Specialization of and complementarities between (new) knowledge clusters in the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main urban region

Abstract

The spatial distribution of economic activities in urban regions in post-industrial countries can be interpreted as the result of the play of power between metropolization and regionalization processes. On the one hand, the globalization of the economy and the growing importance of the knowledge economy contribute to the metropolization of the global urban system, with metropolitan regions gaining in importance (

Metropolisation through Regionalisation? Spatial Scope and Anchor Points of Metropolitan Functions in German Urban Regions

“…Through the functional, cultural and institutional integration of these cities, the surrounding area gains in functions and forms the basis for metropolisation beyond the core city into the surrounding area. While cities might be obvious anchor points for polycentric regional development around metropolises (Lüthi et al 2010;Meijers et al 2016;Volgmann & Münter 2018;Wagner & Growe 2020), other 'new centres' (Kane et al 2018;Krehl 2018) -such as so-called 'edge cities' (Garreau 1992;Bontje & Burdack 2005) or airport locations (Growe 2012;Wenner et al 2020) -can be drivers of regionalisation. Agglomeration economies are no longer confined to core cities, and different places can 'borrow size' in order to access greater benefits, as the necessary resources operating at the urban region scale become available to them (Alonso 1973;Phelps et al 2001).…”

“…2010; Meijers et al . 2016; Volgmann & Münter 2018; Wagner & Growe 2020), other ‘new centres’ (Kane et al . 2018; Krehl 2018) – such as so‐called ‘edge cities’ (Garreau 1992; Bontje & Burdack 2005) or airport locations (Growe 2012; Wenner et al .…”

Cities in Transition and Urban Innovation Ecosystems: Place and Innovation Dynamics in the Case of Boston and Cambridge (USA)

“…Urban regeneration can be related to the innovation diffusion process [78]. It is widely recognized that the rise of the knowledge economy has reshaped the global urban system into metropolitan regions where knowledge-based industries find agglomeration economies accommodated in the core, global cities, and metropolitan areas [71,[79][80][81][82][83]. Meanwhile, it is emerging that the urban economic landscape is changing with more distributive focal points that expose different urban areas to knowledge-intensive economies.…”

Polycentric regions: Proposals for a new typology and terminology

“…Burger and Meijers, 2012; Hall and Pain, 2006). A division of labour between a region’s centres can, for example, be established, inasmuch as specialisations of centres are determined via location quotients, or complementarities between centres are identified with the help of correspondence analysis (Meijers, 2005; Volgmann and Münter, 2018).…”

“… 2. This analysis serves primarily to illustrate the phenomenon of sub-centre formation compared to the presence of a historically polycentric urban structure. This is because investigating the presence of sub-centres on the scale of municipalities obviously only provides a rough approximation of the identification of subcentres, as these are small-scale phenomena covering only parts of a municipality (Spencer, 2015; Volgmann and Münter, 2018). However, we do not possess finer-grained data to address this in this conceptual article. …”