At a recent AIA event in Baltimore Jennifer Vey, A Brookings Fellow, noted that innovation "craves proximity" and integration and how proximity and integration were driving the formation of urban
innovation districts across the nation (
video).
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Slide by Jennifer Vey, Brookings, illustrating the spatial conditions needed
for Innovation |
From innovation districts, the latest darling of the creatives, let's expand into the broader question how innovation, new technologies and the knowledge economy altogether affect the built environment and cities. What does it mean to the urban environment if collaboration is preferred over individual work, horizontal integration over vertical silos and openness over secrecy?
Even the quintessential suburban between Raleigh and Durham is trying to remake
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The magic powers of the Boston Innovation District as
imagined by Mitchell Weiss |
Research Triangle Park itself from something I called a "single company office subdivision" (mimicking the single family home subdivision) to something more urban that could compete with the reviving urban centers of Raleigh and Durham? Does this mean that cities now have a leg up?