Knowledge Cities
Approaches, Experiences, and Perspectives

Edited by Francisco Javier Carrillo

“The first comprehensive book to deal with the Knowledge City agenda in a comprehensive fashion. It outlines the shifts in thiking and strategy required if cities are to become competitive economically, socially and culturally”.

Charles Landry Author of The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators and The Art of City Making (scheduled 2006).

“Carrillo's Knowledge Cities is a landmark book that successfully challenges the prevailing urban planning paradigm with a powerful vision of a future based on the critical resource of human capital. This book is arguably the most important new book in urban planning since the publication of Jay Forrester's Urban Dynamics in 1969. Carrillo and colleagues have managed to carefully craft a comprehensive book that persuasively explains why the knowledge-based perspective is critical to urban development around the globe. This exciting new book is likely to soon become a standard for the next generation of urban planners and public administrators.”

Steven Cavaleri Co-author of Knowledge Leadership: The Art and Science of the Knowledge-based Organization and Senior Executive Vice President of KMCI

“In Knowledge Cities we taste both the pragmatic actions and theoretical underpinnings for a renaissance of community knowledge that offers the potential to accelerate humanity’s quest toward wisdom. This collection of insights and understandings is cutting-edge.”

Alex Bennett, co-founder of Mountain Quest Institute, former Co-Chair of the Federal Knowledge Management Group and former CKO, Department of Navy, USA

“Building and managing knowledge cities is a major issue for policy makers and citizens all over the World. Carrillo's book is welcome and timely to read.”

Ahmed Bounfour, Associate Professor, University of Marne-La-Vallée, France and Co-editor of Intellectual Capital for Communities: Nations, Regions and Cities

“This book provides a stimulating overview on the emerging and multidisciplinary field of knowledge cities. Theoretical and practical at the same time, Knowledge Cities sets the basis for cities value creation in the knowledge era. Highly recommended for those interested in a holistic approach of knowledge based development as well as those interested in the value dimensions of knowledge.”

José M. Viedma Martí, Professor of Business Administration, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain and President of Intellectual Capital Management Systems

Few aspects of today’s World may characterize better the dawn of the new millenium than the transformation of nations, regions and cities into knowledge societies. These are communities that have undertaken a deliberate and sistematic initiative to develop the whole of their value elements in a balanced and sustainable manner. What is distinctive about knowledge communites is that their social accounts deal with all forms of social capital –nowadays predominantly intangible capital- in an organic manner.

This book is about the convergence of two emerging conditions of human civilization – cities and knowledge - into the Century of Knowledge Cities. In Knowledge Cities, the city is the unit of analysis and Knowledge-based Development the distinctive approach. No urban development project, however strategic, justifies the use of the “Knowledge City” label if it aims primarily at economic development or can be described in terms of available technoeconomic development frameworks. In contrast, Knowledge-based Development provides an alternative to traditional economic growth theory and the now unjustifiable dychotomy between economic welfare and overall social value.

In Knowledge Cities, Francisco Javier Carrillo brings together a group of distinguished scholars and practitioners from around the world to outline the theory, describe cases and identify issues for the understanding and development of knowledge cities.

Francisco Javier Carrillo Ph.D. is Director of The Center for Knowledge Systems, at The Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico and Chairman of The World Capital Institute.

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