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The beginning of 2020 saw the global spreading of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a systematic closure of national borders across the world, which we refer to as the 'covidfencing' panorama. As expected, in Europe, where close to two million commuters cross national borders on a daily basis to work, this new reality has provoked significant setbacks to their lives. Based on evidence already available from several sources, this article presents some of the main impacts of the covidfencing process in the European cross-border (CB) areas. It does so by relating this process to the components of a proposed deterritorialism conceptual framework. In essence, it was possible to conclude that social related components like the sharing of health facilities and the need to work across borders show the existence of a high degree of deterritorialism in several parts of Europe. Nevertheless, more integration and deterritorialism is required everywhere, and simultaneously at the social, economic, physical and institutional levels. Crucially, covidfencing has highlighted the need for improving cross-border cooperation (CBC) with a view to mitigating persistent CB barriers and European integration processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature discusses the effectiveness of business innovation modes on innovation performance. In particular, the innovation mode based on the application of science and technology drivers -STI- (e.g. R&D; collaboration with universities) is analysed and compared to the mode based on learning-by-doing, by-using and by-interacting -DUI- (e.g. teamwork, collaboration with suppliers). These modes express the archetypical strategies firms use to innovate. The literature has long identified specificities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, in this study we segment this group of enterprises and inquire the peculiar innovation modes adopted by these firms as we expect SMEs to be less homogeneous than typically expected. Here, we distinguish between internal STI and DUI drivers, and external STI and DUI drivers as we expect firms of different sizes to compete through different combinations of drivers. Complementarily, we investigate the impact of these drivers on innovation output across these types of firms. The results show the effective adoption of internal STI drivers across micro/small firms, and the well-rounded approach taken by medium-sized firms. Large firms show a more limited effectiveness of external STI and DUI drivers, which seems to be linked to a selective approach to innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the functions of spatial governance and planning systems are generalizable, 30 years of comparative studies, especially in Europe, have shown the heterogeneity characterising these 'institutional technologies'. This contribution builds on the materials of the recently concluded ESPON COMPASS research project to propose a European typology on the capacity of public authorities to control spatial development, a crucial aspect for the life of entire cities, regions and countries. Based on the opinions expressed by respective national experts, the systems of 39 countries (28 EU and 11 non-EU) are compared in relation to the mechanisms to allocate land use and spatial development rights as well as to the prevalence of the state vs. the market in guiding the development decisions. As a result, the European systems are placed on an X-Y diagram, which makes it possible to cluster them in consistent types that raise new comparative observations and general findings. In summary, the capacity for public control of spatial development looks variegated in Europe, although limited overall. Even if the power relations between state and market established in each institutional context are certainly influential, the models adopted for allocating spatial development rights also play a role in determining the observed trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Barca Report of 2009 firmly placed endogenous potentials on the European Union policy agenda. Now, as the current EU programming period 2014–2020 draws to a close, this article examines how such potentials are being shaped and applied at the local and regional levels. We reflect upon lessons learned from this approach, thereby contributing to the debate on the next European Union's cohesion programming period from 2020 onwards. The analysis deals with the valorization of place-based development potentials in case study regions, highlighting challenges in the current development of such regions. Examples are given of the utilization of endogenous potentials, and we consider lessons learned from this locally-led, place-based development approach for the wider framework of European cohesion policy. The focus is on (old) industrial regions, characterized by small- and medium-sized towns outside major agglomerations. The authors conclude that it is insufficient to merely consider the direct economic effects of endogenous development potentials. Instead, a more comprehensive perspective is required, one that pays greater attention to other functions of endogenous approaches, specifically their catalyst, identity and symbolic functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study regional patterns of scientific knowledge production in Europe using all scientific publications in the period 2000–2014 attributed to 813 scientific subfields. We show that the existing scientific portfolio of regions offers opportunities for related diversification and discourages the creation of knowledge on topics unrelated to the local knowledge base. Many lagging regions show clear growth, but complex knowledge production remains highly concentrated in regions in the North and West of Europe. For lagging regions there are advantages in not specializing too soon and to first diversify before moving into developing more complex knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Periods of ongoing growth in the economy and demographics have come to a halt for many European regions for various reasons, challenging their economic development prospects. Despite the heterogeneous nature of stagnation, decline, peripheralization or even stigmatization to be found there, these configurations ‘beyond growth’ have in common that short-term ‘fire-fighting’ policy approaches aiming to foster regional economic growth face some important limitations. We argue that this has to do, among other things, with the overall direction of established and orthodox planning approaches that are predominantly based on growth-oriented paradigms and implicitly or explicitly work with dichotomous categories such as core–periphery and metropolitan versus non-metropolitan spaces; these do, however, not capture local realities in these cases. Using the notion of non-core regions, we plead for conceptualizing non-core