In addition, inter-enterprise efficiency-enhancing structures such as clusters, business chambers and entrepreneurs associations have been created, and are being patiently strengthened.
The company said it was in talks with several potential buyers for some or all of its instrument-cluster business, which has annual sales of $500 million, and expects a sale in the middle of next year.
Each cluster of businesses needed its own style of parenting, which the existing organization was not equipped to provide.
Liam Bailey, global head of research at Knight Frank, said the cluster of businesses, international appeal, heritage and democratic institutions in London and New York are not easy to replicate.
The result, Saxenian argued, was that the Valley ended up with a much richer and more productive cluster of businesses, and a more fertile environment for innovation.
But no other neighborhood has a cluster of businesses — hair salons, liquor stores, restaurants, dry cleaners — that rely so heavily on airline employees.
The deal is another strike at the heart of the tightly knit cluster of businesses linked to Nissan, which has been dismantling a cumbersome and costly corporate empire in an effort to return to financial health.
With the new factory as an anchor, they say, they can attract more investment to the area, building a cluster of businesses and academic centers that could ultimately rival Route 128 outside of Boston or North Carolina's Research Triangle.
