ABSTRACT
The point of departure of comparative analysis was the Amsterdam city-region. On a more practical note, established research contacts with academic institutes in each of the selected city-regions were also important for the case study selection, more specifically for the expert interviews a major source of information for this project. One of the interview questions addressed the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the city-region as a location for business in general and creative and knowledge-intensive companies in particular. In all case-study regions, authors have traced recent academic literature and policy and consultancy studies to supplement and critically assess the expert's opinions. Six of the seven city-regional case studies in the Accommodating Creative Knowledge Competitiveness of European Metropolitan Regions within the Enlarged Union (ACRE) project: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Birmingham, Helsinki, Leipzig, and Munich. The ACRE project helped to validate the results of the Inventive City-Region project.