regions and their regional economic development trajectories in different ways: thinking ‘beyond growth’. Such alternative ideas should be informed by alternative understandings of growth, development and sustainability in order to influence theories and concepts, but also to support new approaches to planning practice. To this aim, we discuss non-core regions from a social constructivist perspective, elaborating some points of departure for conceptualizing and practising regional planning ‘beyond growth’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article stems from the discrepancy between the lack of attention paid to industrial land policy by academics and the predominant thought among elected representatives and development agencies, i.e. that industrial land policy plays a key role in the creation of growth and new jobs. The article begins with a reflection on the literature, which stresses the need to develop knowledge on industrial land policies. To help fill this research gap, we have developed an exploratory piece of research on the theme of their 'spatial' and 'economic effectiveness', on the basis of statistical analyses dedicated to seven countries. As regards 'spatial effectiveness', the results underline significant national differentials in terms of land consumption on the one hand, while highlighting the economic sprawl that affects France and Belgium on the other hand. As regards 'economic effectiveness', our results show that the impact of the development of economic estates on growth depends largely on regional contexts. In particular, the 'intermediate regions' in western Germany stand out as belonging to a specific context where land policies seem particularly effective from an economic standpoint. By contrast, the 'economic effectiveness' of industrial land policies requires readjustments in the Netherlands as well as in most 'predominantly rural regions, close to a city'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we explore the effects of two Slovenian jazz festivals on the economic resilience of the host cities: Jazzinty Novo Mesto and Jazz Cerkno. We analyse to what extent the two jazz festivals contribute to the original pre-crisis status (e.g. static economic resilience) of the two host cities as reaction to the financial crisis of 2008. Using a monthly based dataset of Statistical Office of Republic of Slovenia, covering the period 2008-2015, and ex-post econometric verification methodology (time series and panel data methods), we estimate the effects of these festivals on tourism inflows and employment. The results confirm important effects of the events in both cities, but with wide variation across the years, being more present in the earlier years of the festivals, and being on a very different scale for both cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation strategies for smart specialization have become the new framework for organizing innovation support in European regions and states. This article examines how policy-makers conceive monitoring in the context of the current European territorial and innovation policy. In this setting, monitoring activities have to move beyond an audit-oriented logic in order to integrate a range of strategic functions such as producing the information needed to manage evidence-based policy decisions effectively and keep stakeholders informed and engaged in the policy cycle. To analyse this transition, we first conceptualize the logic of intervention of smart specialization. In a second step, we present the findings from a survey of policy-makers on their perceptions of this intervention logic and monitoring. We find that strategy monitoring is an exercise that must go beyond a narrow audit focus. Regional policy-makers involve stakeholders to interpret monitoring results for strategy revision and they adopt a priority-specific intervention logic, albeit with problems of implementing this logic in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the creative and cultural policies that are developed on a European cross-border scale. It provides a comparative case study of the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion, located on the French–Spanish eastern border and the Greater Region between Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium and France. The analysis is based on the concept of cultural development, which is related to Euroregions to emphasize the uses of culture, identity and creative resources in strategies of territorial attractiveness and institutional capacity-building. The analysis then shows how the dynamics of cultural development concretely impact Euroregional policies: implications, or even strengthening, of arts and creativity in cross-cutting policies—tourism and sustainable development, promotion of cultural diversity and the human dimension of development. Furthermore, these dynamics underline the contribution of cultural policy to the construction of territoriality, and subsequently the contribution of Euroregions to the territorial and cultural construction of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the contribution that second-tier cities can and do make to the economic performance of national economies across Europe. It reviews the competing theories about size, investment and economic performance. It presents a range of evidence about the performance of over 150 European capital and second-tier cities in 31 countries. It identifies some key policy messages for local national and European policy-makers. It presents evidence that decentralizing responsibilities, powers and resources, spreading investment and encouraging high performance in a range of cities rather than concentrating on the capital city produces national benefits. It argues that in a period of austerity national governments should resist pressures to concentrate investment in capital cities and invest more in second-tier cities when there is evidence that: (i) the gap with capitals is large and growing (ii) the business infrastructure of second-tier cities is weak because of national underinvestment and (iii) there is clear evidence about the negative externalities of capital city growth. It argues that the issues have slipped down the European Commission's agenda and it should do more to ensure its strategies help realize the economic potential of second-tier cities in future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Europe, cross-border cooperation in spatial planning has intensified in recent years. Organizations with varying institutional characteristics have emerged in urban areas that cross a national border. They deal with problems stemming from the cross-border situation. The institutional and spatial aspects of organizations on the sub-national level in nine European cross-border metropolitan regions are compared in this article. The analytical concept of metropolitan governance applied here takes into account the