[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by mark0

Illinois is a fumbling, bumbling "has been" of a state. Our leaders think innovation will come from a shiney new building that will look terribly out of date anyways in a decade. Innovation comes from an environment that fosters imagination in the people, treats capital properly and lets business flourish. Thats not IL right now. Back in the day CA offered that. HP was started in a garage. Apple was started in a garage. Google in a garage. Amazon, a garage. EchoBay (EBay), a garage. Facebook, a dorm room. The list goes on and on. Nothing is started in a State sponsored "innovation lab". It's the antithesis of an innovative environment. How's Pritzker's 1871 actually doing? What innovation is actually coming out of that? If this state is serious about it's future and fostering innovation the best thing it can do right now is NOT spend money it doesn't have, stop the bleeding of people and businesses and then get the hell out of the way of business. Make the state a fertile place for entrepreneurs to thrive instead of flee. Innovators are not going to give 2 sh*ts about a glass bubble. Another thing about innovation as it pertains to the west coast: Military drove that. During WW2 uncle Sam pumped a ton of money into the west coast aerospace industries to fortify the Pacific. That directly flowed into high tech materials research, electronics and computing sciences. We'd have a better shot of creating an ecosystem around energy sciences due to Argon and Fermilab than this innovation Lab BS.

Deaf ears, my friend. This is the wrong crowd