Cities and Universities

One of the leading themes of 2009 IUFA conference will be the relationship between the urban context and the University. The US tradition in terms of universities as urban developers (as described by this interesting book) and as tech-transfer engines (especially described in this paper) set a different scenario from the European context, where there is a prevailing urban pattern of mid-range cities; there is a clear difficulty to adopt a world-class "MIT-like" research model in regions lacking high-level standards of innovation; there is a prevalence of tacit exchanges of knowledge between small and medium-sized firms and academic instutions.

The US University system provides good lessons in the tech-transfer relationship between academia and the local context, but should be carefully adapted to the European University context (as stressed in this paper). Please consider also this paper on the relationship between the University and the City in the context of Bologna (here)

The size of mid-size cities

What is a medium-sized town? The definitions vary. According to Klaus Kunzmann "The most common definition is that of a town with a population of 20.000 up to 200.000, depending on population density and the respective urban system in a country" (see Kunzmann's paper here). According to US sources "any city with a population of between 100,000 and 300,000 persons, located within a Metropolitan Statistical Area of 1 million persons or more, could qualify as a mid-sized city" (see here). There are sources that put the range roughly from 50,000 to 500,000 persons in size (see here).

The future of mid size cities

Welcome. This blog has been created to support the discussion of the 39th conference of the International Urban Association of the Johns Hopkins, that will take place in Bologna, Italy, from the 13th to the 17th of June 2009. Here is the link to the conference website