Why have so many big cities tried to become silicon valley but fail?

[nice jewish boy]

New York, Boston, Chicago, and LA have tried but all of them have failed. San Francisco Bay Area still remains the premier place to start a tech company and create the next google or facebook or twitter or yelp or some big name tech company
lets not only focus on american cities...cities such as london and paris and other cities worldwide have tried to become silicon valley but also have failed
because silicon valley is a remarkable achievement economically speaking.

[Maxwell]

When you start something it is easy to be the premier locale...it is tougher to be great while copying someone else.

NY, LA, Chicago etc are all trying to copy Silicon Valley....but being a Johnny Come Lately doesn't make your path to success easy.

[626]

It's a great place to be. That's why they crushed Texas Instruments in the first place.

[Joe]

Why are you obsessed with Silicon Valley? Chicago, NY, Boston were successful when the entire state of CA was nothing.

How do you figure Chicago has tried to become Silicon Valley? We have the only options board in the world, along with many other things.

[Moo]

What do they actually build there but apps. is what I want to know. I wouldn't live in those road rage cities for anything. The politicians in the S.F. Bay area are sucking the water we need in Mendota,Ca. to fill your grocery stores.

[Turtle]

Silicon Valley is just a better place to live. Heck I lived there. You have a nice beach to the south-Santa Cruz, not even that far away. You have wilderness and beautiful huge redwoods-you can go from cities of millions of people to complete wilderness in as little as 15 minutes. Year around reasonable weather, never too hot or cold.
If you are rich because you are smart, why live anywhere else?

Moo, that is LA. SF is not taking more water than Nor Cal can supply. It's the south taking it all.