Showing papers by "Karima Kourtit published in 2016"

The sociocultural sources of urban buzz

Abstract: Cities have become playgrounds for competitive behaviour and rapid economic dynamics. However, in many cities (or urban agglomerations) economic growth is mainly manifested in specific geographic areas, where creative people and innovative entrepreneurs are located. In this paper we offer first the conceptual and operational foundation for analyzing this so-called ‘urban buzz’ and its interlinked primary drivers. We next develop an analytical framework for testing the buzz hypothesis, with a special reference to the importance of social bonds and networks in Amsterdam. In our empirical analysis we use a unique dataset on social network connectivity and spatial concentration in a city, based on location-sharing services through the use of Foursquare data. Our urban buzz model shows clearly that buzz and socioeconomic (cultural) diversity are closely connected phenomena.

The winner takes it all: forward-looking cities and urban innovation

Abstract: This paper offers a new perspective on urban innovation and enters the debate on the contribution of non-material growth-enhancing factors to the socio-economic performance of cities. Because of the often widespread availability of “hard” production factors, most cities increasingly compete for attracting non-material production factors whose role, in light of the more widespread diffusion of physical production factors, may ultimately determine their long-run economic success. Against this background, our paper focuses on a relatively neglected non-material factor, viz. urban risk attitude. In fact, cities offer the competitive and challenging environment where individual characteristics of actors may enjoy their highest returns; risk-loving and innovative individuals may sort in large urban agglomerations. The paper tests whether cities attracting such individuals and, thus, enjoying a more positive and open attitude towards risk, tend to innovate more. The empirical analysis of the paper is based on the most recent (2008/2009) wave of the European Values Study. Micro- data on about 80,000 individuals located in different EU urban areas are used to calculate city-specific attitudes towards risk that go beyond individual characteristics. This city-level risk attitude variable is then used within a knowledge production function approach, as an explanatory variable for urban innovation (patent applications to the European Patent Office) along with more traditional knowledge determinants (human capital and R&D expenditures). Our empirical results show that cities with a more open and positive attitude towards risk ceteris paribus also tend to be more innovative. In addition, we find that, unlike traditional knowledge production factors, this factor faces no decreasing returns. While further research might be beneficial in order to more precisely pinpoint the extent of such effects, our findings appear to be robust and suggest a positive role for the urban attitude towards risky endeavours in explaining urban innovation.

Super-Proximity and Spatial Development

Abstract: espanolNuestro mundo esta siendo cada vez mas pequeno. La conectividad y la accesibilidad han aumentado en un grado sin precedentes en relacion con los siglos precedentes gracias a las mejoras en el diseno y en la puesta en practica efectiva de redes de infraestructuras de transporte y, tambien, como consecuencia del avance de las ciber-infraestructuras. Nuestro mundo conectado y accesible se ha convertido efectivamente en «un pequeno mundo». La innovacion tecnologica ya fue una referencia y un factor obligados en las pasadas decadas. El diseno y la implementacion y la adopcion de la tecnologia digital, en particular, han impulsado nuevas formas de interaccion espacial y de comunicacion, con un significado y un impacto sin precedentes en el transporte, el comercio, el turismo, las migraciones y las redes de contactos sociales. En una sociedad como la de hoy, crecientemente liderada por la innovacion, casi toda actividad, accion, tarea, comunicacion, interaccion, movimiento y decision tienen como base nuevos artefactos tecnologicos y nuevos inventos. Este articulo introduce la nocion de «super-proximidad» para subrayar el campo de fuerzas que las infraestructuras fisicas y virtuales determinan en los niveles de la escala geografica y en el factor tiempo, asi como para bosquejar las implicaciones economico-espaciales de esta mega-tendencia universal hacia la reduccion a cero de las fricciones que supone la distancia. El texto se cierra con algunas observaciones prospectivas sobre las futuras implicaciones espaciales de la e-sociedad y su analisis. EnglishOur world is getting smaller all the time. Connectivity and accessibility in space have improved to an unprecedented degree compared to past centuries, thanks to the enhanced design and effective implementation of transport infrastructure networks and increasingly also as a result of advance cyber infrastructure networks. Our connected and accessible world has indeed become «a small world». Technological innovation has become a buzzword in the past decades. The design, implementation and adoption of digital technology, in particular, have prompted entirely new forms of spatial interaction and communication, with a significant and unprecedented impact on transport, trade, tourism, migration, and social contact networks. In today’s increasingly innovation-driven society, almost every activity, action, task, communication, interaction, movement and decision is supported by new technological artifacts and inventions. This paper introduces the notion of «super-proximity» to highlight the force field of physical and virtual infrastructures at various geographical scale and time levels, and to sketch the spatial-economic implications of this universal megatrend towards zero distance-frictions. The paper will be concluded with some prospective observations on the future spatial implications of the e-society and their analysis.

