The Rise of Innovation Districts
The Rise of Innovation Districts-A New Geography of Innovation in America
Bruce Katz and Julie Wagner Brookings Institution June 9th, 2014 http://www.brookings.edu/~/Media/Pro...ection_2sm.jpg Coffee shops (like Detroit’s Great Lakes Coffee) are now places for entrepreneurs to work and network. Photo credit: Marvin Shaouni, originally published in Model D. As the united states slowly emerges from the great recession, a remarkable shift is occurring in the spatial geography of innovation. For the past 50 years, the landscape of innovation has been dominated by places like silicon valley—suburban corridors of spatially isolated corporate campuses, accessible only by car, with little emphasis on the quality of life or on integrating work, housing and recreation. A new complementary urban model is now emerging, giving rise to what we and others are calling “innovation districts.” These districts, by our definition, are geographic areas where leading-edge anchor institutions and companies cluster and connect with start-ups, business incubators and accelerators.1 They are also physically compact, transit-accessible, and technically-wired and offer mixed-use housing, office, and retail. Innovation districts are the manifestation of mega-trends altering the location preferences of people and firms and, in the process, re-conceiving the very link between economy shaping, place making and social networking. Our most creative institutions, firms and workers crave proximity so that ideas and knowledge can be transferred more quickly and seamlessly. Our “open innovation” economy rewards collaboration, transforming how buildings and entire districts are designed and spatially arrayed. Our diverse population demands more and better choices of where to live, work and play, fueling demand for more walkable neighborhoods where housing, jobs and amenities intermix. Led by an eclectic group of institutions and leaders, innovation districts are emerging in dozens of cities and metropolitan areas in the United States and abroad and already reflect distinctive typologies and levels of formal planning. Globally, Barcelona, Berlin, London, Medellin, Montreal, Seoul, Stockholm and Toronto contain examples of evolving districts. In the United States, districts are emerging near anchor institutions in the downtowns and midtowns of cities like Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cambridge, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and San Diego. They are developing in Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Portland, Providence, San Francisco and Seattle where underutilized areas (particularly older industrial areas) are being re-imagined and remade. Still others are taking shape in the transformation of traditional exurban science parks like Research Triangle Park in Raleigh-Durham, which are scrambling to keep pace with the preference of their workers and firms for more urbanized, vibrant environments. Read More |
Sometimes it's a branded district (often not very urban...even surface parking sometimes), and other times it's simply innovation-type companies (tech, creatives) grouping in a true urban area.
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5 Reasons Cities Are Getting Better, and Everywhere Else Is Getting Worse
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To me, every pedestrian friendly area meets the criteria for "innovation districts" because they all provide a lot of opportunities to "network" with the people around you.
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Some districts seem to pop up without intent. For Seattle I'll contrast Pioneer Square with South Lake Union, two opposite fringes of Downtown.
South Lake Union is a fairly cohesive effort to form a cohesive, semi-branded area. It was originally intended to be mostly medical research / biotech, and it does have maybe 15-20 buildings (say 4,000,000 sf) devoted to that, mostly for a few major organizations. But then biotech didn't explode as predicted, and Amazon happened along at the right time, building millions of square feet of their own in SLU, plus more at the near end of the CBD. It's a booming area, but it's more about major organizations. Pioneer Square was simply a historic district augmented by a little bit of new office space, more about rug shops, homeless, artist lofts, and stadium crowds and less an office and residential district. But it's at the nexus of local transit. It always had a base of tech and creative companies, but it really took off during the downturn. This was aided by office space coming online including a new building intended for one corporation that they chose to make leasable instead, plus the decision to revert the Smith Tower back to office rather than make it residential, some new lowrises across from Safeco Field, some other renovations and general turnover at existing historic buildings, and the relatively new office buildings at Union Station including space Amazon vacated. South Lake Union is ideal for a big organization. But if you want a startup culture, at least on the tech side (vs. biotech), it's probably more about Pioneer Square. |
These Brookings events are usually web-archived if anyone wants to watch this session.
