ancient cities

800 Technopoles
as well. Management styles became less hierarchical,
and a different model of industrial organization
emerged. This represented a shift from the Fordist
mass production to more flexible production systems.
Thus, process and management innovations
became another hallmark of advanced technology
industries. Innovative networks of firms developed
through formal and increasingly informal
arrangements among entrepreneurs and institutions
such as universities, research centers, and
support organizations. In the language of the
innovative milieu, these are all important parts of
the local environment—the milieu—that fuels
innovation.
The emergence of technopoles—as well as other
spatially articulated forms of the new economic
geography, including innovative milieus—depended
on major and interrelated historical shifts in the
organization of social and economic life. First was
the expansion of what came to be called the global
economy, with its changes in production and consumption
and increasingly interwoven national
economies. This was driven by changes in national
policies, such as the rise of deregulation in the
advanced economies beginning in the 1970s, the
pace of European integration, and reduction in trade
barriers among other countries, along with advances
in technology.
Advanced technology, specifically, information
technologies such as microelectronics, telecommunications,
and increasingly biotechnology, created
a technological revolution of new products and
new processes. These forces combined to form a
third economic revolution according to Castells
and Hall—a different organization of economic
production and management termed the informational
economy, where knowledge and information
are the basis for competitive and comparative
advantage. This has also resulted in a shift from a
vertical model of innovation activity to network
models of innovation.
While Silicon Valley in California became the
most famous model of a technopole through its
innovative firms in advanced technology industries,
other places attempted various forms of
technopoles, often relying on attracting existing
firms to their locations. Although outside firms
established branch operations in the Silicon Valley
in the 1950s, its fame and development stemmed
from its start-ups and entrepreneurship.
Another early technopole project was the
Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. It differs
from the Silicon Valley model, although both
are based in a university-established science park.
Research Triangle Park was established in the late
1950s to bring together the resources and knowledge
from the three universities tied to the park:
University of North Carolina, North Carolina
State, and Duke University. Outside firms were
encouraged to start branch operations and laboratories
there. In the intervening decades, Research
Triangle Park has become one of the most famous
examples of science parks in the United States and
beyond.
In Europe, Pierre Lafitte, then deputy director
of the École des Mines in Paris, created and
founded Sophia Antipolis in the south of France.
The Sophia-Antipolis Science Park was conceived
in the late 1960s and opened in the early 1970s on
the Côte d’Azur in the south of France. Evaluations
of it as an innovative milieu were mixed over the
next decades. Nonetheless, Sophia Antipolis
became the home of more than 1,000 companies
by 2000. Another early and famous technopole
project was Tsukuba in Japan, established as a science
city in the late 1950s. Later on, in the 1980s,
Japan developed an extensive technopolis program,
which established 26 technopoles outside
the major Tokyo industrial region.
Today, technopoles in various forms—science
parks, science cities, innovation centers, technopolis
programs—are found virtually across the globe.
The international trade association for technopoles
and science parks, the International Association of
Science Parks, boasts of developments in more
than 54 countries. Although research on individual
cases reveals important differences among technopoles,
the strategy remains a popular regional
development strategy.
Sabina Deitrick
See also Cyburbia; Growth Poles; Informational City;
Suburbanization; Technoburbs; Urban Economics
Further Readings
Benko Georges. 2001. “Technopoles, High-tech
Industries, and Regional Development: A Critical
Review.” Geoforum 51:157–67.