Increasingly, academic researchers, consultants and policy-makers stress the importance of creativity, innovation and knowledge for urban and regional competitiveness. In response, an increasing amount of cities in Europe have developed or are developing strategies to enhance their ‘creative knowledge’ profile, both as a business location and as a living environment for creative talent. But do such policies reach the target groups aimed for? Are they targeting the right geographic scale level (region, city, or neighbourhood)? And do they really enhance a city’s or a region’s competitiveness?

The project is part of the Dutch national research programme ‘Innovative Space Use’, co-ordinated and funded by Habiforum. The project is co-financed by the city of Amsterdam.

The researchers made an inventory of urban competitiveness policies in the 7 cities, interviewed 10-15 local experts in each city and gathered relevant statistical data on the extent to which the cities in our sample are or could become competitive ‘creative knowledge cities’ and to what extent the current urban development policies contribute to this economic profile.

Creative, knowledge-intensive and/or innovative segments of the economy offer a promising perspective for many city-regions, especially in Europe, but probably only a relatively small group of city-regions will become truly successful in the ‘creative knowledge economy’. And even for those lucky few, it is probably wiser to create or maintain a broad and diversified economic base than to specialise too much in sectors like the creative industries. Creative city-regions can definitely not be created overnight; it is better to build on existing traditions than to start from scratch.

Amsterdam institute for Metropolitan and International Development Studies (AMIDSt), University of Amsterdam
Mr M. Bontje (Researcher), tel. +31 20 5255240

01/01/2005

Marco Bontje, Sako Musterd (both University of Amsterdam), Simone Crok (Dept, of Research and Statistics, City of Amsterdam)

research

Urban Policy > Economy knowledge & employment > Urban economy

Specific sectors, Competitiveness