New Urban Geographies of the Creative and Knowledge Economies : Foregrounding Innovative Productions, Workplaces and Public Policies in Contemporary Cities

The temporal and spatial intersection of information and telecommunication technologies, creative and knowledge economies, and related new manufacturing systems, has been leading to significant effects on urban socioeconomic and spatial configurations and public policies. Specifically, the post-crisis emergence of innovative workplaces to accommodate these changes, is creating socioeconomic and spatial features that are only recently beginning to be explored in the scholarly literature.

According to this scenario, this edited book offers a variety of avenues for exploring the relationships between contemporary production activities and new workplaces in several urban contexts. In particular, it focuses on the consequences of these relationships in terms of regeneration of the urban fabric, as well as on their implication in terms of urban policies.

This book represents early observation of the fast-growing phenomenon of new productive activities and workplaces against the background of the gig economy and sharing economy paradigms. Central to this discussion is the investigation of the connection between digital technologies, new works and workplaces, and urban change processes and projects, by providing an additional contribution to new urban agendas for contemporary cities.

The chapters originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Urban Technology.

Simonetta Armondi is Assistant Professor of Political and Economic Geography in the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

Stefano Di Vita is Adjunct Professor of Urban Planning and Design in the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy.