Out of curiosity and commitment and convinced that the new can't exist without the old, Marcel Wanders went in search of Amsterdam's creative past, personally choosing the men and women he feels are his creative family. These heroes are honored in this book, highlighting the city's most creative moments and inventions of the last 700 years. Marcel Wanders wants to illustrate how an open, tolerant city contributes to creativity and how creativity binds people. He sees creativity in the largest sense of the word; it does not only exist in predefined fields, but is found in the heart of the creator, not constrained by any definition or form. Therefore in this book you will find new, sometimes unlikely, connections; heroes who look beyond existing inventions and conventions and in doing so, open new worlds in the past and the future. In his own way Marcel Wanders wants to show the world the potential of the city: Amsterdam is the creative capital because she has the creative capital.

Tells the story of Georges Doriot who created the venture capital industry. This book traces the events in Doriot's life, including his experience as a decorated brigadier general during World War II; as a professor at Harvard Business School; and as the architect and founder of the first venture capital firm, American Research and Development.

This book challenges the new urban growth concepts of the creative class and creative industries from a critical urban theory perspective. Critiques Richard Florida's popular books about cities and the creative class Presents an alternative approach based on analyses of empirical research data concerning the German urban system and the case study regions, Hanover and Berlin Underscores that the culture industry takes a leading role in conforming with neoliberal conceptions of labor markets

Well-designed infrastructure brings social value that far exceeds its initial construction expenditure, but competition for scarce government funds and a general public perception of infrastructure as mere efficiency, has often left design ill-considered. This book provides designers with the tools needed to argue for the value of design: the ‘design capital’ as the authors term it. In naming and defining design capital, design can once again become part of the discussion and realization of every infrastructure project. Design Capital offers strategies and tools for justifying public spending on design considerations in infrastructure projects. Design has the ability to make infrastructure resonate with cultural or social value, as seen in the case studies, which bestows infrastructure with the potential to accrue design capital. Support for this proposition is drawn from various methodologies of economic valuation and Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, explanation of design methodology and education and a series of historical and contemporary case studies. The book also addresses some of the more controversial outcomes associated with contemporary infrastructure: gentrification, globalization and consumer tourism. With this book, designers can make a stronger case for the value of design in public infrastructure.

This book pragmatically explores the myths, concepts, policies, key conditions and tools for enhancing creative knowledge cities. The authors provide a critical reflection on the reality of city concepts including university-city alignment for campus planning, labour market conditions, social capital and proximity, triple helix based transformation, and learning by city governments. Original examples from both the EU and US are complemented by detailed case studies of cities including Rotterdam, Vienna and Munich. The book also examines the reality of knowledge cities in emerging economies such as Brazil and China, with a focus on institutional transferability. Key conditions addressed include soft infrastructure, knowledge spillovers among firms and the connectivity of cities via transport networks to allow the creation of new hubs of knowledge-based services.

International migration and urbanization as economic processes can provide great opportunities to solve local and regional economic and social problems and lead to the leveling of global economic unfairness and multi-complexity. However, uncontrolled migration and urbanization can easily destroy market stability and create many new social and economic problems both in developed (due to migration) and developing (due to urbanization) countries. Migration and Urbanization: Local Solutions for Global Economic Challenges is a collection of innovative research that sets basic rules and patterns for state regulation of urbanization and international migration and for increasing the economic efficiency of developed and developing countries. Additionally, the book evaluates the economic impact of urbanization and international migration at the global, national, and regional levels. While highlighting topics including economic security, modern mechanisms, and migration policy, this book is ideally designed for government officials, economists, educators, policymakers, industry leaders, business managers, academicians, researchers, and students.

The need for informed and effective insights into key concepts and models of regional development and growth, from an endogenous growth perspective, has risen over the past decade. These recent advances address in particular local and regional assets and characteristics comprising inter alia creativity, knowledge, innovation forces and entrepreneurship. Access to and exploitation of these modern forms of human and social capital are of paramount importance for the dynamic regional economic environment in a city or region. This volume offers an overview and critical treatment of the spatial-economic roots, opportunities and impacts of new growth strategies, mainly from an evidence-based perspective. In the various contributions to this volume, relevant findings and strategic options are interpreted and discussed from both an analytical and a policy perspective to help cultivate creativity, human capital development and innovation as well as entrepreneurial activity, with a view to exploit the drivers of economic development, in order to strengthen the competitive edge of cities and regions.