A campus expert on mining in the American West sees a strong parallel between mining boomtowns that sprang up throughout California and the West in the 1800s and today's Silicon Valley.

"When I look at Silicon Valley I see a typical mining landscape," said Gray Brechin, an architectural historian and geographer, in a Jan. 22 session at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Anaheim, Calif. "I see the same sort of development with little planning or sense of civic responsibility. (continues)