Startup Districts

Image via: Fast Company 

Co-working spaces and small business incubators such play an essential role in the innovation ecology by providing a physical and social infrastructure that nurtures entrepreneurship. Central Working in London has served as a platform for US based startups to start their expansion in the UK. 

The challenge of closing the digital divide poses an interesting question for cities everywhere simultaneously vying to become tech hubs: Can you really build one in a city with a yawning digital divide? Conversely, how do you leverage high-tech companies and entrepreneurs – once you have them in town, that is – to spread the advantages of technology more widely?

UK National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts  (NESTA)

This article examines the community benefit agreements and of Twitter, Zendesk and other tech companies relocating on San Francisco's mid-market district. It addresses how tech companies can integrate with urban communities and what sort of change they inevitably will bring to longstanding neighborhoods. 

Detroit, a city whose downtown is better known for its recent economic decline, is drawing a number of college-educated people under age 35.

New York City emerges as the second center for tech innovation in the country. 

Is the time is right for New York City to compete with Silicon Valley as a center for tech innovation?

Affordable rents, a vibrant restaurant scene and a central location fueled the development of a technology cluster in East London. 

 Carly Cloge argues that a tight-knit community must exist to set the stage for a healthy startup ecosystem. 

On his book Startup Communities Brad Feld unveils the ingredients that made Boulder a successful entrepreneurial city. 

The City of Mountain View embraces Google's vision for retrofitting its Mountain View campus as a dense, walkable and connected urban place. 

A creative agency moves to Detroit and exemplifying the hopes for a strong comeback of the ailing motor city.

The Greater Milwaukee Committee is working to advance the creation of a design technology cluster as part as their economic revitalization strategy. 

Richard Florida's piece in the Wall Street Journal articulates why tech companies are opting for an urban future.

A single anchor tenant can drive the development of a creative cluster. In las Vegas, Tony Hsieh from Zappos is investing in creating a pedestrian oriented mixed use community in downtown Las Vegas, the location of his new company HQ.  

An industrial manufacturing district transformed into world class destination for visual and performance art.