simultaneous existence of different cross-border organizations as well as their spatial and functional relationships. Subsequently, this article assesses the impact of governance on spatial planning in two cases, Basel and Lille, where institutional changes occurred on the sub-national level between 2000 and 2010. The way organizational and spatial attributes of new forms of cross-border metropolitan governance influence the coordination of spatial policies is discussed here. The comparison of organizational characteristics and capacity to coordinate reveals important differences. Furthermore, comparing spatial scales shows how new cross-border perimeters are drawn along existing national territories. Organizations' competences and interests are decisive for the coordination and implementation of spatial policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented which explores various reports published within the issue on topics including new economic perspective after de-industrialization in Europe, resilience of local communities of dealing with economic change and planning strategies in shrinking cities.

Although the development of creative industries (CI) has formed into extensive and significant phenomenon in European cities, the conceptualization and generalization of these practices and policies is still rather weak. In addition to the attempts to explain the formation of these kinds of practices in the cities and discuss the path-dependent character of CI policies, the challenging task is to identify the main alternatives and inherent logic of CI policies, especially due to the existing rich and diverse experiences of European cities. This article aims to build a typology of the policy practices relating to CI. We make use of an “ideal types” approach, which focuses on determining a limited number of parameters to characterize alternative CI policies in different (European) cities; this is based on how one kind of CI policy practice can be distinguished from another. The article examines how the CI policies in four post-socialist cities (three of which are located in the Baltic region) contrast with the policies found in a range of other cities in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From a corpus constituted by the five Cohesion Reports written by the European Commission, the article, using the methods of textual analysis, highlights the production of a European discourse on the territories participating to a process of institutionalization. Thus, starting from various authors analyses who validate the idea of institutionalization, the authors propose here to further explore this idea, using a method based on a lexical analysis software. The aim is then, on the one hand, to assess the extent to which the discourse of the Commission has elements of stability to justify the idea of institutionalization or, in the other hand, the elements of change over time that could compromise the very idea of institutionalization. The authors present the following results: the Commission discourse has important features of stability. Nevertheless, beyond this finding, there are changes at work. Their expression is rendered possible by the polysemy of the notions mobilized, and they are driven partly by a “rational” representation, but above all by the interplay of the succession of tensions and mind-shaping contexts in the construction of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the last few decades, innovation has been widely recognized to be the engine of wealth and prosperity as it intensifies competition and increases productivity, which both in turn lead to significant economic benefits such as higher income per capita and increased employment. However, empirical evidence in this article illustrates that innovation seems not to have paid-off for some of the most innovative regions in Europe, as these regions, despite being highly innovative, grow at a slower pace than their national counterparts, as well as presenting poor economic outcomes such as low income per capita and high unemployment rates. The aim of this article is to communicate this intriguing observation to both innovation scholars and to policy-makers, since its very existence seems to cast doubt not only on one of the most principal assumptions in the field of innovation studies (i.e. innovation as the engine of growth) but also on one of the most fundamental pillars currently underpinning several regional, national and supranational economic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Regional policies across Europe aim at stimulating regional development in non-core regions through fostering entrepreneurship. However, the policies applied in non-core regions and the concepts of entrepreneurship these policies are based on differ. Therefore, the goal of this review is to identify different understandings of entrepreneurship and their role for regional development processes in European non-core regions. To this end, empirical studies investigating entrepreneurship in European non-core regions from 1999 to 2011 were analysed. The results of the analysis are presented along three drivers and outcomes of entrepreneurship identified inductively from the literature: innovation, social capital and institutional change. We made out seven different types of entrepreneurship in European non-core regions. These seven types of entrepreneurship comprise particular mechanisms through which they stimulate regional development. Further research should study the interplay between these different mechanisms of regional development in non-core regions which may induce a more territorial approach to understand entrepreneurship in non-core regions across Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the fundamental rescaling of socio-economic relationships, the mega-city region (MCR) has emerged as an important geographical space for governance. At the same time it is highly fragmented institutionally, making it difficult to overcome collective action problems such as providing regional public transport and protecting open spaces. In practice, different arrangements are employed to address these problems, including hierarchical approaches, competitive self-coordination and joint decision-making. Drawing on experiences in five MCRs in Europe and the US, the relative use and success of these approaches was investigated. The analysis suggests that the composition of the actor constellation (e.g. the number and kind of parties involved) and local political support proved to be important factors in explaining the performance of a particular governance approach. In addition, the findings provide a new appreciation for the role of the state, particularly the national government, in governing MCRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The compact city has become a leading concept in the planning of peri-urban areas. The compact city concept is often advocated as “sustainable” because