New urban economic agents: A comparative analysis of high-performance new entrepreneurs

Abstract: Migrants are often the carriers of new skills and original abilities. This study focuses on the importance of ‘new urban entrepreneurship’ – in particular, ethnic or migrant business firms – as a major driver of creative and urban dynamics and economic vitality in urban agglomerations. The paper offers a general account of both backgrounds and socio-economic implications of migrant entrepreneurship in large agglomerations and highlights the socio-economic heterogeneity in motivation and performance among different groups of migrant entrepreneurs. This demographic-cultural diversity prompts intriguing questions about differences in business performance among distinct groups of migrant entrepreneurs, even in the same ethnic group. In the paper, a recently developed and amended version of data envelopment analysis (DEA), viz. super-efficiency, is presented and applied to a group of Moroccan entrepreneurs in four large cities in the Netherlands. The main research aim is (i) to identify the best-performing firms (so-called ‘entrepreneurial heroes’) from a broad management and business perspective, while (ii) the background of our findings are more thoroughly analysed. The paper ends with some general concluding remarks on urban business strategies.

Towards A Regional Science Academy: A Manifesto

Abstract: This Manifesto provides a joint proposal to create a Regional Science Academy as a think-tank support platform for a strategic development of the spatial sciences. The Regional Science Academy is a strategic spatial knowledge catalyst: it acts as a global intellectual powerhouse for new knowledge network initiatives and scholarly views on regions and cities as vital centrepieces of interconnected spatial systems. This contribution highlights its role and presents various activity plans.

Tourism and Voyeurism in Heterotopia’s: The Role of Perception and Information in the Behaviour of Visitors to Amsterdam

Abstract: Tourists are not only regular visitors of important distinct places of interest. In making their decisions what or where to visit, they are also influenced by the (expected or realized) observed behaviour of others. A particularly interesting case of such social externalities is formed by so-called ‘voyeurism’, the phenomenon that visitors are visibly interested in—and attracted by—the preservice and spatial motives and behaviours of other visitors. Essentially, voyeurists derive their visitor utility from the observable behaviour of others, e.g. by watching them or speculating on their motives when they pass by. The present paper offers a novel empirical approach to these issues; it focuses on tourist voyeurism in the Red Light District of Amsterdam, with an emphasis on two well-known characteristic phenomena in this area, viz. prostitution and soft drugs. On the basis of existing literature that has demonstrated the importance of tours as an educative tool for tourists, we analyse if and how the perceptions of visitors have changed, through a panel study of 29 foreign students, and identify changes in their perceptions, after they have been exposed to real-world and site-specific factual information on this area, inter alia through a professionally guided field tour. Tools used in the present paper to analyse the voyeurism phenomenon—based on a before and after experiment—are multivariate analysis and regression techniques, while as a start a content cloud analysis is employed as an introductory exploratory tool. It turns out that information provision by a tour may change the site perceptions of voyeurists, but less so their value systems on the objects or people observed.

Envisioning Experiments on Regional Science Frontiers

Abstract: Science dynamics has become an established part of scientific research. Over the past years, a broad variety of experimental approaches has been developed to explore the frontiers of the current state of the art —and their shifts— in either separate disciplines or scientific domains, such as expert-opinion consultations, multi-level approaches, living labs, joint decision rooms, scenario methods, imagineering experiments, or interactive envisioning methods. The present chapter will contribute to science dynamics in regional science research by offering findings from an envisioning experiment among some 60 well-known regional scientists, with a view to a critical assessment of past and current performance, so as to initiate an open exploration of promising and challenging research endeavours for the next decades of regional science research. This may range from innovative concept formulation to joint use of open access and big data. This experimental approach serves to pave the road towards proactive strategies and conceptualisations in regional science research and regional policy. The main future concern implicit in the brainstorming experiment appears to be related to spatial justice, next to good governance, and consistency between techniques, methods and theories, as well as an effective interaction with students/scholars and society. This exercise shows that important lessons can also be learned from past scientific mistakes, especially those that were associated with policy failures. New scientific ideas are, of course, pushed by the rise of novel techniques and methods, but also and predominately from evolving new realities, either social or technological. Nevertheless, there are still various doubts concerning the future direction of regional science agenda: Which new thoughts and methods are requested? Which policies must be created and improved? What are the scientific possibilities created by new data? The regional science agenda is full of challenges and promises, but how can it be effective? This scoping study does not provide definite answers, but serves to explore uncertain future frontiers.