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"San Diego is only a few hundred miles from San Francisco and Silicon Valley, but its startup and tech scene would have to be on the other side of the globe to emerge from the shadow cast by the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter, all of which are firmly rooted in Northern California.\nKevin Faulconer and Nathan Fletcher, the top two candidates in San Diego's Nov. 19 special mayoral election, claim to understand the significance of a flourishing tech economy and the future of their city, and both told Mashable he can help turn San Diego into the next big startup destination.\nBut they, along with startup employees\u00A0themselves, also said the lack of a central tech community, small number of mentors and little venture capital prevent the city from becoming the tech giant the two candidates want it to be.\nSee also: 15 Most-Followed Politicians on Twitter\nYet the city is far from devoid of entrepreneurial talent. Chris Anderson, former editor of\u00A0Wired, just raised $30 million for his San Diego-based drone designing company, 3D Robotics. Storybricks, a company that lets users design the games they play, has signed on with Sony to help build Everquest Next. Data-visualization firm Roambi was founded in 2008 and has already raised $44 million, and plenty of other brand-new businesses are settling down just north of the Mexican border.\n\"We're not going to surpass the bay area over night,\" said Fletcher, a Democratic Qualcomm executive and former California assemblyman. \"But I think if we work on it, we can have a real powerful statement.\"\nThat work, according to Brant Cooper, co-author of\u00A0The Lean Entrepreneur, begins with community.\n\"When startups concentrate in an area, you not only have more planned events, but greater serendipity, too,\" Cooper wrote in an article for\u00A0Market By Numbers. \"It's\u00A0the opportunity for casual conversations in a random coffee shop that leads to ideas, partnerships, investment and other possibilities. In a car culture like San Diego, where startups are locked up in high-rises...you simply are not exposed to that level of opportunity.\"\nFaulconer, a Republican city councilman who is leading the race according to recent\u00A0polls, wants to fix the problem by providing incentives to cluster around the same sections of town. He says he'll lower the rent on office space in parts of town that don't have much of a business base, and he wants to construct parks around these areas where he hopes innovative ideas will blossom over coffee breaks and leisurely strolls.\n\"[Entrepreneurs] want that balance of not only a great life balance, but a great working style,\" he said.\nCommunity, as Cooper pointed out, fosters investments and mentorship. The latter is particularly important for startups. Almost everyone goes in knowing they're statistically likely to fail, and having someone guide you through the process of starting a business \u2014 someone who's been there before \u2014 helps avoid common pitfalls.\nBut mentors are hard to find in San Diego, according to Adriana Herrera, who wrote about the issue for\u00A0The New York Times. Her company, Fashioning Change, is based in San Diego, but they've opened a local office in Santa Monica because Herrera found the area much more supportive of new companies.\n\"In Santa Monica, I sensed far more excitement about helping one another and seeing the startup ecosystem grow,\" she wrote.\nHerrera felt Santa Monica held more promise for Fashioning Change even though the company's main office used to be inside a San Diego incubator, where several startups set up shop, usually for cheap, and get to grow their business while interacting with other creative minds. Potential mentors and investors often stop by, which is part of how startup communities grow, and why young companies are attracted to them.\nBut Herrera was concerned that the leaders of her incubator wanted Fashioning Change to raise more money when they had no need to, which led her to get in her car and drive North.\nFaulconer and Fletcher's plans for a flourishing tech company both center on incubators, but Herrera's story is a cautionary tale for the politicians: It's not enough to just have these pockets of small business communities and assume they'll function well on their own.\nThe Republican candidate spoke mostly of increasing the number of incubators, while Fletcher wants to create a new kind of incubator in the city's Old Central Library.\nHe hopes to add educators to the mix of business executives and mentors who stop by often. He says incubators should provide training to university students who aren't necessarily starting their own company, but would like to know how to work in a tech firm before they get into the real world. Fletcher believes companies will use the opportunity to vet potential employees, and he plans to have these businesses commit to hiring students who go through the program.\nEducators are also on board with incubators. Mahasweta Sarkar, Ph.D., an associate professor at San Diego State University's department of electrical and computer engineering, told\u00A0Mashable that when businesses work with universities, it's in everyone's best interest.\n\"The company benefits a lot because it gives them real exposure to a candidate before they hire him or her,\" Sarkar said. She also said students learn how their work relates to what they'll be doing on the job.\n\"When someone like the mayor puts incentive forward to do something like this, it really helps us,\" she said.\nThe next mayor has plenty to work on if a tech economy is to become more woven into the fabric of San Diego, but both politicians still believe the city can push back the curtain brought down by the world's greatest startup enclave to the North.\n\"We have great intellectual capital, and great creative ideas,\" Faulconer said. \"We are one of the most innovative cities in the country.\"\nIf that's true, all the mayor will have to do is give that innovation room to grow.\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\nMashable composite. Images: Flickr, Port of San Diego, Nathan Fletcher"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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