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I guess they overlooked this one because the city is smaller, but it's pretty large-scale with many historic rehabs and backed by a major university: http://www.wakeforestinnovationquarter.com/
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well-established and booming
source: http://technical.ly/philly/2014/06/0...ion-districts/
Brookings report: How University City fits among U.S. ‘innovation districts’ Philadelphia, the report said, has "leveraged its world-renowned assets in teaching, research and medicine to become a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship." http://technical.ly/philly/wp-conten...ver-137rtg.jpg The University City Science Center was featured in the report. (Photo courtesy of University City Science Center) Instead of following the model of Silicon Valley’s isolated office parks, cities around the world are building “innovation districts,” where founders, researchers and students can live, work and play, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution. The innovation district in Philadelphia’s University City, anchored by Penn, Drexel and the University City Science Center, is one that Brookings Institution highlighted in its report. http://technical.ly/philly/wp-conten...ts-philly1.png source: Brookings Report |
source: http://technical.ly/philly/2014/06/16/pact-luncheon/
How institutional innovation hubs are learning from coworking spaces At PACT's annual luncheon, high-ranking executives from Comcast, Independence Blue Cross, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and the City of Philadelphia’s Commerce Department talked about building where their workforce lives. “This is going to make us more competitive for attracting the kind of people we need to hire,” said Marc Siry, a vice president of strategic development at Comcast, on the telecommunications giant’s plans to build a second, $1.2 billion Center City skyscraper. |
Wexford Science & Technology is planning to build a $140-million research, lab, office and residential TOD complex in St. Louis' CORTEX innovation district.
Plans are for up to 700,000 square feet of space including a massive garage. Plans are being worked out. In addition, the new MetroLink station, which recently received a $10.3-million TIGER grant, will sit near CORTEX Phase III. An RFP for a mid-rise residential structure also has gone out. Read more here. https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5574/...0e7dd918_b.jpg https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5586/...e847c47f_b.jpg https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5578/...85d23b3d_b.jpg https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3922/...79e38cf9_b.jpg https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3899/...19c9574f_b.jpg |
So we had conference centers in the 90s, biotech in the 00 and now "Innovation" centers?
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St Louis Spirit: Cortex Urban Research Park Bucks Tech Campus Trend Silicon Valley Watcher Posted by Tom Foremski - October 28, 2014 Dennis Lower, President of the Cortex Innovation District among blueprints and maps. (CortexSTL.com) Dennis Lower has spent nearly three decades building research parks around the US and he's at the peak of his talents and at the forefront of a very important trend: building research parks in urban settings. The goal is to build resilient communities that generate jobs from a highly skilled workforce and the spinoffs of startups. He's responsible for the Cortex Innovation District founded in 2002, a huge area most of which is a building site with half-finished and nearly finished buildings sprouting up between buildings already staffed with researchers. Urban districts are incredibly inventive and creative -- it's a result of the cross-pollination of experiences and cultures found in areas with high population densities. Read More http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/...ouis-00016.jpg http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/...ouis-00101.jpg Internet pipes about to be laid -- the researchers need super-fast connectivity. |
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As usual, the ones that rise naturally in cities that are already tech-heavy will do better than the branded economic development projects. The latter can succeed too, but so far it's smaller scale.
This typically means existing districts that are already in the middle of things, but have a lot of room to grow. Sometimes it's about underused existing buildings like Silicon Alley. Sometimes it's a downtown fringe neighborhood with a lot of developable sites like SoMa or South Lake Union. Reason #1 is that recruitment is easiest in a great urban district. "Authentic urban" is a buzz term in business location as well as the residential market. That means built over time, truly dense, walkable to tens of thousands of apartments, transit-convenient to most of the region, dozens of places to get lunch/coffee/beer, hotels, and everything else. That includes biotech as well as computer/internet tech, though biotech is tied more closely to the big research university. |
Interesting:
How Toronto's MaRS centre became a hot-button election issue link Quote:
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I don't know why the authors are so skeptical on NYC, a city that was able to attract a lot of tech talents and companies pretty much from scratch, to rival some of the secondary traditional tech places like Boston, Seattle, and LA. Surely in absolute numbers (and maybe even in percentage terms) NYC had the most growth in this area.
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http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/b...uare-foot.html
Georgia tech announced the conversion of a former Office Depot to an innovation lab. |
Looks like the Loo is coming up. How much damage to its rep are the coming riots going to do when Darren Smith isn't convicted of any wrong doing?
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