Article: Stadtplanung für Innovationen? Trends und Dilemmata (in German)

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Fostering innovative business has become the holy grail for economic policymakers and planners in cities. But how to do it? A number of difficult questions arise, such as: What (hard and soft) location factors matter for innovative firms, and in which type of environments do they thrive? How to promote entrepreneurial activity at universities, how can scientific research at economic institutions be translated into commercially viable products or services? What barriers are hampering innovative entrepreneurship and growth, and how to address them? Urban policymakers across Europe realise that they can’t do it alone, and set up “triple helix” style institutional arrangements in which public agencies collaborate with universities and companies in new ways, and try to elaborate a common agenda. This article deals with one particular aspect of urban planning for innovation, namely the development of knowledge hotspots, i.e. planned urban areas for knowledge-intensive firms and institutions.

Available in: Wirtschaftsflächen der Zukunft, Flächenentwicklung für wissensintensive Unternehmen. Dokumentation einer Fachtagung des Deutschen Instituts für Urbanistik und der Stadt Heidelberg am 24. und 25. Januar 2013 in Heidelberg DFB, Berlin

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