Creating Environments for Working in a Knowledge Economy: Promoting Knowlegde Diffusion through Area Based Development

The increasing knowledge intensity of the economy leads to changing demands for environments for working. In many cities, we observe initiatives to create “knowledge intensive zones”, in a variety of disguises. Typically, the underlying philosophy is that co-location of knowledge intensive business and knowledge institutes will yield added value thanks to knowledge spill-overs, and may create effects for the urban economy as a whole.

This paper reviews the literature on knowledge diffusion and the role of proximity in knowledge transfer, and unfolds a frame of analysis on knowledge transfer instruments in working environments in a knowledge economy. In the empirical part of the paper, we apply the framework to three major but very different “high-tech” park developments in the Netherlands: the High tech Campus in Eindhoven (in the south-east of the Netherlands), Knowledge Park Twente in Enschede (in the east) and Technopolis Innovation Park in Delft (in the west).