of claims that include lower emissions and conservation of the countryside. The literature shows, however, that there are certain trade-offs in striving for compaction, especially between environmental and social aspects of sustainability. In this article, we describe expressions of the compact city concept in the planning practice of several European urban sample regions, as well as policies and developments that contradict the compact city. We look at examples of positive and negative impacts of the compact city that were observed in the sample regions. Further, we discuss attempts by planners to deal with sustainability trade-offs. Being aware that developments in the peri-urban areas are closely connected to those in the inner city, we compare the sample regions in order to learn how the compact city concept has been used in planning peri-urban areas across different contexts in Europe: in Western, Central and Mediterranean Europe, and with growing, stable or declining populations. We conclude with recommendations with respect to balance in applying the compact city concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It can be argued that creating a reputation for sustainable development for the benefit of a competitive advantage resonates with institutional theory. In principle, this opens up the possibility to relate a given sustainability agenda with theoretical frameworks based on old institutional economics (OIE) and/or new institutional economics. This is particularly true in arenas where qualitative factors cause a discontinuous change from the previous structure, such as amid urban regeneration. Using empirical evidence from three very different European cities, Budapest, Amsterdam and Trondheim, it is shown that OIE has plenty to offer for a “patchy” and evolving problem area such as the analysis of planning and property development in an urban setting. The position taken here is that good community governance needs the support of the private sector too. Smart policies, regulations and especially incentives set at the local and regional levels are an imperative to meet the sustainability goals set out in the Rio-1992 agenda. This international comparison attempts to provide some guiding answers to the empirical question as to how sustainable the three cases of country- and city-specific governance are in terms of their property development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Marine spatial planning is emerging as an integrated, resource management-led approach to governing the use of the seas. Recent initiatives include those of some north European countries, including Germany, which has now completed a plan for its federal offshore territory. In this article, an analysis is presented of this pioneering plan and the consultation process behind its production, with a particular emphasis on the treatment of different sectoral interests around which the plan was structured. This revealed the attempts to coordinate not only the different demands at sea by means of allocation of areas and cross-sectoral considerations, but also the uneven representation of activities with certain interests gaining strongly and others effectively marginalized. This study provides early empirical evidence of the tensions involved in the attempt to adopt a spatial approach to marine governance. This new domain for planning is situated in the overlapping, but distinct domains of marine management and spatial planning. The conceptual backgrounds of both are drawn upon in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and in suggesting how marine plans might gain by giving close attention to the broader principles of marine and strategic planning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

If regional policies are to make a difference, they must address the underlying issues that propel growth in successful regions and hamper development in others. This implies that in the wake of structural changes like the ongoing change from an industrial towards a knowledge-economy paradigm, policies for regional economic development must be reconsidered. This article reviews the development of new forms of regional policy in the context of the governance challenges created by the emergence of new knowledge dynamics. Having outlined a conceptual framework and reviewed the literature on the transformation of regional policy in Europe, the article explores current policy patterns in European regions, combining the results of a survey of the policies regional development bodies in European regions, and the findings about the impact of public policies on the basis of an extensive series of in-depth case studies of economic change processes in firms and regions. It is concluded that although important changes have taken place with regard to adopting policies to emerging processes in the knowledge economy, further adjustments may be called for in order for localities to fully benefit from new knowledge dynamics in an increasingly global era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we calculate an indicator of social and economic development using the DP2 distance method to measure the disparities in Objective-1 regions of southern European countries for 2006. In addition to per capita income, socio-economic components such as health, education, employment, scientific and technological development and infrastructure provision have been incorporated into the index. We examine the issue of whether the Europe Union regions included in the Convergence Objective achieved a lower level of development than the regions no longer covered in this objective for the 2007–2013 programming period by establishing a territorial classification based on the value yielded by the variables of the DP2. Our indicator constitutes a novel contribution insofar as it was constructed using a large number of variables. In essence, we show that not all the regions of the Convergence Objective presented a lower level of economic and social development than those that lost this consideration between 2007 and 2013 and the opposite. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Regional policies seek to enable regions to increase their competitiveness and development, and as such one priority Objective of activities financed by Structural Funds is higher employment, higher productivity and economic activity. How efficiently the regions apply the funds is a fundamental issue for the development and continuity of regional policies. We therefore consider that determining the efficiency of European regional policies is an issue of high importance, and this is the main aim of this study. We have considered it appropriate to use the available information to apply a mathematical technique known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which allows us to calculate the technical efficiency and inefficiency of the Structural Funds applied in the Objective 1 regions for the period 2000–2006. Furthermore, we wish to determine if the regions have been more efficient in creasing their levels of employment or in increasing productivity. Our study applies this methodology along with other methods like regression analysis, profit analysis and factorial analysis to determine the variation in the rate of unemployment and productivity in these European Regions. The study reveals that only eight regions are efficient, although none of them is run in all the models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Within Europe, Rotterdam is by far the largest port and supplier of fossil energy sources. City and port have a “sandwich” position in the low lands between a sea with a rising level and rivers with increasing peak discharges. