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Asian cities have also been caught in the tech slowdown. Cyberport, a $2 billion plan by the Hong ong government to develop a high-tech office hub and elevate Hong Kong's position as a tech hot spot, has labored since its 1999 debut. It has been criticized as everything from a glorified land deal to a government subsidy for high-tech companies. "Let's not kid ourselves," says Joseph Sweeney, research director at Gartner Dataquest in Hong Kong. "The goal of the place is not to enrich Hong Kong's IT community. It was to stimulate the property market." Annie Tam, deputy secretary of Hong Kong's Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau, counters that the project has been "progressing well" and says the first phase should be complete in 2002. Microsoft is Cyberport's anchor tenant, she says. Also in limbo: Malaysia's $20 billion Multimedia Super Corridor, a 270-square-mile project hatched in 1996 to clone Silicon Valley on a neglected swath of wetlands. The corridor, due for completion in 2020, will include a digitally wired corporate city, dedicated to high-tech companies, and a new airport. So far, the government has spent $3.7 billion, or 17% of Malaysia's total annual budget, on the project. Much of the physical infrastructure has been built, and local companies have set up shop, but of the 465 companies given corridor status—which includes a 5-year exemption from corporate taxes and other benefits—only about 25 list their address there. Microsoft, which in 1996 announced it would transfer its regional headquarters from Singapore to the multimedia Super Corridor, has backed out. Further, the project hasn't drawn substantial investments om tech companies or benefited the economy, says a report by McKinsey & Co. Multimedia Development Corp., the government agency behind the corridor, maintains it is on schedule, although the agency might be "overstretched" implementing the high-profile project. It says the critical study was incomplete. It is in California's Silicon Valley, the heart of high-tech, that the slowdown has hit hardest. Commercial real estate vacancies have soared, while rental prices have plunged. Unemployment is up. And venture funding in the second quarter fell for the first time in 15 years, according to a report by online industry trade publication Venture Wire. "The Valley is in a malaise," says George Zachary, a general partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. "There's less venture capital, fewer start-ups and not as much competitive urgency." Tech firms still wanted Many city planners insist their future economic riches remain closely tied to innovation. Several cities are intensifying high-tech investments and recruitment. "Ultimately, cities, counties and states see tech as an opportunity to create jobs and improve their infrastructures," says Perry Wong, research economist at the Milken Institute. •Cincinnati's multimillion-dollar Regional Technology Initiative, for example, launched this year with 500,000 in state funds. It will fund local start-ups and recruit out-of-state firms specializing in software,