Last year, Dell Computer added 4,000 high-paying jobs to Austin's economy, thus contributing to the rapid population growth of this city, which has doubled to 1.2 million since 1983. The real importance of Dell Computer, however, is not in the number of jobs created, but in wealth-generation. California's Silicon Valley, for example, has more than 15,000 millionaires and several billionaires, created through the rise of high-tech companies. The Albuquerque technopolis is getting underway, but it has not yet reached the critical mass point after which further growth becomes self-sustaining. Perhaps Austin has grown too fast in recent years.
Traffic now chokes on itself, and air and water pollution are becoming problematic.
Real estate prices are high and climbing. Similar social problems have occurred in Silicon Valley. One of the paradoxical puzzles of the technopolis is whether it can grow in a way that does not destroy what was originally attractive. Albuquerque is remote from the metropolitan centers of capital and from markets in the United States. Despite these handicaps, state leaders and city officials in Albuquerque are strongly committed to creating a technopolis.