Title: Position paper: redefining knowledge-based urban development

Authors: Tan Yigitcanlar

Addresses: School of Urban Development, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia

Abstract: The concept of knowledge-based urban development has first come to the urban planning and development agenda during the very last years of the 20th century as a promising paradigm to support the transformation process of cities into knowledge cities and their societies into knowledge societies. However, soon after the exponentially rapid advancements experienced, during the first decade of the 21st century, particularly in the domains of economy, society, management and technology along with the severe impacts of climate change, have made the redefinition of the term a necessity. This paper, first, reports the findings of the review of the relatively short but dynamic history of urbanisation experiences of our cities around the globe. The paper, then, focuses on the 21st century urbanisation context and discusses the conceptual base of the knowledge-based development of cities and how this concept found application ground in many parts of the world. Following this, the paper speculates development of future cities by particularly highlighting potential challenges and opportunities that previously have not been fully considered. This paper, lastly, introduces and elaborates how relevant theories support the better conceptualisation of this relatively new, but rapidly emerging paradigm, and redefines it accordingly.

Keywords: knowledge-based urban development; KBUD; knowledge city; urban planning and development; urban management; urbanisation; knowledge-based development; city development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKBD.2011.044343

International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 2011 Vol.2 No.4, pp.340 - 356

Published online: 28 Nov 2014 *

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