Ecotopia (or Cascadia) has split irrevocably. Silicon Valley is not part of it. Far Northern California (which is Oregon-like in climate and culture) might be, but that's sparsely inhabited.
Silicon Valley (an emerging city state with severe, criminal levels of private sector corruption in addition to public incompetence, both forces producing a housing crisis) is paper-belt in denial. It will never admit so, but the negative aspects of California (mostly due not to locals, but to an area systematically attracting the worst of the East-- greedy businessmen who aren't capable enough to play with the big boys in NYC, so they move west) have moved north. The trash that the elite used to dump on Los Angeles is now being dumped on San Francisco, as failed McKinseys become VCs and founders.
I think this phenomenon happens all over. Cities -- and regions within cities -- can have their own peculiar culture, while the culture of rural areas varies on much longer distance scales.
Because of this, I suggest that the idea that North American is best thought of in terms of regions might be an unhelpful one.
OTOH, the evidence from Facebook apparently suggests otherwise:
Silicon Valley (an emerging city state with severe, criminal levels of private sector corruption in addition to public incompetence, both forces producing a housing crisis) is paper-belt in denial. It will never admit so, but the negative aspects of California (mostly due not to locals, but to an area systematically attracting the worst of the East-- greedy businessmen who aren't capable enough to play with the big boys in NYC, so they move west) have moved north. The trash that the elite used to dump on Los Angeles is now being dumped on San Francisco, as failed McKinseys become VCs and founders.
It's definitely not Mex-America, either.