ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the debate on the conceptual and empirical interrelationships between (air) port infrastructures, the flows generated through these infrastructures, and the creation of knowledge within city-regions. It focuses on information and telecommunication infrastructures that collectively facilitate intangible flows. The book presents the analytical purchase of the knowledge hub concept in more detail, thereby collectively starting from the observation that knowledge is above all created through personal interaction. The authors thus show that capital cities function as knowledge hubs because they are the centres of political decision-making and the execution of political power. Nonetheless, the book presents a variety of infrastructures (airports, railway stations, ports, Internet infrastructure), adopt a variety of methodologies (conceptual arguments, large-scale empirical research, case studies), and focuses on different segments of the knowledge economy.
