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Thursday
Sep242009

Richard Florida’s ideas flourish in West Berlin along with new inner city science park

DateThursday, September 24, 2009 at 04:57PM

By Mike Darch

Our hosts here in Berlin continue to thank us for bringing the beautiful weather that is not typical for Berlin. I accept the thanks, not wanting to tell them that Ottawa has suffered its wettest summer ever, with only brief glimpses of the sun.

The topic of this blog post moves to the question of inner city development. Re-unification of Berlin brought considerable funding for the rebuilding and revitalization of the former East Berlin. The result has been the emergence of a vibrant region with new commercial buildings, new shopping areas and new, trendy bar and entertainment districts.

An unintended result was the shift of people from the West to the East section of the old city, especially among young people. We keep hearing that West Berlin is the home of the old and the wealthy, not the youth and the entrepreneurs. There is high unemployment, the growth rate of West Berlin lags 1.5% behind the German average, and there is no Dax listed company headquartered in West Berlin.

West Berlin is privileged to have two major universities side by side, one an engineering and the other a design school. These are in the Borough of Charlottenburg, the old city centre of West Berlin. The area is known for its creation of start-ups, but these new companies soon move out, leaving an increasingly empty core.

Hardy Schmitz addressing inner city development

To respond, the city, the country and the EU have developed the NAVI Project, an effort to reinvigorate the district with Wista, the management organization for Adlershof, as the initial project managers. Building on the ideas of Richard Florida and the power of the creative class, a project plan has been developed and Hardy Schmitz is using the presence of leaders of various Science Parks to discuss these plans and the shaping of an inner city science park with the stakeholders.

Many of the early science parks were in the suburbs. This was driven by the fact that inner city land tended not to be available or prohibitively expensive, and much of the development was based on a large idyllic campus that was conducive to thought and new development (the 70s and flower power influence). Today, there is an increasing belief in the merger of technology and art as the spark for innovation. We are in a different world in which areas of technology concentration are not homes for techno freaks but rather an economic engine. There is no one model but rather a continuum of ideas.

Luis Sanz of the International Association of Science Parks (IASP). pointed out several trends. Almost all science parks are at a crossroad and looking for new ideas and ideas that work. The models are evolving. We are seeing the development of learning villages. We are seeing how local advantage can be developed into global competitiveness. We are seeing acceleration of the processes to create and grow world class companies. Governance is critical to science park success. Luis also observed that the university system must change and adapt. A world in which scientific papers count toward a professorship while creating the next great product doesn’t, is not a motivator for innovation.

Luis made several observations on this new world:

  • It is global, and yet there is a growing anti-globalism movement
  • What is the role of national and sub national governments as regions become the economic driver?
  • Growth is based on science and knowledge
  • Training, education and talent are critical success factors
  • There is a changing attitude to work
  • Networks are critical
  • There is a new species of person, the “globalite”.

Rick Weddle, President and CEO of North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park discussed some of his observations. To succeed you need to develop and gain consensus around a “grand concept”. I recall the motto of my old university, Case Institute of Technology: Make No Small Plans. Going with the grand concept, is a culture of collaboration. You have a trans generational legacy of leadership to develop. RTP is the steward to the continuing economic prosperity of the Triangle region.

He made the point that place does matter. Many cities and regions have the ingredients for success, few have the recipe. What is not important is that you have an incubator or an accelerator and that they are co-located, but rather that you have in place a system that integrates the two into your business model. Everybody wants to be on a winning team. It is therefore not only critical that you develop a successful model, but also that you have the branding and identity that takes the model to the world. Certainly something that RTP has been successful at.

My stay in Berlin ended with Helge Neuman taking Rick and I to see the real Berlin. The first thing that I learned came as a bit of a shock to me. For days I had been travelling around the City seeing the beauty and elegance of an old European city. Helge reminded us that over 90% of Berlin was destroyed. What I thought was a 300 or 400 year building was actually a reconstruction. It is a tribute to Berliners that the reconstruction was done so well that both Rick and I thought that we were looking at the original buildings.

The oldest pub in Berlin

You always ask the question “Where were you when so and so happened?”. Rick asked Helge, where he was when the Wall went up. We were shocked to hear that Helge, as a little boy, was at his grandmother’s when movement between East and West was halted. Not a problem, except to get from his grandmother’s back home by his usual route took Helge into West Berlin and then back to the East. A journey he made completely unaware of the possible consequences while his parents panicked. We also asked where he was when the Wall came down. He went later that evening to go into the West, mainly because he couldn’t believe that it would stay down and he wanted to make even a brief visit to the West!    

(Mike Darch is Executive Director of OCRI Global Marketing)

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