Orefield: PA Patent Hub

Looking through the stack of papers on the dining room table, I found an article in the July 22/23 Wall Street Journal, "The Most Inventive Towns in America," by Reed Albergotti. he looks at small-town patent hubs. The only Pennsylvania town on the list is Orefield. Individuals or small businesses there received 30 patents in 2005. Orefield is described as: "The Allentown suburb is close to Lehigh University and to research and development facilities for software maker Agere Systems.

In another odd literary connection, for those interested in such things, take a look at Gary Taylor's Cultural Selection: Why Some Achievements Survive the Test of Time and Others Don't. It applies a Darwinian approach to culture. One chapter discusses the large number of plays written in Shakespearean London. Some of the factors that accounted for this are the existence of a large number of theater companies. The competition among them drew playwrights to write new plays. There were also a lot of collaboration among the writers and may scripts were co-authored. (As an aside there is also a chapter on attempts at rehabilitating Richard Nixon's reputation.)

How you develop this environment for businesses is beyond but I'm sure a good infrastructure and an abundance of educated workers are involved.