Creative heartland: Creative capital and knowledge economy in micropolitan Midwest

Recent regional development studies increasingly focus on creative economies that provide an alternative perspective to regional development in a globalizing world-economy. However, most research in economic geography of creativity and innovation is exclusively concerned with larger metropolitan areas. The lack of attention does not make knowledge-based economy less relevant or creative capital less important in smaller urban regions, where it acts as an agent of economic development and revitalization. This study is the first attempt to use creative capital metrics and a combination of qualitative and qualitative analyses to investigate the creative capital and its economic implications in micropolitan areas within the U.S. Midwest. The study aims to improve the understanding of the role, characteristics, and geography of creative capital within micropolitan statistical areas as pertain to knowledge production and economic growth. In addition to understanding the role, characteristic, and spatial dynamics of creative capital the research also examines what attracts creative capital to micropolitan communities. The study implements a six sector model of the creative capital and utilizes various occupation-based measures to conduct a geographical and statistical analysis of creative capital and its relationships with community socio-economic characteristics and knowledge production. The study finds that creative capital at the micropolitan level is present and exhibits geographic variability. Different components of creative capital demonstrate a synergy, i.e. a tendency to cluster. However, creative capital is not evenly distributed across the Midwest with most micropolitan areas lagging behind. Creative capital accumulation does have a connection to the knowledge economy. It is generally similar to that in metropolitan areas. At the same time, when it comes to attracting creative capital there is a difference in between micropolitan centers and metropolitan areas. Creative workers in micropolitan areas are looking for a difference experiences that is not always offered in larger cities. The case studies indicate that social and civic capital may play an important part in attracting creative capital to smaller towns. These findings are important in understanding creative capital in micropolitan areas along with other regions outside of large city-regions. The findings are important for considering different policy options for micropolitan areas to maintain, and attract future knowledge economy

Regions, Innovation Systems, and the North-South Divide in Italy

Using firm-level data collected by Statistics Italy for 2008, 2011, and 2015, we examine the Triple-Helix synergy among geographical and size distributions of firms, and the NACE codes attributed to these firms, at the different levels of regional and national government. At which levels is innovation-systemness indicated? The contributions of regions to the Italian innovation system have increased, but synergy generation between regions and supra-regionally has remained at almost 45%. As against the statistical classification of Italy into twenty regions or into Northern, Central, and Southern Italy, the greatest synergy is retrieved by considering the country in terms of Northern and Southern Italy as two sub-systems, with Tuscany included as part of Northern Italy. We suggest that separate innovation strategies should be developed for these two parts of the country. The current focus on regions for innovation policies may to some extent be an artifact of the statistics and EU policies. In terms of sectors, both medium- and high-tech manufacturing (MHTM) and knowledge-intensive services (KIS) are proportionally integrated in the various regions

Knowledge, networks of cities and growth in regional urban systems: theory, measurement and policy implications

The objective of this paper is to measure the impact of different kinds of knowledge and external economies on the urban growth in an intraregional network of cities. The paper is divided in five sections. First section (theoretical framework) exposes the relation between the knowledge-based city, networks of cities, external economies and urban growth. Second section exposes a methodology for the measurement of knowledge in cities and the identification of knowledge-based networks of cities. Third section exposes a model to measure the effects of knowledge and external economies (static and dynamic) on the urban growth. Fourth section applies this model to a case study (Catalonia). Finally, conclusions and policy implications are exposed. Keywords: knowledge-based city, networks of cities, urban growth, external economies, spatial econometrics. JEL: R11, R12, O3

Common Territory? : Comparing the IMP Approach with Economic Geography

The IMP research tradition has always been open to the cross-fertilisation of ideas with other social science disciplines that study similar phenomena. Recent years have seen a growing interest among IMP researchers in phenomena such as regional strategic networks, spatial clusters and innovation and new business development in networks. IMP papers published on these topics are increasingly citing conceptual frameworks and empirical findings from the field of economic geography. This paper discusses the development of IMP thought and the development of thought in economic geography (particularly evolutionary economic geography), and compares their approaches to the analysis of regional phenomena. The goal is to identify key ideas from economic geography that have been under-exploited in IMP research, in order to suggest original new approaches available to IMP researchers interested in these fields. A number of such ideas are explored: proximity as a multi-dimensional and multi-faceted concept; the distinction between, and relative importance of, learning activities arising automatically from being embedded in a community (local or regional buzz) and learning activities arising from positive investment in channels of communication (pipelines); the concept of relational capital developed by economic geographers; and, conceptualisations of externalities commonly used in the study of spatial clustersPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Can Synergy in Triple-Helix Relations be Quantified? A Review of the Development of the Triple-Helix Indicator

Triple-Helix arrangements of bi- and trilateral relations can be considered as adaptive eco-systems. During the last decade, we have further developed a Triple-Helix indicator of synergy as reduction of uncertainty in niches that can be shaped among three or more distributions. Reduction of uncertainty can be generated in correlations among distributions of relations, but this (next-order) effect can be counterbalanced by uncertainty generated in the relations. We first explain the indicator, and then review possible results when this indicator is applied to (i) co-author networks of academic, industrial, and governmental authors and (ii) synergies in the distributions of firms over geographical addresses, technological classes, and industrial-size classes for a number of nations. Co-variation is then considered as a measure of relationship. The balance between globalizing and localizing dynamics can be quantified. Too much synergy locally can also be considered as lock-in. Tendencies are different for the globalizing knowledge dynamics versus locally retaining wealth from knowledge in industrial innovations

Knowledge, networks of cities and growth in regional urban systems

The objective of this paper is to measure the impact of different kinds of knowledge and external economies on urban growth in an intraregional context. The main hypothesis is that knowledge leads to growth, and that this knowledge is related to the existence of agglomeration and network externalities in cities. We develop a three-stage methodology: first, we measure the amount and growth of knowledge in cities using the OCDE (2003) classification and employment data; second, we identify the spatial structure of the area of analysis (networks of cities); third, we combine the Glaeser - Henderson - De Lucio models with spatial econometric specifications in order to contrast the existence of spatially static (agglomeration) and spatially dynamic (network) external economies in an urban growth model. Results suggest that higher growth rates are associated to higher levels of technology and knowledge. The growth of the different kinds of knowledge is related to local and spatial factors (agglomeration and network externalities) and each knowledge intensity shows a particular response to these factors. These results have implications for policy design, since we can forecast and intervene on local knowledge development paths.Knowledge city, networks of cities, urban growth, external economies, spatial econometrics.