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that sustainability forms a matter of life or death for Rotterdam as a Delta City. The question of a sustainable Rotterdam or not is related to the following issues: (1) water management (preventing hazards; the restoration of the estuary; salinization); (2) urban renewal; (3) the spatial and climate footprint of the ever-growing port and (4) energy transition. Currently all these issues are dealt with largely independently of one another. For a genuinely sustainable future, linkages have to be made between strategies, projects and actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The INTERREG-A, the largest of the Community Initiatives, has been supporting the cross-border cooperation (CBC) in European Union (EU) territory, over the past 19 years, thus contributing to redraw a new political map of Europe, by reducing the barrier effect and reinforcing common development strategies. During this period, several new partnerships and institutions have been established, creating networks that connect a wider range of local and regional actors into the CBC process, on both sides of the borders. Some of these entities have gradually started to call themselves Euroregions, based on non-rigid criteria, even though, in some cases, they lack legal personality and operate on an informal basis. Moreover, it was recently approved by the European Commission the possibility to establish European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation, with legal personality, in border areas, to overcome the obstacles to the CBC process. Therefore, in this article, we propose a new CBC typology which looks at the concept of Euroregion in a geographical perspective, supported on different criteria and adapted to the present-day reality of the European border territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 15 years, the regional scale was used to implement innovation strategies in European Union. Departing from the discussion of the relevance of innovation policy at the regional level, the article benefits from the knowledge production function framework to estimate patterns considering 175 European regions. It is intended to understand whether regional innovation strategies developed and applied between 1994 and 2001 were successful at an aggregated level in contributing for knowledge creation measured in terms of patents and high technology patents. The results underline the relevance of private R&D expenditure and medium and high technology employment to increase patent numbers. The models suggest also that administrative regionalization may be important to regional innovation and that the creation and implementation of a regional strategy have a positive contribution for high tech innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many mature European industrial districts, the present decade has been one of trying (and often failing) to meet the difficult challenges posed by the rising tide of globalization. The future of these districts in the new global economy has become a key issue for regional and local development policy, and, in this respect, it has sparked a renewed interest in economic governance. Economic governance is important in that it underpins a region's long-term economic development path. This article is a contribution to the study of the economic governance of industrial districts and the related policy debate. The article does so by specifically exploring the economic governance issue by considering the experiences and challenges currently facing two mature European industrial districts in the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explain how specific regional innovation systems (RISs) play relative important role in the knowledge network within European regions. EC encourages the interactions between regions and develop toward a cohesion balance. The whole Europe can be taken as a knowledge network that consists of different RISs possessing diversified resources. The existences of hierarchical relationships between different regions seem to lead us to explain whether the path toward higher-order position can be done by RISs to shape the regional competence in specific technological fields. We establish the datasets on the basis of patent data (from EPO) and REGIO database. Regional-level dataset, including 129 regions, helps to explore how different RIS develop their technological paths, and whether locational economic factors, technological conditions, and local innovativeness help RISs toward high-order position in the network. In addition, we also explore the role of the interaction of local factors for RISs in developing network position in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the latest generation of large-scale European peripheral development projects, a growing ambition is visible to plan more urban environments. We refer to this intention as planning for “new urbanity” since the aim is to reintroduce into a new timeframe and location the traditional urban concepts of density and mixing uses. Empirical evidence shows, however, that the path to realize such ambitions has been very difficult. This article presents a study on governance factors influencing the trajectory from initial ambitions towards the first physical results in three cases. An analysis is made of the different dimensions of framing of these projects in their respective metropolitan action space and of the rules that structure their operational domains. This is the basis to question the extent to which the ambition for new urbanity has developed in a social norm influencing acceptable behaviour among actors. The conclusion is that the narrowly defined operation spheres of these projects are weakly connected to important societal domains that could have better supported these ambitions. New urbanity has, therefore, predominantly remained a disconnected, free-floating, “good idea” without strong material results. It is also in danger of becoming an extremely privatized planning concept, deviating from its original spatial and socially integrative nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2006 “Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment” is the first piece of official European Union (EU) policy solely focused on the urban environment. It follows a process of several years in which the EU has tried to promote an integrated approach to urban management. During the 2005-2007 “Liveable Cities” project, reflection was given to the “Thematic Strategy”. This resulted in important critiques on the EU's approach to the urban environment. Explaining how the initial top-down approach chosen by the EU contributed to the perceived “failure” of the “Thematic Strategy”, suggestions are made for alternative approaches to the creation of liveable cities in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyse, discuss and evaluate different methods of branding applied in experiential strategies for the survival of small cities in Europe. After the introduction that refers to the advent of the experience economy in the post-Fordist era, the article introduces various branding methods applied in experiential strategies. Then follows an analysis of how those branding methods are applied in experiential strategies for the development and survival of two small cities in Germany, Dresden and Wolfsburg, in which car production and city development have been combined. The article concludes with an evaluation of the branding methods, which includes considerations of whether they can be used as models of survival for other small European cities. The evaluation refers to recent views on the question of representation and authenticity, and the role of cultural heritage in experiential strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes its point of departure in the pressure of the experience economy on European cities—a pressure which in recent years has found its expression in a number of comprehensive transformations of the physical and architectural environments, and new eventscapes related to fun and cultural experience are emerging. The physical, cultural and democratic consequences of this development are discussed in the article, as well as the problems and the new opportunities in the “experience city”. It focuses on the design of the “Danish experience city” with a special emphasis on hybrid cultural projects and on performative urban spaces. “Hybrid cultural projects” are characterized by a conscious fusion between urban transformation and new knowledge centres, cultural institutions and experience environments. “Performative urban spaces” are characterized by stages for performance, learning and experience. The performative activity can take on the guise of events—something temporary, but still recurring, which influences the shape and identity of the space. The article contains four sections. In the first section, we present three European cases outside Denmark in order to relate to the wider international debate and development. In Section 2, we present the main theoretical concepts and framings that will guide the understanding and the analysis of the experience city. In Section 3, we focus on the design of the “Danish experience city” and present the first research findings. The projects are categorized according to their content, structure and urban localization. In particular, the cases are labelled in relation to their strategic and urban planning importance, their social and cultural content and their architectural representation and the programmes they contain. The article ends in a discussion of the trajectory for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial spillover effects are widely studied in the literature, as an important source of externality and therefore of discrepancy between private and social optimum, creating the emergence for ad-hoc policy interventions. Within the literature, their spatially-bounded nature is highly emphasised, but the mechanisms for their spatial diffusion are generally considered as a black box, with no reference to territorialized channels through which these externalities spread around. The study aims to present a literature review on the spatial spillover concept, emphasising two main stages of reflection, the so-called spatial approach and the functional approach. This work identifies in a third approach, the cognitive approach, a new perspective to the interpretation of spatial spillovers and their conditions, and on this approach it elaborates theoretically and empirically. The main assumption is that the capabilities of economic agents to absorb and utilize spillovers—implicitly assumed by the spatial spillover theory to be invariant with respect to space—in reality highly depend on strongly territorialized and un-imitable assets, such as local trust, sense of belonging and creativity. This assumption is tested empirically on all NUTS 2 of the 27 European member countries, thanks to a regional forecasting growth model developed by the author, called MASST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the patterns of corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&As) involving firms located in the EU25 as well as in the four EFTA countries between 1998 and 2003. Against the background of a reflection on the concept of the firm in economic geography, it uncovers the cross-border balance of M&As across European states and identifies the factors that may explain the levels and patterns of corporate takeovers across Europe. The results indicate that the traditional motives of access to new and core markets, the effects of geographical proximity, and the internalisation of localised capabilities (proxied by a skilled and innovative labour pool) represent the key drivers of European M&As, while institutional factors, such as European integration or language barriers, appear to be less influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, economic and innovation policy across Europe moved in the direction of creating regional clusters of related firms and institutions. Creating clusters through public policy is risky, complex and costly, however. Moreover, it is not necessary to rely on clusters to stimulate innovation. A differentiated and combined network approach to enhancing innovation and stimulating economic growth may be more efficient and effective, especially though not exclusively in regions lacking clusters. The challenge of such a policy is to mitigate the bottlenecks associated with “global pipeline”, “local buzz” and “stand alone” strategies used by innovative firms and to combine these strategies with a view to their complementarity in terms of knowledge effects. Private and semi-public brokers will be key in the evolving policy, as timely organizational change is crucial for continued innovation, while brokers also need to mitigate governance problems. This requires region-specific knowledge in terms of sectors, life cycles, institutional and socio-cultural factors, and yields spatially differentiated and differentiating adjustment strategies. The role of public policy is