| The inventive city: Urban competitiveness and sustainable economic development |
| The inventive city: Project summary The project is aimed at the exploration of strategies adopted by cities in different European countries to strengthen their economic profile and to realise or maintain urban competitiveness in the long run. Special attention is paid to strategies directly aimed at the attraction of firms and investors, and strategies aimed at the attraction of a specific work force. Urban development policy in the 1980s and 1990s often concentrated on solving urban problems like improving the chances on work and integration of less educated, poor, long-term unemployed and/or ethnic minority groups. To the extent that such policies also included attention for improvement of national and international competitiveness, the dominant belief was that physical measures such as improving transport infrastructure were the most important measures. In recent years the debate has significantly changed. 'Knowledge', 'innovation' and 'creativity' have become the key concepts in the political and academic debate about urban economic development. Several recent publications and projects have already provided case studies or overviews of such strategies in recent years. This project tries to add a new perspective: the extent to which policies for urban competitiveness actually reach the target groups they are aimed at, and the extent to which these target groups feel their interests are served with such policies. The cities involved are: Amsterdam Barcelona Helsinki Birmingham Manchester Leipzig Munich In each of these cities, an inventarisation of policies related to improving urban competitiveness will be made and semi-structured interviews will be held with people involved in these policies: on the one hand, representatives of the municipality; on the other, representatives of local business and inhabitant groups targeted by the policies. The research project is part of the BSIK programme ' Innovative Space Use' ('Vernieuwend Ruimtegebruik'), a subsidy programme of the Dutch government and Habiforum stimulating research contributing to a strengthening of the Dutch national knowledge infrastructure. This project is co-financed by O+S, Office of Statistics of the municipality of Amsterdam. Researchers from O+S also participate in statistical analyses and interviews for this project. |
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| Does the ' creative class' exist and if so, who belongs to it? Can we actually speak of a ' class', suggesting it is a rather homogeneous group? Is the creative class a new phenomenon or has it always been prominently present in cities? Does the creative class really prefer to live in cities? Does the growth of the creative class go at the expense of groups that are less able to meet the demands of the knowledge society? Do we need policies to attract the creative class or would such policies work counterproductive? These are the questions that the authors, stemming from the University of Amsterdam and Humboldt University Berlin, focus on in this volume, with special emphasis on creativity and diversity. The contributions reflect on the current academic, societal and political debate on creativity and diversity in Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest and New York. The book is the result of the 11th 'Berlin-Amsterdam conference', taking place 3-5 March 2005 in Amsterdam. This is a yearly event within the framework of the scientific and educational exchange of geographers and sociologistis from the University of Amsterdam and Humboldt University Berlin. Published 1 March 2006 Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 237 pp. ISBN 9 5589 2629 For sale (25 Euro) at www.maklu.nl ) |
| NEW PUBLICATION! Creativity and diversity: key challenges to the 21st-century city Edited by Leon Deben and Marco Bontje |