Cities beyond Now

by Stefan Lazarevski

Unlike the American or Asian continent, Europe does not feature large cities (aside from London or Paris). Over the time, a series of small or medium-sized towns, each with their own history and important cultural or political establishments have proudly resisted the hegemony of the bigger cities (primarily capital cities). Even today, says Bernardo Secchi, “political and cultural importance of the European towns doesn’t strictly relate to physical or demographical size”. Globalization has acted therapeutically for some medium-sized European cities to establish themselves as global players, but, even so, they could not maintain such position on long terms relying on the traditional forms of overall development.

In order to remain competitive, many of the European cities understood and enforced the knowledge-economy concept of economic and social development. What is more, European Union in 2000 reached the so-called “Lisbon Policy Brief” which stated: “The development of a modern knowledge economy reflects a larger transition from an economy based on land, labor and capital to one in which the main components of production are information and knowledge. Because of that, the most effective modern economies will be those that produce the most information and knowledge – and make that information and knowledge easily accessible to the greatest number of individuals and enterprises”. One of the most important aspects of this document was recognition by the leading European countries that further progress does not rely, anymore, on competition with countries that offered low-skilled work at low wages, but rather production and implementation of knowledge within their own societies.

The trigger for transition from conventional to knowledge-economy based societies was different for different cities. For some it was economic crises, decline of economic bases or fleeing of the knowledge base, whereas for others improvement of level of competitiveness, rise of the economy or strengthening of the current network balance. In any case, Knowledge-Economy centers such as Helsinki, Dortmund, Rotterdam, Munich, Zaragoza or Manchester have proven, over the years that investments in stronger education, R&D areas, stable organizational structure, investments in clustering and diversification of the economy, can worthwhile step in building up stronger societies. What is more, they have shown proactive behavior in upgrading the knowledge foundations, strengthening the knowledge activities and applying sophisticated strategies to attract the knowledge capital of the region.

In terms of urban planning this meant strategic approach based on the knowledge foundations and knowledge activities. The pillar foundations: knowledge and economic base are essential in upgrading the urban diversity, social equity, accessibility and thus overall quality of life. Additionally, the cities need to undertake number of actions to become stronger in the knowledge economy. This is an on-going process which is based on four types of “knowledge activities”: creating new knowledge, applying new knowledge, attracting knowledge workers and developing new growth clusters.

Naturally, not all cities have similar prerogatives to initiate, much less to develop knowledge-economy based society. According to van Winden and van der Berg from the European Institute for Comparative Urban research and based on the size of the labor and cultural diversity there can be isolated: Metropolitan and non-Metropolitan cities. While the first group anticipates primarily big cities with solid knowledge foundations and stable position in number of global networks, non-Metropolitan cities are of smaller scale, they have weaker knowledge foundations, but have strong organizing capacities, low level of crime and congestion and strong local leadership. This category also differs within, and therefore stretches over to: star techno-towns, techno-towns in transition and university towns. However, there is a thin line that separates these cities especially if they are engaged in polycentric networks and alliances. It is generally accepted that non-metropolitan cities have more difficulties in applying knowledge economy. The common thing for all of them, however, is that they all are formulating comprehensive and explicit strategies to attract and retain KE activities by utilizing their own strengths and resources, founded on education, technology and research as well as designing sustainable housing policies and city marketing.

The cities today, aim to become international destination known for the high quality of life provided to its inhabitants and to be sustained by a vital public realm rich in cultural and social opportunities. Knowledge-economy concept, for many of them, has turned out to be the next step forward.

Reference:
― Van Winden, W. and van den Berg, L., 2004, Discussion paper - Cities in the knowledge Economy: New Governance challenges, European Institute for Comparative Urban Research
― Calthopre, Peter, 1993, The Next American Metropolis – Ecology, Community and the American Dream,Princeton Architectural Press, New York
― http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/43/11/36278531.pdf, 19.04.2009