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At this moment of global economic transition, it is time to revisit Economic Development policy in order to further fuel recovery (and future sustainability!) — policy/practice to date have not resulted in real progress. In fact, policy at federal, state and local levels have been relatively unchanged for decades while the basic economic foundation of this country (and the world) has shifted dramatically since the early 90’s.

It has been observed by many that the engine of an innovation economy is the knowledge producing institutions, and the resultant business development activities both from direct technology transfer, and supportive SMEs. Most importantly these institutions and corporations, as well as the people inside of them, are no longer in just one place–people, knowledge, and the money that supports their endeavors are connected to and moving between multiple cities, connected more efficiently through electronic connectivity.

Many of the world’s leading academic institutions, corporations, and contract research and development labs are located in ‘secondary’ urban markets which are in fact as critical an engine to the economy as the primary cities, especially if considered in aggregate, and in connection with other research hubs. According to Joel Kotkin, these cities in the US contribute about 70% of national GDP, and are the fastest growing (population and number of jobs) in the country, up to 15% greater than the largest cities.[1]  According to McKinsey this is a global trend, where ‘middleweight’ cities will provide more robust growth than ‘megacities.’ [2] These cities could accelerate their productivity if better supported with innovative economic development policy that leverages the increasing flows of talent, capital and knowledge between them to build more effective critical mass, and be a bigger boost to the economy.

Instead of focusing on city to city comparison and competition, the conversation about innovation should recognize the network between these specific places which ultimately boosts growth and economic sustainability.  Networked Cities should be the underpinning for Economic Development Strategy

Inspirational images–connecting between places, and being in places that inspire innovation:

(T) Guy Debord, Asger Jorn, 1957, Naked City (psicogeografía urbana)

(B) adam greenfield http://www.flickr.com/photos/studies_and_observations/3999248192/

The project starts!

I am writing a thesis for my MBA program, which is intended to be an integration of some ideas I started working on in my last 5 years and themes studied this year in an effort to learn the breadth of issues that cities face worldwide in supporting their economies (specifically with an eye towards accelerating innovation).  Some theories started emerging while leading the Economic Development Corporation of New Haven, and others were initially encountered working in Mayor Bloomberg’s administration (term 2) within Economic Development at the ‘dawn’ of our new economy post 2008 crash.  The following posts will outline some thoughts, some data, and some observations, and certainly some opinions.

After working for the last two months of throwing things down on paper, doing much background research on who might be studying which themes that I”ve uncovered, and setting up the framework for this project, I’m ready to start writing!  After the research, it is pretty clear that there are many many smart people out there trying very hard to figure out how to best spur economic growth. However, I do continue to return to an idea that our tools and frameworks (which are mono-geographic by design, and by political history) are hemming us in, and creating much waste in its wake. I chose to do this blog as a way of breaking the ‘ominous’ scale of a thesis down to bite size pieces, and to hopefully engage with a broader audience of readers and people interested in the progress of these thoughts.
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As I’ve never done a project of this scale before, I would like your help! Please feel free to make a comment, or drop me a line with your thoughts/resources/links as I pull the pieces and ideas for my thesis together. I’m anxious to make this thesis more of an annotated conversation leading to a set of real-time strategies that could be employed by cities/institutions/corporations to accelerate localized (and therefore the national) economies, as well as their ‘connected’ triple bottom line.

Please note: I am in the process of making sure that my thoughts are well organized and communicated, while working on my skills to make sure I cite work by others correctly. I am very aware that I”m entering new personal territory of sharing thoughts, and presenting ‘original work’, and also very aware that i’m inspired by many others, and standing (if i’m lucky!) on the shoulders of others…..

The remainder of this ‘blog’ voyage will be dedicated to documenting my thesis–both process and content–which is an opportune chance to start putting on paper what I’ve been blabbing about for years. However, before launching into the full thesis ‘posts,’ I thought I should identify where it all started.  In my last job leading the Economic Development Corporation of New Haven, I did much work to figure out the mismatch between how much seemed to be going on in the city, an environment ripe with opportunity despite its small scale, but that New Haven could not get the traction it needed (private and federal resources, mostly), and frankly deserved.

