Whose Tech? Whose City?

Abstract

In response to reviews of The Innovation Complex: Cities, Tech, and the New Economy, the author emphasizes that every "new" economy, including the "innovation" economy connected to high-tech industries, depends on building local, spatially and socially embedded ecosystems that are not only regional districts or clusters of related producers, but social constructions of discursive, organizational, and geographical spaces. A rich case study of a single, local, tech ecosystem reveals a multidimensional "innovation complex" that represents the planetary urbanization of the Silicon Valley model.

Keywords

• innovation
• urban economy
• urban tech economy
• innovation complex
• entrepreneurship and innovation