Urban innovation-oriented policies and knowledge dynamics: insights from Boston and Cambridge US

In the last two decades, European regions and cities, had to deal with a strong dichotomy being inherent with improving competitiveness and ensuring equal opportunities, amongst social inclusion issues. The globalization context required a structural change in policy design, in each level of government and in different forms of governance. The common space of change lies in building an innovative policy perspective involving all ‘sectors’ of life which at European level, has been identified with the Smart Specialisation theoretical approach making innovation the catalyst for designing the change in the current Cohesion Policy. Introducing smart specialisation in regional policy agenda allows at reinforcing territorial knowledge dynamics connected with place-based approach in designing local economic development (McCann and Ortega-Argilès, 2013). The article analyses the territorial knowledge dynamics investigating clusters with a spatially-oriented approach at urban level. The aim is to figure out how the connection of urban policy with place-based innovation approach allows at reaching the knowledge convergence to activate informational spill-overs. Insights derived from two case studies carried out in two US cities, Boston and Cambridge, are presented, where cluster, innovation policy and urban planning act in a complementary way for supporting knowledge dynamics. The spatial configuration of clusters, based on Porter’s definition, at city level allows at interpreting the role of innovation spaces as expression of knowledge dynamics’ source within on going urban regeneration initiatives.