on land that you don't mind the capital cost of getting started from stone-age-scratch.<p>But at any rate, it means nothing to me if, say, Orlando, FL has more tech firms than Philly. That's them, not me. Where they are certainly has to have no more impact on me than if they lived next door to me.