By Bruce Barton

As the head of a Silicon Valley company, John Ambroseo doesn’t like how the future is unfolding for what once was the world center for high technology.

The Los Altos resident, president and CEO of Coherent, mulled over the findings of last month’s Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) report that showed our area lagging behind among the nation’s eight established high-tech regions in several areas, including affordable housing, transportation and tax incentives for businesses.

In fact, the report, which evaluated these areas through a 10-year look at demographic and economic trends, found that Silicon Valley ranks last out of the eight areas in terms of its overall competitiveness.

“We’ve been smitten by our own success,” Ambroseo said, noting, for instance, that 77 percent of the population cannot afford the near-$700,000 price tag of a median-priced home in Santa Clara County. They have been slow to react to such distressing data.

The report, “Projections 2006: Daring to Compete - a Region to Region Reality Check,” states that other than San Diego, Silicon Valley is the least affordable of the nation’s top tech regions. SVLG statistics offer that by 2011, the valley will require 70,620 new homes to achieve a jobs/housing balance. “However, for a family of four earning the area median income of $105,500 most homes are unaffordable,” the report said.

In addition to housing, the report examined transportation and investment, education, energy and environment, health care and insurance, and tax policy. The report compared quality of life in the valley to tech centers in Austin, Texas; Boston, Portland, Ore.; Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina; San Diego; Seattle; and Washington, D.C. Results from most categories found our area in need of improvement.

Ambroseo, who has been addressing the local media on the tax policy component, pointed to the report’s findings that the state has the least “business welcoming” practices when comparing sales tax exemptions, investment credits and research credits. Although the state has a research credit, other states with tech centers such as New York, North Carolina, Virginia and Texas have many more incentives.

“Legislators tend to look at incentives as giveaways,” Ambroseo said. But attracting companies that bring jobs and workers means more people paying property and service taxes, he said.

More public/private partnerships and a more expedited government response would improve the valley’s outlook, Ambroseo said.