Laura Williams, Strategy Manager for the Plan for Economic Growth & Jobs at World Business Chicago, and Josh Drucker, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Policy, UIC, speak about the use of innovation districts to attract economic development.
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Intriguing. These innovation districts are relatively new. I’m interested to know if there is any research that has captured (empirically) the impact of an “innovation district” designation on the local community and regional area.
I do not believe there is, yet. Essentially, not enough time has passed since the initial designations to conduct such reseach. The one exception might be Barcelona, since the innovation district was established around the turn of the millennium, but I have not found any empirical studies that attempt to isolate the effect of the district there from other development policies. So there is a definite need to consider how best we can evaluate the effects of innovation districts promptly.