Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945-2005 (review)

This is a fascinating book, and not just for somebody living less than 10 miles from the subject area, for the region whose story it tells has risen to national importance. Ceruzzi has written a wonderfully readable account of the rapid growth of the most important urban area in Virginia, telling how it grew up around a combination of defense needs and information technology corporations, an account that focuses on the crucial decisions made by a relative handful of people. The general public may know Tysons (over time, the apostrophe disappeared) as the site of the region's largest shopping mall, but Ceruzzi's focus is on the sometimes faceless buildings that today house important elements of the country's IT industry.

His well-told tale stretches back to the Civil War as he chases down the formative decisions (such as the grants of rights-of-way to pioneering rail and telegraph lines) that provided the basis for what was to come. Tyson's Corner, named for Maryland resident William Tyson who moved into the rural Virginia area in 1852, was for decades little more than a country store at the intersection of two state roads. The construction of the Pentagon in nearby Arlington led to an infusion of both money and skills that turned out to be crucial to the region's development. Other planning decisions played important roles as well, including the construction of Dulles Airport (opened in 1962) and the Capital Beltway (completed in 1964), both of which provided the transport links necessary to support expansion.

Chapter three begins in 1957 (not long after what would become known as Silicon Valley got its start on the other coast), when the post Sputnik defense boom spurred the local development of systems engineering and other consulting firms that fed primarily on Cold War–driven government contracts. Land was available and cheap, and the basic infrastructure was in place to support the new companies. Indeed, real estate transactions and key developers are shown to have played an important part in the Tysons' success story. The arrival of IT-based companies soon encouraged others to colocate. They were served by good public schools and a growing state university (George Mason, spun off from the University of Virginia)—further factors in attracting trained personnel.

The 1960s through 1980s (chapters three and four) saw dramatic change in the region as a group of business and government consulting companies (collectively known as the "beltway bandits," from a real but short-lived crime story that Ceruzzi relates) located in the region. Development of numerous SCIF (sensitive compartmentalized information facility) spaces was vital in obtaining contracts for confidential work. Many companies head-quartered elsewhere (among them BDM, CACI, CSC, Melpar, SAIC, and SDC) built substantial facilities in Tysons for their government work.

Ceruzzi moves to the heart of his assessment in chapters five through seven, explaining how Tysons came to play an important role in the development of a variety of IT companies in the years since 1980. Substantial funding for "Star Wars" and NASA research added to existing military contracts in aircraft and weapons technology. Airframe manufacturers with local offices, such as Boeing and Northrop Grumman, became major IT players as well. The region hosted many booming commercial Internet facilities (including such major players as AOL) during the 1990s, a development Ceruzzi shows to have links to earlier ground transportation schemes. In the early 2000s, of course, the region suffered in the nationwide telecommunications and information meltdown, hit hard by its focus on exactly the sectors under stress, but Tysons Corner has largely recouped its fortunes and is again growing.

Ceruzzi's study combines elements of economic geography, sociology, business history, regional planning, political science, and management as he explores how one of the nation's most important centers of information technology has developed—and why.