The Dulles Corridor — that thin stretch of corporate parks lining the Dulles Toll Road — has been a catalyst in northern Virginia's technological revolution, a "Silicon Valley of the East" that's home to Internet giants such as Accenture, Cisco, Microsoft, and Unisys.

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To understand the importance of the corridor, look no further than the road itself — or, as the Atlantic writes, look underneath it:

Beneath the concrete lies another traffic conduit: fiber-optic lines made for moving information rather than vehicles. Half of all U.S. Internet traffic flows through the Dulles Corridor. Twenty years ago, this was exurbs. Today, it's the Silicon Valley of the East, which has become a magnet for immigrants from India.

The traffic on the road is just as important as the virtual traffic below. These headquarters are a short drive from the corridors of American government. But the government policies, specifically on immigration, are causing the Indian-driven wave of workers powering the boom to re-think whether or not they want to stay in the United States. Consequently, entrepreneurs and tech specialists are being pulled back home — to India, to Asia — and taking their jobs back with them.

On your next trip out to Dulles Airport, take a look around, and remember what's under your feet. It literally is the artery that feeds the heart of America.

[via Atlantic]