CITIES, THE ALARM BELL IS RINGING.(CAPITAL REGION)

Byline: FRED LeBRUN

And so it begins, the great snowball effect predicted when International Sematech North surprised the world and picked the University at Albany for its research and development center.

If nothing else, the announcement Thursday that Tokyo Electron Ltd. also picked UAlbany for a research and development facility, should put a stake in the heart of most nanotechnology doubters.

Those who whispered that Sematech wasn't that big, might not materialize and wouldn't amount to that much anyway.

Well, wrong. The enormity of the changes heading for the Hudson Valley corridor over the next 25 years still defies envisioning, …