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>People sometimes think they could improve the startup scene in their town by starting something like Y Combinator there, but in fact it will have near zero effect http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html

Y Combinator's first batch was in Boston, this essay explain why being in Silicon Valley in important and why it's very difficult to replicate.

Culture, people, experience, business environment, lack of year-round shorts weather, ....

It does, TechStars in particular has a huge number of affiliates around the world.

In fairness, the TechStars model isn't quite the same model.

For instance, YC rather explicitly doesn't provide shared office spaces. The shared office space of a TechStars location is a large startup community galvanizer in the cities where TechStars has set up shop - and partially offsets the need to be in the Valley for those companies.

There's no question that TechStars is tweaking the YC model subtilely in its attempts to get global outreach. (This is a good thing, the world could use more experimentation.)

StartMate in Sydney has produced some pretty awesome companies. They are worth checking out.