Smart Cities: Building Platforms for Innovative Local Economic Restructuring

Abstract

This chapter discusses responses to severe structural problems faced by postindustrial cities in developed countries. The driving force behind this development is deindustrialization and the need to find ways for compensating the job losses in manufacturing. The research question is: how can smart platforms support innovative local economic restructuring. The chapter starts by discussing the restructuring challenge and introducing smart city as a framework for responding to such a challenge. The following section directs attention to platforms that support local policy making and governance, shedding light on the question of how platform approach contributes to the success of urban restructuring. Discussion is explorative and thus mainly theoretical, but utilizes exemplifications of local platform design. In addition, discussion is concretized by taking a closer look at one of the “innovation factories” of Tampere, the New Factory and one of its platforms, Demola, which exemplify the new trend in platform building. They highlight how platforms may help in increasing smartness in local economic restructuring.