| The general consensus having lived in Reno and seen all of the pushes over the last 30 years for it to become the next hub of various industries is it is close to everywhere else. The other main draw is the lack of taxes. The potential for the new Tesla battery facility being located here is a good marketing bullet point. If it materializes it will change the local economy at least in the short term during construction and possibly beyond. If it doesn't happen here it will be another failed attempt to lure huge business to the area. Other notable pushes have been for shipping/industrial manufacturing which resulted in a new Wal-Mart mega-warehouse and some upgrades to other facilities and another push for pharmaceutical companies such as Genentech to open facilities in the area that fizzled out. There have been a lot of marketing pushes over the last couple of years trying to make Reno seem like the great new destination city. I think this article is in that same vein. There is a decent push locally with events like One Million Cups* going on to promote local companies. Included in that group are things like the Reno Collective and GirlMade among a myriad of other businesses ranging from art retreats to internet of things hardware. Also in that group is Abbi Agency which is the firm behind a lot of the marketing pushes about the area in general. Personally I see the push for Reno to become the next Silicon Valley, Boulder CO, etc. as a good idea in theory, just one that is not using a clear message. I don't see the messaging as delivering a clear idea about "Why Reno?", instead it is more of a "Reno can be like..." message. I would say the area has potential as far as people capable of both making and pushing really hard for something to happen to make Reno great, I'm just not sure if the culture is ready for that to come to fruition. Reno is overall a very conservative, old-boy type of place and hasn't been the most accepting of change, at least in my opinion. *Full disclosure, my industrial automation company, Precise Integration, has been involved in the One Million Cups group locally in Reno. |