Assemblage Dynamics of Innovation Precincts

Keywords: assemblage, dynamics, left-behind, urban networks, innovation precinct, regional economy
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Over recent decades, regions at risk of being left behind by uneven development have sought to sustain and regain growth through leveraging micro-geographies of connectivity, concentrating innovation and entrepreneurship in place and space. One recent project is the innovation precinct, a vehicular concept blending urban renewal and economic development, advanced in the mid-2010s and since taken up in locations across the globe. Employing logics of clustering and related variety to generate proximities, these present a new imaginary of urban entrepreneurialism. However, the multiple facets and forces of ‘left-behindedness’ pose a complex problem for regions, and economic fluidity adds a temporal imperative to regional development.

This paper employs a novel approach in assemblage dynamics to research the interplay of underlying economic factors in innovation precincts and how these impact the ability of regions to ‘keep up’. It draws on a comparative case study of two sites in Adelaide, South Australia, contextualising a temporal exploration of the conjunctures from which each emerges and the ways in which connection ‘matters’. This paper questions whether there is a need for a new imaginary of urban entrepreneurialism, explores the forces that cohere and destabilise both the concept and the reality, and offers a view on their role in economic path development.