Fortune magazine is singing the praises of New York City as a reborn tech mecca ten years after the dot-com bomb killed off the first generation of Silicon Alley buzz.

Manhattan-based Foursquare's geolocation service is the envy of Silicon Valley. Facebook bought out two New York startups, and Google just purchased the huge Chelsea building where it employs nearly a tenth of its global workforce. Now incubators are sprouting downtown, venture capital firms are opening New York offices, and prominent angel investors are spending more time with the scores of developers who crowd into shared workspaces across the city.

The venture capital numbers tell some of the story. "In the first nine months of this year, venture firms invested $138 million in New York companies, while the Valley's Net players received $205 million, down from $554 million a year ago." For its part, Google has more than 1,000 engineers in New York, and the thinking is that some of them will spin out their own start-ups in an "ecosystem," that's quickly evolving. Even after Facebook bought two New York companies, Hot Potato and Drop.io, most employees are staying put rather than being transferred to the West Coast. As one commenter puts it:

The main difference between Silicon Valley and New York is that New Yorkers are more interested in startups that make money instead of the Silicon Valley nerd-obsessed version of technology being the key. In NY we really don't care about the technology behind anything as long as the product or service solves a problem.

Then again, a dissenter says:

This is wishful thinking for a city that is rapidly turning into a welfare slum for hipsters. The companies listed here are peanuts compared to Mass Route 128, the Research Triangle, Dulles, and Dallas to name just a few of the many places that are WAY ahead of New York in the tech sector. If you want to invest in New York's future, invest in Starbucks, weird glasses, and indignation.

-- Don Willmott