Innovation districts in context: Emerging networked models on six continents

Abstract

This paper traces the origin of the emerging innovation district (ID) concept in core cities in the global North and observes their emergence in a selection of cities worldwide. The concept provides urban planners and policymakers with a model for re-engineering urban space for contemporary urban lifestyles in districts offering work, housing, services, and recreation. It is intended to meet the aspirations of talented employees and entrepreneurs in innovative organisations (firms, universities, research institutes, etc.) to operate in high-quality inner city areas facilitating encounters and interactions across diverse knowledge bases, boosting innovation and urban development. The ID has become one of the internationally circulating planning and policy concepts (Healey 2013; McCann & Ward 2010; Peck & Theodore 2010). We explore the ID concept in the cities of Boston-Cambridge, Turku, Christchurch, Cape Town, Medellín, and Bangkok. Based on qualitative analysis of stakeholder interviews as well as observational and secondary data, we find that through unique “landing processes” (cf. Gómez & Oinas 2022) in each city, the ID concept has been shaped differently. We trace place-specific network models linked to broader development needs in the case cities. They were thus not limited to place-making in the immediate neighborhoods as in some of the recent ID literature. The place-based adaptations of the concept evince the influence of different agents, interests, and policy goals. The paper offers evidence of the complexity and variety of the ID models unfolding in diverse cities in the global South and North, with repercussions on urban development.