to assist in recruiting, provide start-up funding and monitor brokers. With this, policy moves towards a decentralized, process-based, region-specific, spatially diverging and multi-level system of innovation that is geared towards the evolving innovation strategies of firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even a decade after the concept of polycentric development became popular and increasingly widespread in Europe as a normative policy stance allegedly leading to cohesion and competitiveness, its empirical basis is still rather weak. This is partly due to a lack of conceptual clearness, which makes its measurement difficult. This research briefing synthesises the results of two recent ESPON projects that aim to create a quantitative measurement of the extent of polycentricity of national urban systems, as well as the links they find between polycentricity and economic and social objectives. Both approaches have their limits and have been, and can be criticized from various perspectives. Some suggestions on how to proceed with this research agenda are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we test the creativity and diversity hypothesis of Richard Florida for European regions. Florida argues that the level of regional economic development depends on the levels of technology, talent, and tolerance that regions harbour. Tolerance, in this case, is a measure for diversity of lifestyles, the creativity that results from it and population's openness towards non-traditional lifestyles. Using data for 94 European regions we investigate whether differences in creativity and diversity are a good predictor of differences in regional wealth in additive and multiplicative regression models. The results indicate that regional differences in diversity are directly related to differences in regional wealth. Moreover, we find that the synergetic effect of technology and talent on the level of regional wealth depends on the degree of diversity that resides within regions. Our findings support the idea that creativity and diversity deserve a more prominent place in economic geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is a survey of Korean automobile manufacturers in Europe, which examines the different perceptions of emerging multinationals to economic integration and the subsequent strategic reactions relating to their particular characteristics. The findings show dissimilar patterns and motivations for Korean automotive foreign direct investment (FDI) when compared to those of established multinationals, which are conceptualized as a pre-emptive strategic advance, particularly in relation to the changing ownership endowments and negative perceptions of the single European market. These finding imply that conventional variables are unlikely to be applicable to emerging multinationals and show the need to segregate them from other multinationals when formulating industrial policies and firm-level competing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dublin's Digital Hub project was intended to be a digital district boasting not only an exciting industry of the future employing thousands of media, technology and creative workers, but an entire district of apartments, retail units and leisure areas. Six years after its inception, only two of the total nine acre site have been in any way developed and the project faces collapse following the closure of its star anchor tenant, Media Lab Europe. This research briefing contours the rise and fall of the project, suggesting lessons to be learned from the tortuous route followed in this attempt to plan and develop a creative digital cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution explores the framing of the concept of Regional Innovation Systems (RISs) within European economic policies. Regional innovation systems are analytically and empirically assessed within the policy context of the Lisbon strategy, with special reference to regional dimensions in the European Research Area. From both theoretical and empirical analysis it is concluded that RIS is not a one-dimensional concept. Although we adhere to RIS arguments as important determinants in economic development, the analyses presented in this article point out that the role of regional innovative capabilities must not be overemphasized. Economic development is in first instance dependent on national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with regional disparities, the innovation gap and the polarization effects of innovation. The article proposes elements of an inclusive model of innovation. This involves a systemic view of innovation, learning and interactivity. It includes the concepts of learning, trust and social capital in the context of a dilemma between innovation and polarization at the territorial level. It describes the basic structure of a ‘new’ diamond model of innovation relevant to European Union (EU) regional policy, especially for the Accession countries. The German Land of Nordrhein Westfalen is taken as the laboratory for this new model. Problems arising from previous top-down approaches adopted to manage regional policy through innovation policy are commented upon, and the manner the new more inclusive model works is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will firstly recall the main concepts that are common to the guidelines set out in the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) and the culture of spatial planning in France, particularly the concept of polycentrism which—under another term and in a different context—experienced some degree of success in the 1960s and 1970s (policy of balanced metropolitan areas). It will also describe how France worked together with a number of southern European countries (Spain, Italy and Portugal) in the different phases of development of the ESDP between 1994 and 1996, with the setting up of a transnational think tank (Franco-Iberian and Franco-Italian). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the changes that are emerging in the Italian urban and territorial policies mainly through the discussion of the relationship between the principles of polycentricity and networking affirmed by the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) and, in general, by the European official documents on spatial planning, and the role of polycentrism and networking in Italian praxis. The article is organized as follow. The first section presents the general framework of the concept of polycentrism and its relevance for the European Union (EU) policies. The second, third and fourth sections briefly describe Italian territorial organization and spatial policies, and illustrate some operational examples of the application of the network model. The fifth section presents the empirical and political relevance of the concepts of network and polycentrism. Finally, in the conclusion, the use of the network proposed by the European official documents on spatial planning and the difference between different meanings of this concept are discussed (from field of interurban relations to local mechanisms of collective action). