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Tech Valley is a marketing name for the eastern part of the U.S. state of New York. It includes the Hudson Valley and Capital District, along with portions of the Mohawk Valley and North Country.[1] Originated in 1998 to promote the greater Albany area as a high-tech competitor to regions such as Silicon Valley, it has since grown to represent the counties in New York between IBM's Westchester County plants in the south and the Canadian border to north. Tech Valley encompasses 19 counties.[1]
The name "Tech Valley", or "Techneurial Valley" as it was originally used, is usually credited to Wallace "Wally" Altes, a former president of the Albany-Colonie Regional
The Tech Valley Chamber Coalition is an organization that is made up of 24 local chambers of commerce throughout the 19 counties of Tech Valley. Those 24 chambers represent over 21,000 businesses, schools, and organizations that employ more than 531,000 workers. It was formed in June 2002 and manages the Tech Valley Portal, and publishes an annual publication called Images of Tech Valley.[23]
Tech Valley had a population estimate in 2010 of 2,312,952, a 9.2 percent increase over the 2000 census. The population density is 148 people/sq. mile. 51 percent of the population is female, with 48.2 percent male. 88.5 percent of the population is White, 6.2 percent Black, 4.9 percent Latino, 1.5 percent Asian. The median age in Tech Valley is 37.5 years.[3]
Tech Valley is a 19 county region in eastern New York stretching from the Canadian-US border to the northern suburbs of the city of New York. The 19 counties are Albany, Clinton, Columbia, Dutchess, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Greene, Hamilton, Herkimer, Montgomery, Orange, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Ulster, Warren, and Washington. The region is 15,637 square miles; it is about 270 miles north-south at its longest and about 80 miles east-west at its widest.[3]
[22] In 2002, the Saratoga Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) began to tout its proposed tech park, to be named the
The goal of luring a computer chip fabrication plant (chip fab) was one of the earliest goals of, and reasons for, the Tech Valley name. The plan to get a chip fab to the Capital District predates the Tech Valley slogan. In 1997, New York set out submissions for possible chip fab sites that it could whittle to 10 sites around the state that would be pre-approved and pre-permitted for a chip plant. Years before that the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's RPI Tech Park had been visited by semiconductor companies, but they had chosen not to build.[13] The renewed interest by the region in luring them was spurred by the research centers and training of specialists for the industry by area colleges such as the University at Albany, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Hudson Valley Community College. Responding to the state's request for potential sites Rensselaer County proposed the same RPI Tech Park site, Schenectady County proposed two sites, one of which was in Hillside Industrial Park in Niskayuna, Saratoga County proposed two sites, and Albany County proposed three sites, two in Bethlehem and one in Guilderland.[14] The state ultimately decided on 13 sites it would aggressively promote, several were in Tech Valley.[15] As one of the thirteen sites chosen, the RPI Tech Park site originally met little opposition from the town of North Greenbush in which it sat.[16] As time progressed opposition grew in response to concerns about potential impacts on traffic and the environment.[17] The RPI Tech Park site, which by October 1999 had become one of only nine sites still being marketed by the state, ended when the North Greenbush town council voted to terminate the review process.[18] A site in Wallkill, Orange County was the first site in Tech Valley and in the entire state to receive pre-approval for a chip fab.[19]
At first the name Tech Valley was derided as over-enthusiastic self-boosterism, but SEMATECH's decision in 2002 to put its new plant at the University at Albany, SUNY began Tech Valley's rise in the public's perception.[10] In 2004, however, when Bill Gates was asked by an Albany Times Union reporter what he thought about Tech Valley, he responded that he had no idea where that was;[11] two years later though, $400,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was used to fund the Tech Valley High School.[12]
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New York, Vermont, Hamilton County, New York, Clinton County, New York, Race (United States Census)
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