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Territorial Review Copenhagen - Region Hovedstaden

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by openness, quality consciousness, employee-driven innovation and critical<br />

sense; qualities that are described as difficult to emulate and attractive for<br />

innovative foreign companies. Challenges that are identified are diverse and<br />

include growth entrepreneurship, regional collaboration, knowledge sharing<br />

between the research and business community, the region‘s image, housing<br />

infrastructure and labour market shortage. On the basis of this assessment,<br />

several actions and 33 initiatives were formulated, ranging from cluster<br />

development, a centre for user innovation and more scientific conferences to<br />

a feasibility study on holding the Olympics in <strong>Copenhagen</strong>. Collaboration in<br />

the context of Øresund is supported as a means of reaching some of these<br />

goals.<br />

The Capital <strong>Region</strong> presented its <strong>Region</strong>al Development Plan in 2008,<br />

called ―The Capital <strong>Region</strong> of Denmark – an international metropolitan<br />

region with high quality of life and growth‖. This plan was submitted for<br />

debate and hearings to citizens, public authorities and civil society<br />

organisations in the Øresund <strong>Region</strong>. The vision for the Capital <strong>Region</strong><br />

expressed in the document is to be one of the leading European metropolitan<br />

regions, characterised by a green profile, efficient traffic-related<br />

infrastructure, education for all, attractive business conditions, diversified<br />

cultural and leisure amenities and an international perspective. This includes<br />

the ambition to be the greenest capital of Europe. Its assessment of qualities<br />

of the region echoes the ―you can have it both‖ strategy suggested in the socalled<br />

<strong>Copenhagen</strong> Brand Book (which aims to describe the profile of<br />

<strong>Copenhagen</strong> for foreign high-skilled labour): the <strong>Region</strong>al Development<br />

Plan aims at a combination of high quality of life and high economic<br />

growth. It focuses heavily on three themes: transport infrastructure,<br />

education and the environment. It repeats the actions from the Business<br />

Development Strategy, which it considers to be the region‘s strategy for<br />

improving business conditions.<br />

These are all laudable initiatives: much energy has been invested in the<br />

assessment, and a wide range of actors has been involved. Strategies like<br />

this can help to create a common vision, shared by the relevant stakeholders,<br />

that can focus financial resources on the most crucial bottlenecks. All of<br />

these strategies are aware of the challenges that globalisation poses to<br />

<strong>Copenhagen</strong>, and they attempt to formulate holistic visions to deal with<br />

them. Three questions are relevant in order to assess their success: do they<br />

provide one common vision; is this vision well-conceived; and will this<br />

vision be implemented? The last question will be answered in the different<br />

sections of Chapter 2 of this <strong>Review</strong>. The first two questions will be<br />

answered below.<br />

Although the different strategies do not conflict with each other, they are<br />

cumulative rather than share the same focus. In combination, they provide a

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