"What we have is a worldclass oil field sitting below a worldclass city, " said John Martini, manager of governmental affairs for Plains Exploration and Production Co.
What it lacks is strong links with a world-class university, and a powerful network of people with a track record in both science and business, willing to pass on lessons to new companies.
Guo Liang of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences argues that the spread of the net is transforming what the middle class knows about the world and how its members interact with one another.
But what always impresses me about Cambridge is the sense that all kinds of bridges are now being built between world-class science in the university and the commercial world.
The aircraftmakers' confidence about the emerging worldis based on what appears to be an iron law of aviation: rising numbers of urban middle-class people will mean rising demand for air travel, whatever short-term blips the economy suffers.