Innovation in Real Places - Strategies for Prosperity in an Unforgiving World

A challenge to prevailing ideas about innovation and a guide to identifying the best growth strategy for your community.

Across the world, cities and regions have wasted trillions of dollars on blindly copying the Silicon Valley model of growth creation. Since the early years of the information age, we've been told that economic growth derives from harnessing technological innovation. To do this, places must create good education systems, partner with local research universities, and attract innovative hi-tech firms. We have lived with this system for decades, and the result is clear: a small number of regions and cities at the top of the high-tech industry but many more fighting a losing battle to retain economic dynamism.

But are there other models that don't rely on a flourishing high-tech industry? In Innovation in Real Places, Dan Breznitz argues that there are. The purveyors of the dominant ideas on innovation have a feeble understanding of the big picture on global production and innovation. They conflate innovation with invention and suffer from techno-fetishism. In their devotion to start-ups, they refuse to admit that the real obstacle to growth for most cities is the overwhelming power of the real hubs, which siphon up vast amounts of talent and money. Communities waste time, money, and energy pursuing this road to nowhere. Breznitz proposes that communities instead focus on where they fit in the four stages in the global production process. Some are at the highest end, and that is where the Clevelands, Sheffields, and Baltimores are being pushed toward. But that is bad advice. Success lies in understanding the changed structure of the global system of production and then using those insights to enable communities to recognize their own advantages, which in turn allows to them to foster surprising forms of specialized innovation. As he stresses, all localities have certain advantages relative to at least one stage of the global production process, and the trick is in recognizing it. Leaders might think the answer lies in high-tech or high-end manufacturing, but more often than not, they're wrong. Innovation in Real Places is an essential corrective to a mythology of innovation and growth that too many places have bought into in recent years. Best of all, it has the potential to prod local leaders into pursuing realistic and regionally appropriate models for growth and innovation.

List of contents

• Acknowledgments


• Introduction
  


• Part I: The State of Innovation


• Chapter 1: The New Globalization of Innovation


• Chapter 2: The Silicon Peaches


• Chapter 3: Startups are Everywhere! (But The Growth Statistics)


• Chapter 4: Making America Great Again?
  


• Part II: Innovation and Prosperity


• Chapter 5: Four are Better Than One (But First, Let Us Plan It Strategically)


• Chapter 6: Singing and Designing--Incrementally--Innovation-Based Growth


• Chapter 7: Out With The Old, In With The New! But in What Ways?


• Chapter 8: Looking for Better Options: The Science of Innovation Policies and Agencies in a Globally Fragmented World
  


• Part III: The Three Dysfunctionals


• A Short Introduction to Part III


• Chapter 9: Our Anti-Intellectual Property Rights System


• Chapter 10: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions: The Age of Financialization


• Chapter 11: Data: Why Mining Us is the New Boom and For Whom


• Conclusion: In Defense of Experiments, Mistakes, and the Right to Choose
  


• Index


• Bibliography

About the author

Dan Breznitz is a Professor and Munk Chair of Innovation Studies in the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy with a cross-appointment in the Department of Political Science of the University of Toronto, where he is also the Co-Director of the Innovation Policy Lab. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, where he co-founded and co-directs the program on Innovation, Equity and the Future of Prosperity. His award-winning books include Innovation and the State, The Run of the Red Queen, and The Third Globalization.

Summary

A challenge to prevailing ideas about innovation and a guide to identifying the best growth strategy for your community.

Across the world, cities and regions have wasted trillions of dollars on blindly copying the Silicon Valley model of growth creation. Since the early years of the information age, we've been told that economic growth derives from harnessing technological innovation. To do this, places must create good education systems, partner with local research universities, and attract innovative hi-tech firms. We have lived with this system for decades, and the result is clear: a small number of regions and cities at the top of the high-tech industry but many more fighting a losing battle to retain economic dynamism.

But are there other models that don't rely on a flourishing high-tech industry? In Innovation in Real Places, Dan Breznitz argues that there are. The purveyors of the dominant ideas on innovation have a feeble understanding of the big picture on global production and innovation. They conflate innovation with invention and suffer from techno-fetishism. In their devotion to start-ups, they refuse to admit that the real obstacle to growth for most cities is the overwhelming power of the real hubs, which siphon up vast amounts of talent and money. Communities waste time, money, and energy pursuing this road to nowhere. Breznitz proposes that communities instead focus on where they fit in the four stages in the global production process. Some are at the highest end, and that is where the Clevelands, Sheffields, and Baltimores are being pushed toward. But that is bad advice. Success lies in understanding the changed structure of the global system of production and then using those insights to enable communities to recognize their own advantages, which in turn allows to them to foster surprising forms of specialized innovation. As he stresses, all localities have certain advantages relative to at least one stage of the global production process, and the trick is in recognizing it. Leaders might think the answer lies in high-tech or high-end manufacturing, but more often than not, they're wrong. Innovation in Real Places is an essential corrective to a mythology of innovation and growth that too many places have bought into in recent years. Best of all, it has the potential to prod local leaders into pursuing realistic and regionally appropriate models for growth and innovation.

Additional text

Finally, a book which is not only a masterful piece of research but is also extremely useful for policy makers. This very well written and superbly research book is a much-needed eye opener for the multiple opportunities that exist in our globalized world.

Report

a compelling and timely book Kevin Morgan, Regional Studies

Product details

• Authors: Dan Breznitz, Dan (Chair of Innovation Studies Breznitz, Breznitz Dan
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.04.2021
• EAN: 9780197508114
• ISBN: 978-0-19-750811-4
• No. of pages: 288
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Development / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Research, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Statistics, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Rural, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Developing & Emerging Countries, Rural communities, Social research & statistics, Development Studies, Social research and statistics