The Rise of Innovation Districts

[Larry King]

Originally Posted by mello

Can you fill us in more about what is happening in this part of Philly? What is the feeling like in the city right now, one of optimism plentiful jobs for young people, things on the upswing etc? Will Philly really start to have a strong pull as a serious alternative to NYC for a large group of people? Philly fascinates me right now but there isn't much talk about it on the forum.

Everyone is very optimistic. We're not competing with ny for people/jobs, we're competing with our own suburbs. Philly metro has a huge economy, it's a matter of concentrating it in the city.

[Arch City]

Here's a lengthy one-year anniversary follow-up article about Brookings' Rise of Innovation Districts earlier piece from 2014.

Brookings Paper | June 24, 2015
One year after: Observations on the rise of innovation districts
By: Bruce Katz, Jennifer S. Vey and Julie Wagner

In the year since we released “The Rise of Innovation Districts: A New Geography of Innovation in America,” Brookings has visited or interacted with dozens of leaders in burgeoning innovation districts in the United States and Europe. In so doing, we’ve sharpened our knowledge of what’s happening on the ground and gained some important insights into how cities and metros are embracing this new paradigm of economy-shaping, place-making, and network-building.

Innovation districts capture the remarkable spatial pattern underway in the innovation economy—the heightened clustering of anchor institutions, companies, and start-ups in small geographic areas of central cities across the United States, Europe, and other global-trading regions.

The rise of innovation districts has been situated against the familiar backdrop of suburban corporate campuses and science parks. Accessible only by car, these spatially isolated corridors place little emphasis on the quality of life or on integrating work, housing, and recreation.

By contrast, in our report we found the rise of urban innovation hubs to be the organic result of profound economic and demographic forces that are altering how we live and work. The growing application of “open innovation”—where companies work with other firms, inventors, and researchers to generate new ideas and bring them to market—has revalued proximity, density, and other attributes of cities. At the same time, the growing preference of young talented workers to congregate in vibrant neighborhoods that offer choices in housing, transportation, and amenities has made urban and urbanizing areas increasingly attractive.

A simple Google search will reveal the extent to which the language of “innovation districts” (or “innovation quarters,“ “innovation neighborhoods,” or “innovation corridors”) has rapidly permeated the field of urban and metropolitan economic development and place-making.

In some places, this labeling is being accurately used by globally recognized research institutions (e.g., Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Drexel University in Philadelphia) that are both experiencing extraordinary growth near their campuses as well as designing intentional efforts to build on their distinctive assets. In communities as diverse as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis in the United States and Manchester and Sheffield in England, local leaders are conducting deep empirical analysis to understand their competitive advantages and existing weaknesses within their innovation ecosystem. They are exploring what it means to encourage greater collaboration and cooperation across their institutions, firms, and entrepreneurs. And they are exploring ways to better create “place” so as to increase overall vitality, facilitate innovation, and spur the growth of new businesses and jobs.

In other places, the nomenclature reflects an aspiration—and is spurring more deliberate efforts by local stakeholders to grow distinctive innovation ecosystems. In cities like Albuquerque, N.M., Chattanooga, Tenn., Chicago, Ill., Durham, N.C., and San Diego, Calif., local leaders are using the innovation district paradigm as a platform to measure their current conditions, develop strategies for addressing gaps and challenges, and build coalitions of stakeholders that can together help realize a unified vision for innovative growth. Some of these budding districts represent typologies not outlined in our report but that are ripe for future research, including “start-up” enclaves in or near downtowns of cities that lack a major anchor as well as “public markets” that blend locally produced food products and crafts with maker spaces, digital design, and other innovations in the creative arts.

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[Arch City]

St. Louis' Midtown industrial zone is rapidly de-industrializing and what's taking its place is St. Louis' 200-acre innovation district known as CORTEX (Center of Research, Technology and Entrepreneurial Exchange). The district has 164 companies and is in talks with other Silicon Valley companies. (Video)

Below is the former U.S. Metals manufacturing facility - now completely gone. Demo recently finished. Plans for the site include a 500,000sf 5-building development.

The rendering only depicts updated massing plans for the site, which will be near the newly-planned MetroLink Station for the district.


Image Credit: NextSTL.com
Read: Half-Million Square Foot, 5-Building Science Development Next for Cortex


US Steel Demolition by Paul Sableman, on Flickr


Cortex District by Paul Sableman, on Flickr


US Steel Demolition by Paul Sableman, on Flickr

[llamaorama]

I guess this one of those strategies that diminishes in effectiveness the more places adopt it.

The early adopters will win out though. Or places that have underlying strengths.

[mhays]

These are probably valuable as incubators. Every region should help new companies start and grow.

