Regionalization of the Innovation Economy

Hot spots for innovation all over the world present an historic opportunity for new career paths for individuals and strategic directions for companies, regions , and countries to participate in a global economic revolution, which is now just at its inception.

Peter Hall suggests that throughout history, technological innovation has always been developed in regions that share very similar characteristics. His observations are reinforced through the perspectives of the "entrepreneur champions " in the regions we profile.

Peter Hall

These regions are characterized not by an abundance of fixed resources, but rather by a set of developed social and cultural structures that are favorable to conceptual advances. They may be old, established, cosmopolitan, liberal , metropolitan cities, but are often emerging city regions that serve as entrepots (intermediary centers) between the already-developed world and a frontier beyond it. Their economies are expanding rapidly through imports of goods from that developed world; and they have a high rate of immigration , predominantly of young people, who are highly experimental and untraditional in their outlook. They have strong but often very informal structures for exchange of technical knowledge and conceptual ideas. There is a constant search for the novel . Levels of synergy, not only between like-minded individuals but also between quite disparate socio-economic -cultural groups, are very high; this is the archetype of an open society. ^[3]