Innovation districts are urban geographies of innovation where R&D strong institutions, companies, and other private actors develop integrated strategies and solutions to develop thriving innovation ecosystems–areas that attract entrepreneurs, startups, and business incubators. Unlike science parks, innovation districts are physically compact, leverage density and high levels of accessibility, and provide a “mash up” of activities including housing, office, and neighborhood-serving amenities. Districts signify the collapse back of innovation into cities and is increasingly used as a way to revitalize the economies of cities and their broader regions. As of 2019, there are more than 100 districts worldwide.
Since the 1950s, entrepreneurial clustering had followed the Silicon Valley model of suburban corridors with sprawling research centers and campuses. In the late 1990s, Internet startups and creative companies started to cluster in downtown neighborhoods such as Silicon Alley (New York), Mission District (San Francisco), Shoreditch (London), and Silicon Sentier (Paris), because of their central locations, abundant urban amenities, and low rents. In the early 2000s, European and American cities began to mimic these areas through policy and planning by dedicating zones exclusively for the purpose of clustering entrepreneurs, startups, business accelerators and incubators. These spaces are easily accessible via public transportation, wired for public Wi-Fi, support mixed-use development, and nurture collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
Origins in Europe - Barcelona
Barcelona is credited with creating the first innovation district with its 22@Barcelona Project. In 2000, the initiative began to redevelop the industrial El Poblenou neighborhood in the Sant Martí district of the city. Long the city's manufacturing heart and a production center for textiles, food, wine, construction products and metal structures, El Poblenou saw some 1,300 factories close between 1963 and 1990 and was largely abandoned.
The 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona gathered thought-leaders in the city to begin crafting a plan to redevelop the El Poblenou neighborhood. Over the next 7 years, transportation initiatives were created to connect the then-isolated space to more vibrant parts of Barcelona. In 1999, this project was completed with the opening of the Avinguda Diagonal (Diagonal Avenue), which connected El Poblenou to the downtown area's business district.
In July 2000, a unanimous vote by the Barcelona City Council approved the Amended Metropolitan Master Plan for the redevelopment of the El Poblenou area. The project was named the 22@ Project, representing a play on the previous urban classification name, "22a", that designated the exclusive use of an area for industrial production. According to the City Council, “Thus, 22@ Project is a permit to recover the productive vocation of the old economic hub of the city of Barcelona in order to create a new model of urban space according to the needs of the current knowledge-based society.”
Other notable innovation districts
Cambridge (Kendall Square)
The Kendall Square innovation district is anchored by surrounding Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in close proximity to Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital and other world-leading research institutions. In the 1950s, MIT began deploying university-owned land to innovative private sector companies and developing partnerships with local organizations to support the commercialization of ideas stemming from the university. In the ensuing decades, life sciences and pharmaceutical companies began to cluster in the area. Today, Kendall Square houses over 150 biotech, IT, technology and clean energy companies. Firms such as Google, Microsoft, Amgen, Biogen and Novartis have large offices in Kendall Square. Hundreds of startups have been formed and are headquartered in the Kendall Square area as well. Significant real estate development has occurred recently, with approximately 1,000 new housing units built in the area since 2005.