History Matters: Path dependence and innovation in British city ...

into new practical and commercial forms of
novelty.
1.4 Outline of the study
In order to investigate these arguments
empirically we used a sample frame of all
63 city-regions in Great Britain with core
populations of 125,000 or more. These are
shown in Map 1. We analysed their recent
innovative performance on the basis of the
results of the Fourth Community Innovation
Survey (CIS4) covering the period 2002-2004.
We contrasted cities based on this data and
selected a sample of six of the most innovative
and six of the least innovative cities in Great
Britain for detailed analysis. We then collected
long-term secondary data for these 12 cities
to illustrate the relationships between their
sectoral development pathways and the
absorptive capacities and innovation underlying
and driving them. We selected two of the most
contrasting cities, Cambridge and Swansea, for
more detailed historical analysis.
Our task is to explain the long-run divergence
of city-regional economies in Britain. Our
approach is to adopt an analysis based on
the theoretical concepts of evolutionary path
dependence. We argue that this is appropriate
because it focuses on the dynamics underlying
the long-run structural changes in spatial
economies.
We argue that local innovation systems are
the key driving mechanism underlying change
in spatial economies because they are the
primary source of new commercially valuable
knowledge. Indeed, their main functions are
the creation, adoption and commercialisation
of such knowledge. It has also become, along
with land, capital and labour, a key factor of
modern economic production.
Underlying the ability to innovate is the
collective absorptive capacity of the firms,
institutions and organisations located in a
particular city. This provides the asset base for
the identification, assimilation and exploitation
of new knowledge. This capacity is itself
path dependent on the distinctive structures
and pathways that emerge in specific urban
economies.
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