In my experience, the only people who weigh in on these debates are those who do not live in Silicon Valley -- like any epicenter for anything, those of us who have made our careers here hardly give a damn how the rest of the world compares themselves to us. (Or to put this another way: New Yorkers do not sit around debating if or that New York is the world's epicenter for finance.) But as someone who has grown slightly sick of the pro-NYC mania, I feel obliged to enter the fray -- if only because Silicon Valley is being misunderstood at an essential level.
While I agree that New York has displaced Boston, it is no threat to Silicon Valley's crown: New York does adequately at some variants of software service startups (e.g., the Foursquares of the world), but it is missing virtually every other element of the ecosystem. There is no microprocessor company in NYC. There is no network equipment provider in NYC. There is no computer company in NYC. There is no handset maker in NYC. There is no cloud company in NYC. Yes, Google may have a large presence in NYC, but Intel has a large presence in Portland; a single company's large presence cannot in and of itself create an ecosystem. And that ecosystem is the difference between having a "vibrant tech scene" and being the world's epicenter for technological innovation; NYC may be the former, but is unlikely to ever displace Silicon Valley as the latter.
While I agree that New York has displaced Boston, it is no threat to Silicon Valley's crown: New York does adequately at some variants of software service startups (e.g., the Foursquares of the world), but it is missing virtually every other element of the ecosystem. There is no microprocessor company in NYC. There is no network equipment provider in NYC. There is no computer company in NYC. There is no handset maker in NYC. There is no cloud company in NYC. Yes, Google may have a large presence in NYC, but Intel has a large presence in Portland; a single company's large presence cannot in and of itself create an ecosystem. And that ecosystem is the difference between having a "vibrant tech scene" and being the world's epicenter for technological innovation; NYC may be the former, but is unlikely to ever displace Silicon Valley as the latter.