ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to establish the relevance of urban innovation as an element in the evolution of cities, to define the general characteristics of urban innovation processes, and to relate the notion of urban innovation to current pressures for change. Innovative activity, whether from an institutional, community or jurisdictional standpoint, is based on new perspectives of common problem settings. The literature emphasizes the organizational process aspects of innovation rather than specific values or substantive outcomes. Many commentators are focusing on the reactive quality of innovations in the urban system, reflecting short-term responses to current perceptions of a continuing crisis state. Dependency and independency are clearly the outcomes of the application of centralizing and decentralizing urban innovations. The standard models of innovation generation and adoption derive from corporate experience. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
