Reno exemplifies how cities not far from California, including Boise, Idaho, and Tucson, are trying to poach the state’s technology culture to help diversify their economies, marketing themselves as places where taxes are lower and environmental regulations are less onerous. They hope that when the next recession strikes, they will not sink to the same depths as they did in the last one.

Reno is among the best situated, less than a four-hour drive from San Francisco and in a state with no corporate or inventory taxes. It gained appeal as an outpost of Silicon Valley nearly a decade ago after a Microsoft licensing unit and an Amazon distribution warehouse moved in. California refugees were buying homes, lured by the relatively low cost of living and the 30-minute drive to Lake Tahoe.

Then came the Great Recession, walloping Reno’s gambling industry, and its housing and job markets. At the end of the recession in 2009, homes had lost nearly half the value they had in the beginning of 2006, and median prices continued to fall. At its depths in September 2010, Reno’s unemployment rate was 13.4 percent compared with the national average, 9.5 percent, according to Moody’s Analytics.

But now, after several years scraping along the bottom in almost every measure of economic health, Reno appears poised to turn the corner, according to economists who study the region. Housing prices are slowly starting to rise. The unemployment rate has declined to 7.1 percent. New technology companies are arriving, and older ones are expanding, including Zulily, an e-commerce company for women and children’s clothing and home décor, which announced plans in May to double its warehouse and hire 600 people.