Alternative Forms of the High-Technology District: Corridors, Clumps, Cores, Campuses, Subdivisions, and Sites

Abstract

Does a high-tech economy create fundamentally different places to other employment areas? This paper proposes a typology of small to medium scale high technology districts in terms of their physical environments rather than their economic features (which is the more common basis of such classifications). It defines a set of recognizable high tech places: corridors, clumps, cores, comprehensive campuses, tech subdivisions, and scattered tech sites. It argues that there are many overlaps in design and layout with generic urban industrial and office development, and with planned new towns, university campuses, and garden suburbs. However, as this part of the economy grows, so too will the effect of such places on long-term urban sustainability and livability. It is important that planning and design for such developments considers larger effects on issues such as transportation options, energy use, housing balance, and sense of place. P. 3 ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF THE HIGH TECHNOLOGY DISTRICT: CORRIDORS, CLUMPS, CORES, CAMPUSES, SUBDIVISIONS, AND SITES Forming High Tech PlacesThe second half of the twentieth century brought a number of major world changes. Women's roles evolved; environmental damage increased; the world economy became increasingly linked through flows of money, goods, and information; and high technology industries became major economic players (Castells 1997;. This latter change, emerging high tech industries, has produced a set of gadgets and modes of communication that have infiltrated most parts of the human environment. The places where people design and build these devices and programs have also become an important part of the urban landscape. Are these high-tech production environments fundamentally different places to other employment areas at the scale of the district? This paper proposes a typology of six types of small to medium scale high technology districts in terms of their physical environments rather than their economic features:

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Science Spaces as ‘Ethnoscapes’: Identity, Perception and the Production of Locality

“…Imagining and projecting a cohesive story across such diversity is a significant challenge, exacerbated by different patterns of ownership and local government arrangements across the respective sites. In many respects, the parks are individual and differentiated 'clumps' of high-tech activity projected onto an historic rural setting, rather than integrated and planned 'campus-garden' developments [27,28].…”

Trials and Tribulations: Problematizing the City through/as Urban Experimentation

“…Yigitcanlar and Velibeyoglu (, 196) define KCPs as “integrated centres of knowledge generation, learning, commercialization, and lifestyle that are created through a cooperative partnership of all tiers of government, research and education community, private sector operators, highly talented professionals and the public.” KCPs engage experimentation in diverse ways and these can take many different spatial forms in the city. Forsyth (), for example, identifies several spatial types including: corridors, clumps, cores, campuses, technology subdivisions, and scattered sites. While the dynamics between these venues and the wider city are presumed to drive urban upgrading, Benneworth and Ratinho () stress that more research is required to understand the connectivity between ‘research parks’ and ‘knowledge campuses’ with sites in other cities around the world.…”