research

Development of Birmingham's emerging innovation districts is shaped by coalitions with competing values of space shaped over time. Investigating the networked politics of their production through qualitative methods provides insights into the way place is conceptualized by stakeholders, activated in planning processes, materialized in master plans, and shaped through land use policies.  

The Purple Places Project builds upon a geographic inventory of institutional coalitions and emerging innovation districts throughout the U.S. that aims to illuminate the magnitude of social and spatial equity challenges inherent to entrepreneurial urbanism.  A work in progress, this basemap displays district adjacency to predominantly BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and low-income neighborhoods, historically redlined neighborhoods, Justice40 Districts, and neighborhoods that have been subject to past displacement due to urban renewal.  It is intended to bring attention to place-based inequities and the ongoing displacement risk of existing populations to the institutions involved in their production, as well as opportunities for innovative inclusion. 

Urban innovation districts are distinctive ecosystems rooted in place. As defined by the Global Institute on Innovation Districts, they are dense hubs of activity where physical, economic, and networking assets combine with an entrepreneurial culture to form a synergistic relationship between people, firms, and place.  Over the past decade much research has focused on the growth of this form of urbanism, its role in driving placed-based and technology-driven economic development, and the combination of assets that must be leveraged for economic growth to occur.   For more information, see: Katz, B. and Wagner, J. (2014).  "The Rise of Innovation Districts:  A New Geography of Innovation in America,”  Brookings; and Katz, B. and Wagner, J. (2024). “The Next Wave of Innovation Districts,” Global Institute of Innovation Districts.  

The color purple embodies the long-standing ideological tensions between neoliberal urbanism privileging private property and corporate wealth accumulation, and progressive urbanism centering social justice, spatial equity, and community wealth building. It can also symbolize the blending of historically racialized binaries and resistance to systemic racism, representing the strength and resiliency of marginalized communities reclaiming space and agency.