Likewise, some industries like to cluster together, and/or around the established players. Nothing wrong with making that easier.

But yes it's also a buzzword and a cliche. Every second office building is about innovation. Every city has a district, or multiple districts.

But that's fine too. You can grow a local industry through luck (basically my city's plan), or you can be more proactive. If every city has a good story to attract an industry, then your city should probably have a good story too, just to be considered.

[goat314]

Originally Posted by mhays

These are probably valuable as incubators. Every region should help new companies start and grow.

Likewise, some industries like to cluster together, and/or around the established players. Nothing wrong with making that easier.

But yes it's also a buzzword and a cliche. Every second office building is about innovation. Every city has a district, or multiple districts.

But that's fine too. You can grow a local industry through luck (basically my city's plan), or you can be more proactive. If every city has a good story to attract an industry, then your city should probably have a good story too, just to be considered.

Good points. I think for a region like St. Louis that has suffered horribly from de-industrialization, its great to see us engaging in deliberate economic development. For the longest we have sat back and waited for the return of manufacturing or the next fortune 500 company to save us. I'm glad to see the city investing in smaller start-ups and collaborating with universities to foster an innovative economy. The amount of construction going on in St. Louis' central corridor is unlike anything the region has seen in 50 years and its largely due to planned economic development like Cortex and the Wash U Medical Center expansion.

Only problem in St. Louis is that we are still losing tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs every decade, so even though we are also adding tens of thousands of jobs in IT, biotech, medical, finance etc. it gives the impression that we are stagnant or not working for a better future, very similar to Pittsburgh in that regards. I'd imagine that once the loss of manufacturing finds a bottom we will begin to see modest growth as a region again and be wealthier and more educated at that. I believe Pittsburgh and St. Louis have the highest educational attainment out of the old rust belts, a testament to our relatively ancient institutions in comparison to the Great Lakes towns.

[Arch City]

^Great points as well.

In my opinion, St. Louis was slow to change (or to adapt) to the new economy because it was such a manufacturing powerhouse. I feel local leadership did not foresee the extent by which St. Louis would be so negatively impacted by the changing global economy. I think they thought the bleeding of manufacturing jobs would stop, but it didn't.

As a result, St. Louis did not start planning for changes in the global economy until about 15-17 years ago.

Nevertheless, I feel that STL has made up a lot of lost ground. However, it must keep working harder.

The St. Louis economy is definitely in a state of transition. It's shedding, but still holding on to some of the old, but cultivating the new.

Just yesterday, Cardinal Health's Regulatory Sciences business announced that is opening an office in CORTEX/CIC.

Cardinal Health is a F100 firm. Would they have come without CORTEX and Cambridge Innovation Center? Probably not.

This continues to fall in line with the goal of making health care (and biosciences) among the economic tools for growth as well as upticking knowledge-based jobs in the region.

[Arch City]

Square Opening St. Louis Office
September 23, 2015 12:52 AM



ST. LOUIS (KMOX) — Square, the fast-growing mobile payments company founded by a pair of St. Louisans, is returning to its roots for its fourth office in the U.S. — and first in the Midwest.

“St. Louis is an important part of Square’s history,” Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “It’s an incredible city and my hometown, and we’re excited to further invest in the community. Go Cards!”

The company was founded in St. Louis in 2009 by Dorsey and Jim McKelvey. The inspiration for Square’s signature product — the white, plastic credit card swipe device — came when McKelvey was unable to sell a piece of art at his Third Degree Glass Factory on Delmar Blvd. because he couldn’t process a customer’s credit card.

At its new office, in the Central West End’s Cortex Innovation District, Square expects to immediately hire 40 full-time employees, with plans for more than 200 to eventually work in St. Louis within five years.

Most of the job listings currently on Square’s website for St. Louis involve compliance and customer service. Future functions will also include IT and recruiting.

“St. Louis is a prime location for Square’s new office because of its growing economy and wealth of talent from top universities, research centers, and training programs,” says the statement.

Co-founder Jim McKelvey added: “There’s talent all over the country, not just on the coasts.”

He would know. McKelvey founded the LaunchCode program in St. Louis to help fill the scores of vacant tech jobs in the region. First, the program helped match programmers with companies in need. Lately, the focus has been on training people from scratch on how to code.

LaunchCode has since expanded to Miami and, more recently, Kansas City. Square’s renewed St. Louis presence also bolsters the region’s claim as a financial services hub.

In addition to headquarters or operations centers for blue chips like Edward Jones, Stifel, Wells Fargo Advisors, Reinsurance Group of America, Scottrade and MasterCard, the city is home to an accelerator program for financial technology start-ups.

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