finalpeer-reviewedmanuscriptof.docVIP

Final peer-reviewed manuscript of Creative and knowledge cities: development paths and policies from a European perspective S. Musterd, O. Gritsai in: Built Environment, Vol. 35, (2009), p. 173-188 Copyright ? Alexandrine Press 2010 All Rights Reserved. Publisher version: /10.2148/benv.35.2.173 Creative and Knowledge Cities: Development Paths and Policies from a European perspective Sako Musterd and Olga Gritsai * Abstract In this paper we compare economic development in thirteen European metropolitan regions across Europe. The objective is to learn more about the conditions that are important to these developments, especially in the spheres of creative and knowledge intensive industries. Here we will focus on the expected positions of cities and regions in these economic spheres, based on the long-term development paths they went through (within the context of more general economic and societal changes) and on the current and more recent developments in the spheres of so-called ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ conditions for development. The expected positions will be confronted with current economic performance – measured in terms of the number of jobs – in the spheres of creative industries and knowledge intensive industries. This, on its turn, results in some new hypotheses, to be tested in subsequent research. We also confront the findings with the active policy interventions cities are developing. Most research that focused on the development of today’s cities is biased through its ‘Western’ focus. We break away from that perspective through coverage of cities in both Western and Eastern Europe. Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully acknowledge an important contribution of prof. Alan Murie, prof. Zoltan Kovács and dr. Heike Pethe. They provided creative advice, support and all contributed substantially to the extended comparative study of 13 European metropolitan regions, which served as a basis of this article (Kovács et al, 2007). * Sak