High tech 'large firms' in greater vancouver, british columbia: Congregation without clustering?

This chapter addresses the potentials of high technology activities in the Vancouver metropolitan area of British Columbia, Canada. It discusses relationships between Large firms (LFs) and local development. From the perspective of local development, LFs as learning systems can be expected to contribute directly to skill formation, innovation and value added developments that offer hope for income maintenance and perhaps for progressively increasing incomes. The chapter suggests that Vancouver's high tech firms form a congregation rather than a cluster, all praising the virtues of free enterprise in general and the high tech culture in particular. As a congregation, they draw upon and contribute towards Vancouver as a high tech space yet retain their independence and differences. The chapter also suggests that diversity and fragmentation are more appropriate defining features of it's high tech sector. Bearing in mind the difficulties of precise calculations of size, available reports indicate recent growth of British Columbia's high tech sector.