Innovating the city : challenges and opportunities in establishing incubators and districts in Paris and Boston

All over the world, local leaders are leveraging high-tech industry in their economic development strategies. Cities are encouraging the clustering of industries in specific sectors such as manufacturing, innovation, technology, and advanced services. In this effort to leverage distinctive strengths there has been a movement in cities to seed entrepreneurship as part of broader innovation and industrial strategies. This thesis takes a qualitative approach to investigating the opportunities and challenges in creating and establishing innovation clusters in two cities: Paris and Boston. Key insights are drawn from interviews and site visits to startups, co-working spaces, incubators, accelerators and innovation districts. These cases offer insights on the unique political, economic and cultural systems that shape innovation strategies in two cities at drastically different stages of cluster development. The results highlight key institutional, policy and social barriers that have influenced how innovation places form. These insights are meant to provide policy makers and organizations a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities that face entrepreneurs and startup organizations. In conclusion, a proposal for improving innovation strategy in both cities is explored.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Johnson, Karen (Karen Lynn)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eran Ben-Joseph.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/90206

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/90206