Beyond entrepreneurial cities (original) (raw)
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The environmentalization of urban entrepreneurialism: From technopolis to start-up city
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
This paper investigates two trends in contemporary forms of urban entrepreneurialism: (a) an increasing focus on cultivating entrepreneurship, and (b) the promotion of entrepreneurial ecosystems that leverage culture and sustainability to attract and support entrepreneurs. We argue that these trends signify a shift from the entrepreneurial city to new strategies that shape cities for entrepreneurs. Underpinning this development is a broad normalization and valorization of entrepreneurship as the dominant pathway for urban economic growth. Additionally, we show how sustainability and greening are enrolled in these economic development strategies, promising to bolster the environmental image of the city. We highlight these two changes by focusing on the intellectual foundations of the technopolis concept in Austin, Texas, and the development of a cleantech entrepreneurial ecosystem that has increasingly been leveraged in Austin’s entrepreneurial growth efforts. We offer insights into ...
The principal forms, functions, and policy mechanisms of local and regional economic strategy in advanced western capitalist societies have undergone major changes during the last two decades. There have been major shifts in cities' roles as subjects, sites, and stakes in economic restructuring and securing structural competitiveness. These shifts are reflected in increased interest in, and emphasis on, the 'competition state' at the national (and, at least in Europe, supranational) level and the 'entrepreneurial city' at both regional and local levels. The distinctive feature of 'competition states' and 'entrepreneurial cities' is their self-image as being proactive in promoting the competitiveness of their respective economic spaces in the face of intensified international (and also, for regions and cities, inter- and intra- regional) competition. There is wide variety in understandings of the dynamics of such competition, sources of competitive advantage, and the most suitable strategies for securing such advantage. The timing and causes of these changes in understanding and policy also vary widely across nations, regions, and cities.
By invitation only: uses and users of the 'entrepreneurial city'
Large-scale urban development projects (LSUDPs) are embodying the diffusion of an entrepreneurial approach into urban policy and consequently to planning, with the built environment being transformed into spaces oriented towards specific users and uses. For planning practice, this entails including urban forms and discourses that support exclusion and polarization in planning projects. This paper asks how physical planning promotes and/or hinders spatial and socio-economic integration in these projects. The analysis focuses on two UDPs in Malmö, Sweden. Official planning documents, interviews with public officials and the media are used to illustrate the discourses and practices built around these projects to glance over aspects of equity and integration in a city that is plagued by socio-economic and spatial segregation. The paper contributes to the discussions on implications and dilemmas for physical planning derived from the adoption of entrepreneurial approaches in urban policy.
Re-grounding the city with Polanyi: From urban entrepreneurialism to entrepreneurial municipalism
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2020
Conventional approaches to local economic development are failing to address deepening polarisation both within and between city regions across advanced capitalist economies. At the same time, austerity urbanism, particularly in the UK, presents challenges for urban authorities facing reduced budgets to meet increased demands on public services. Municipalities are beginning to experiment with creative responses to these crises, such as taking more interventionist and entrepreneurial roles in developing local economies, generating alternative sources of revenue or financialising existing assets. Rooted in a Polanyian perspective and building on the concepts of the entrepreneurial state and grounded city, we identify an embryonic alternative approach-what we call 'entrepreneurial municipalism'-as a policy pathway towards resolving enduring socioeconomic problems where neoliberal urban-entrepreneurial strategies have failed. We situate entrepreneurial municipalism as one strand in an assemblage of new municipal-ist interventions, between radical urban social movements and more neoliberal strategies such as financialised municipal entrepreneurialism. Drawing on original research on the Liverpool City Region, we explore how local authorities are working with social enterprises to harness place-based assets in ways which de-commodify land, labour and capital and re-embed markets back into society. Finally, we draw upon Polanyi as our guide to disentangle differences in approach amongst divergent forms of municipalist statecraft and to critically evaluate entrepreneurial municipalism as a possible trajectory towards the grounded city.
Sustainable Cities: Oxymoron or the Shape of the Future?
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Two trends are likely to define the 21st century: threats to the sustainability of the natural environment and dramatic increases in urbanization. This paper reviews the goals, business models, and partnerships involved in eight early "ecocity" projects to begin to identify success factors in this emerging industry. Ecocities, for the most part, are viewed as a means of mitigating threats to the natural environment while creating urban living capacity, by combining low carbon and resource-efficient development with the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to better manage complex urban systems. * Authorship is alphabetical