Silicon Valley Circuits
July 10, 2026 at 12:10AMHua Hsu grew up in Cupertino when Apple was just another company in an anonymous office park—which is to say, before Highway 85 transformed the southern reaches of Silicon Valley. Now, he uses the artery’s arrival to chart the development of the region, his family, and himself. With the stories of so many highways being ones of displacement and inequality (see: New York, Chicago, Oakland), it’s a treat to read one that feels more like a memoir of possibility.
For teenagers, suburban commute times were not of great concern. More time in traffic meant more time to gossip or flirt, daydream and hope for that one song to come on the radio. How often do we recognize the uniqueness of our circumstances? I dreamed of a highway that would take me somewhere new, truly new. Deeper into San José didn’t count. I was a typical teenager, jaded and hard to impress. Yet that morning I did recognize that something unusual was happening. As I took a walk on a highway, I realized that my reality was circumscribed by infrastructure. Maybe this new road wouldn’t take me to the destinations I sought, but I recall that it shifted my thinking about the place I was from. Now that Cupertino was worthy of an exit, I began to understand the city as a node along some larger, abstract circuit.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2026/07/09/silicon-valley-circuits/
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