Excerpt:

"It is important to understand what drives the formation of innovation districts because given the nature of their businesses, emerging and big tech companies are able to site their facilities outside traditional industrial heartlands and in the heart of cities, and cities clearly want to get a piece of that investment. In addition, innovation districts are having profound effects on regeneration and the availability of affordable housing as more millennials choose to live and work in cities.

Brookings, a research institute, defines innovation districts as geographic areas where leading-edge anchor institutions and companies cluster and connect with start-ups, business incubators and accelerators. Such districts are physically compact, transit-accessible, technically wired and offer mixed-use housing, office and retail. Rather than focus on discrete industries, innovation districts represent an intentional effort to create new products, technologies and market solutions through the convergence of disparate sectors and specialisations–for example, information technology combining with bioscience, energy, or education. They can also focus on culture, food or other industries. If orchestrated correctly, they grow tax or business rate revenues for cities and raise the value of municipal land."

Kirty Tuxford uses the examples of Athens, Barcelona and Boston to describe what works in practice and how it was created.

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