Another article by Richard Florida  shows the rise of the City of San Francisco as tech hub that shares venture capital funding with the Silicon Valley:

“The sheer number of large clusters of investment in the maps make it clear that venture capital in Bay Area is no longer primarily or predominantly centered in the quintessential techie hub of Silicon Valley. San Francisco has been catching up: The biggest dots by far – indicating the greatest volume and concentration of venture capital activity investment – appear to be in and around the center of San Francisco.”

Florida sees this sharing of money by the suburban Silicon Valley with the urban San Francisco as further evidence of a shift to dense cities versus urban sprawls.  Even within the Silicon Valley, he shows more venture money going to companies in the urban versus suburban parts of the Valley.

However, more interesting is how Florida shows how the two feed off each other to create a mega tech region:

“Of course cities and suburbs are not either/or propositions when it comes to startups, venture capital and high-tech in the Bay Area. If start-ups thrive in dense, diverse urban center cities where talent clusters, serendipity thrives, and services can be found in the surrounding neighborhood, large established companies like Google, Apple and Facebook need the space that their suburban campuses provide. The locational symbiosis is reflected in the shuttle buses these companies have long run between their suburban campuses and downtown San Francisco, where more and more of their workers prefer to live.”

Why San Francisco May Be the New Silicon Valley – Richard Florida – The Atlantic Cities.