Cities in Transition and Urban Innovation Ecosystems: Place and Innovation Dynamics in the Case of Boston and Cambridge (USA)

Urban transition is gaining relevance in the academic and policy debate for rethinking urban development strategies toward resilience and sustainability. The transformative power of innovation and knowledge is called upon to speed up the process. In this paper, we address the issue of urban transition by exploring how the urban innovation ecosystem is a crucial factor in operationalizing city transition strategies. For this scope, we propose a methodological approach to identify the city-level innovation ecosystem by connecting innovation dynamics with urban transformation. The objective is to highlight how transition dynamics are spurred by the urban innovation ecosystem in its maturity stage. Therefore, the paper proposes a case study of the Boston area (the cities of Boston and Cambridge, USA) where it is possible to detect a mature urban innovation ecosystem. The case analysis unveiled the urban characterizing factors of the innovation ecosystem. Here, the concentration of innovation activities stimulates the demand for urban transformations, which are managed through urban planning and zoning and specific supportive policy-planning initiatives.