[LINK] NSW 'Silicon Valley' to create job boom

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
Do you suppose "they" have thought this through?

I admire their intent, but wonder if what are doing will work.

The logic seems to be:

1. Silicon Valley is an area with lots of high tech companies where 
great innovation and competition produced lots of new products and services.

2. Let's create an area that looks like Silicon Valley if you squint 
enough and pretend that it has the same vibrant educational, business 
and other factors that were there when Silicon Valley developed itself.

If their model is Malaysia's Cyberjaya, there is an awful lot missing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberjaya

Does anyone remember the Multi Function Polis?
</brd>

NSW 'Silicon Valley' to create job boom
Simon Benson
February 18, 2009
The Australian IT
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25072106-15306,00.html

A "Silicon Valley" will be created in the heart of Sydney's Western 
Suburbs, generating an estimated 52,000 jobs over the next 10 years.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal a $500 million plan will go before a 
Cabinet budget committee tomorrow to declare 10,000ha of western Sydney 
a "special economic zone".

It will be the largest in Australia and is expected to create employment 
for thousands of workers in new hi-tech, IT and bio-medical industries 
as well as blue collar manufacturing.

"It will be a massive centre for jobs," a senior Cabinet source said.

A briefing paper, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, outlines a $557 
million infrastructure program to develop the area for release.

The employment zone will take up a vast slab of semi-rural un-used land 
around Badgery's Creek at the junction of the M4 and M7 which is within 
30 minutes of Penrith, Blacktown and Liverpool.

Industries and business will be given payroll tax and land tax 
reductions to set up in the area, with a report showing the high demand 
for greenfield space was bypassing Sydney with jobs going to Brisbane 
and Melbourne.

A network of rapid bus links, public transport and upgraded roads will 
link every major western Sydney centre to the new jobs zone.

The plan also involves the creation of a western Sydney freight link and 
dedicated freight rail line linking it to Port Botany. The Western 
Sydney Employment Lands would be the largest jobs zone in the country, 
modelled on Singapore and other overseas cities which have led to 
employment booms in these dedicated economic zones.

Transport corridors have already been reserved by a taskforce 
commissioned in October 2007. "This is essential to the economic 
wellbeing of the state. They are vital to the state's future," the 
document says.

The document claimed that the employment zone would generate an extra 
$16 billion in value to the NSW economy by 2031. Around 3000ha would be 
retained for open space and 2000ha for housing.

The Daily Telegraph

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Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au