The Urban Dimension of Innovation Policy: Roxbury Innovation Centre

The paper intends to explore a new paradigm of urban development process driven by the increasing demand of innovation. The aim is to demonstrate how innovation has become part of the urban settlement dynamics towards regeneration processes. Spurring innovation through knowledge-based economy has been driving the design of public development policies. Knowledge generates economic growth by stimulating the potential of entrepreneurship and innovation. In this context, cities are emerging as knowledge hubs, able to attract high-skilled workers, generate creativity and innovation and provide advanced services and infrastructures connected through formal and informal network systems. Findings from the MAPS-LED project (Horizon-2020) show how in specific urban areas the knowledge dynamics in activating the concentration of innovation generate spillover effects, which supported by urban planning tools, allow the expansion of innovation and the generation of physical transformations. Among the case studies of the MAPS-LED project, the Roxbury Innovation Center (Boston, MA) have been investigated as an emblematic case of public initiative to spur economic development and urban regeneration processes though innovation. The public authority of the city of Boston, trough the creation of this public Innovation Center is trying to generate a positive impact on the local community by providing the necessary tools, workspaces, connections and programs to enhance the development of the knowledge-based economy and support starups and entrepreneurs.