ABSTRACT
This paper …seeks to analyze why a minority of European cities are characterized by especially high rates of innovation among the firms located in them. It is particularly concerned to explain what contributions the urban assets and other arrangements in those cities make to innovation. For the purposes of this study, innovation is defined as “the commercially successful exploitation of new technologies, ideas or methods through the introduction of new products or processes, or through the improvement of existing ones. Innovation is a result of an interactive learning process that involves several actors from inside and outside the companies” (European Commission, 1996, p. 54). …Innovation is important because: “At the level of the economy, innovation is the single most important engine of long-term competitiveness, growth and employment” (ESN, Brussels, 2000, p. 3).