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presently, the ‘informal’ European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is being duly applied. At the same time, European planners are still searching for a shared understanding of what European spatial planning actually means. Against the backdrop of current developments in European governance, it seems appropriate to explore various regional perspectives on this emergent phenomenon. In so doing, one needs to go beyond the most commonly known perspectives, though. One needs to also reveal the less obvious ‘southern perspectives’. Under close scrutiny, they show themselves well capable of introducing some valuable new elements, and they are as equally useful as others in enriching the debate on European spatial planning and in deepening our understanding about current changes in planning practices in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the empirical research on urban sprawl has been carried out in North America and most theoretical studies on this problem have been concerned with expanding urban areas. This study differs, firstly in that it is concerned with sprawl in two European cities, Liverpool in England and Leipzig in Germany, and secondly because both these cities are in decline. This presents an opportunity to explore whether the process of urban sprawl is somehow specific in a situation of urban decline and what its outcomes might be for both urban form and urban policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article calls for a new analytical approach to address how the emergence of a new European spatial policy field conditions policy-making and implementation across Europe. This is now urgent because as the new policy field takes shape, its core ideas and values are being contested across different scales, sectors and territories of governance, creating new debates and arenas where understandings of space, place and connectivity, and relations between environment, society and economy, are being recast in a European light. In the full flow of generating a new policy field, we still seem to know little about what is being put at stake, or specifically how this is occurring. A value-driven critical response from the research community is therefore needed, informed by research activity reaching across many dimensions of governance and policy-making. The point of developing such an approach is not to discount previous research, but to explore how to generate synthetic and critical insights from different disciplinary and conceptual approaches within an integrated analytical framework. After this discussion, we conclude by proposing that IMAGES (Integrated Multi-level Analysis of the Governance of European Space) can provide such a framework for analysing the emerging policy field of European spatial polices by constructing narratives of how spatial policy ideas and concepts turn into programming space, and how different territories interrelate with these policy concepts, and at the same time contribute to shaping them. This viewpoint and framework are predicated on the authors' belief that values behind the concepts remain hidden at present, both in policy processes and related research. Spatial policies seem to happen in a vacuum of values. By putting spatial justice as a value into this vacuum and by exploring the multi-level governance of European space within an integrative analytical framework, the further development and application of the IMAGES framework can fulfil the need to contest the idea of objective policy-making and analysis in European spatial policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cohousing schemes were evolved as alternative housing in reduce housework for working women, and to reduce loneliness of elderly people by promoting active mutual relationship with community residents in northern European countries. This article discusses how residents manage their life in senior cohousing projects in Sweden and Denmark. The purpose of this study is to investigate resident' life satisfaction connected with demographic characteristics of residents, physical environment and common activities in the senior cohousing communities, so that it could offer usable information for the establishment of new senior cohousing projects in other countries, as well as an empirical evaluation of the existing projects in Scandinavian countries themselves. Important variables influential to residents' life satisfaction are also discussed in order to improve .senior citizens' quality of life. The methods used for the study are literature review, interviews, field trips and questionnaire. Nine hundred and thirty-five postal questionnares were .sent to 28 senior cohousing communities throughout Denmark and Sweden. Of those 536 replies were collected and analysed by SPSS program using frequency, mean and Chi-square test. As a result, it was found out that most of the respondents are healthy, 70-year'olds, and satisfied with their current living in the community. The majority of them also would like to strongly recommend others to move to senior cohousing schemes to improve quality' of life, in their later years. Residents' intensive concern about building location and design is a noteworthy reminder for designers and architects as well as for professionals and decision-makers who work in the elderly welfare sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of convergence and cohesion between the European regions, the promotion of innovation in regions that are in different phases of development has been a central objective of European regional policy. For this purpose, the European Commission has launched many innovation schemes and many European regions have conducted initiatives of this kind. In this article, based on the implementation of successive European regional innovation projects in three Objective 1 regions in Greece, namely Central Macedonia, Western Macedonia and Thessaly, the trajectory and the changes that have occurred in their system of innovation are examined. At the outset, considering the outcomes of the first phase of the RTP/RIS exercise, the obstacles in forming these regions' dynamic innovation systems are identified. Thereafter, upon the outcomes of the follow-up exercise of RIS+projects, an imminent change in these regions is observed, highlighting the marking of an innovation-oriented policy addressed to create a supporting institutional framework and shaping the regional innovation environment. Based on these observations, it is argued that European regional policy, via these innovation schemes, has significantly contributed to the reinforcement of innovation systems of participating regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]