I was amazed by this image, produced by Olivier H Beauchesne in January 2011. A map of scientific collaborations throughout the US. In fact the full map was the entire world, which was equally as inspiring, but as I was working in New Haven CT which is often ‘left off the map.’ Instantly i could see how ‘connected’ all of our centers of innovation were, and In fact New Haven was right in the middle of the brightest line on the map. I used this map frequently in presentations about the City, and of course others were equally amazed. The map shows the connectivity, between places, and it seemed fluid, dynamic, and beautiful. Most importantly, these flows did not seem to be impeded by state (or country) lines.  This visualization led to where I am with my thesis topic–trying to understand the connectivity between places to better direct economic development activity/funds especially to support the innovation economy.

Also in the movie ‘Is the Man who is Tall Happy’ was a wonderful exchange between the filmmaker and Professor Noam Chomsky about inspiration.  In addition to all the complex theories that Professor Chomsky outlined, he answered very simply about Inspiration–that it just ‘comes.’ And that you can’t explain it–it an just hit you.  Of course there are many things that could lead to that moment, but that the moment itself is inexplainable….this image summarized very quickly my intuitive understanding of our situation, and inspired me to keep trying to connect the dots and make sure that New Haven (and other small cities) could be as meaningful and relevant to the overall economy as I know it could be.
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images source: http://olihb.com/2011/01/23/map-of-scientific-collaboration-between-researchers/

As i look at ways of explaining my basic thesis concept (coming soon, next post?), I realize that one of the things i’m trying to do is redefine ‘proximity’ from a more geographic centric approach to one that involves connecting ‘like’ places.  Although I have just begun the research process (i’m a novice at that too), it seems that there are only a few references to alternate forms of proximity, at least within Economic Development and the growth of cities.

A scholar Alain Rallet has suggested something to imply ‘organization or functional proximity’ as a way of linking ‘aligned’ functional activities as being a key driver in innovation. This truly seems to represent the idea of scientific researchers who collaborate without regard to specific geography, and more related to expertise/field and specific university resources.   According to Rallet, “ combined with the mobility of human resource is an alternative basis for knowledge exchange that no longer requires permanent co-location…case studies on localized networks…reveals that organizational proximity appears as a stronger support of technology transfer and innovation diffusion than geographical proximity.” (1998, On Geography and Technology, The Case of Proximity Relations in Localized Innovation Networks,  Clustes and Regional Specialization, PIon Publications, London)

After seeing a screening of a new inspirational film ‘Is the Man who is Tall Happy’ by Michel Gondry, i have found a great language theory that fits my nascent thinking perfectly, thanks to linguist, scholar and thought leader, Noam Chomsky.  In a description of the way children approximate and learn complex linguistic structures, after years of acquisition, Noam Chomsky deconstructs the very title of the film to explain the complex language structure that is in the end so simple, even a child understands it immediately.  He describes the way that a sentence ‘The man who is tall is happy’ can be quickly converted into the sentence ‘Is the man who is tall, happy?’  He says that very particular, even children know that they use the second ‘is’ to form the initial question, and not the first, almost intuitively.  For example, the sentence ‘is the man who tall is happy?’ would rarely be uttered, even from a child.

I haven’t figured out the graphics on this program yet, but Chomsky describes the fact that the original sentence, there is a ‘subject’ which is ‘the man who is tall,’ and that the predictive is the ‘is happy’.  Therefore, although the first ‘is’ is in the first part of the sentence, in linear construction, the second ‘is’ is more important and has more ‘weight’, structural construction.
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Although as we know, everything has meaning in my thesis, this particular one makes sense because knowledge transfer is facilitated by language (and culture). Therefore, one could understand that the ‘weight’ of the key factor in construction of knowledge transfer therefore doesn’t have to be linear (or physical spatial) proximity, but structural (or organizational) proximity. Still requiring on occasion a face-to-face meeting, but the facts of collaboration and connection are more important than the ability to be in the ‘same’ or traditionally proximate places….

image from http://www.firstshowing.net/2013/watch-first-trailer-for-michel-gondrys-noam-chomsky-documentary/