Using smart people to build smarter: How smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland)
Smart cities have been heralded as new powerhouses of economic growth and their capacity to fill this promise strongly depends on how attractive they are to highly skilled people. In fact, talented professionals can be regarded as their precondition and the fuel of innovation. In this article, we t...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Pro Universitaria
2023-03-01
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| Series: | Smart Cities and Regional Development Journal |
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| Online Access: | https://scrd.eu/index.php/scrd/article/view/173 |
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| _version_ | 1850244585351020544 |
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| author | Brian Fabrègue Léo J. Portal Christopher Cockshaw |
| author_facet | Brian Fabrègue Léo J. Portal Christopher Cockshaw |
| author_sort | Brian Fabrègue |
| collection | DOAJ |
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Smart cities have been heralded as new powerhouses of economic growth and their capacity to fill this promise strongly depends on how attractive they are to highly skilled people. In fact, talented professionals can be regarded as their precondition and the fuel of innovation. In this article, we try to articulate how outstanding smart cities have managed to consolidate and retain a highly skilled graduate workforce. To this end, we analyse recent institutional developments in the cities with smart ambitions that achieve the highest smartness scores and compare them to parallel developments in those that obtain the lowest scores or no score across four countries: Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland. Taking from theories of economics of agglomeration and urban economics, and following a careful review of the relevant literature, we first highlight reasons that draw highly skilled workers to a smart city before identifying the cities which have proven most able to capitalise on them. In line with existing theories, this article finds that cities which enjoy greater administrative autonomy tend to successfully use this leeway to implement pro-growth policies and amplify them via a regulatory setting that itself encourages business development. Hence, our conclusion provides recommendations towards a pathway of reforms for smart cities willing to authorise more comprehensive policies in order to boost their attractiveness as locations of employment and reach their stated objectives.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-9df4df2697ad405f980bdf5e69c41ab9 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2537-3803 2821-7888 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2023-03-01 |
| publisher | Pro Universitaria |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Smart Cities and Regional Development Journal |
| spelling | doaj-art-9df4df2697ad405f980bdf5e69c41ab92025-08-20T01:59:42ZengPro UniversitariaSmart Cities and Regional Development Journal2537-38032821-78882023-03-017110.25019/scrdjournal.v7i1.173Using smart people to build smarter: How smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland)Brian Fabrègue0Léo J. Portal1Christopher Cockshaw2University of Zurich European University InstituteSciencesPo Smart cities have been heralded as new powerhouses of economic growth and their capacity to fill this promise strongly depends on how attractive they are to highly skilled people. In fact, talented professionals can be regarded as their precondition and the fuel of innovation. In this article, we try to articulate how outstanding smart cities have managed to consolidate and retain a highly skilled graduate workforce. To this end, we analyse recent institutional developments in the cities with smart ambitions that achieve the highest smartness scores and compare them to parallel developments in those that obtain the lowest scores or no score across four countries: Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland. Taking from theories of economics of agglomeration and urban economics, and following a careful review of the relevant literature, we first highlight reasons that draw highly skilled workers to a smart city before identifying the cities which have proven most able to capitalise on them. In line with existing theories, this article finds that cities which enjoy greater administrative autonomy tend to successfully use this leeway to implement pro-growth policies and amplify them via a regulatory setting that itself encourages business development. Hence, our conclusion provides recommendations towards a pathway of reforms for smart cities willing to authorise more comprehensive policies in order to boost their attractiveness as locations of employment and reach their stated objectives. https://scrd.eu/index.php/scrd/article/view/173human capitale-governancestatistics |
| spellingShingle | Brian Fabrègue Léo J. Portal Christopher Cockshaw Using smart people to build smarter: How smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland) Smart Cities and Regional Development Journal human capital e-governance statistics |
| title | Using smart people to build smarter: How smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland) |
| title_full | Using smart people to build smarter: How smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland) |
| title_fullStr | Using smart people to build smarter: How smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland) |
| title_full_unstemmed | Using smart people to build smarter: How smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland) |
| title_short | Using smart people to build smarter: How smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland) |
| title_sort | using smart people to build smarter how smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation belgium denmark the netherlands poland |
| topic | human capital e-governance statistics |
| url | https://scrd.eu/index.php/scrd/article/view/173 |
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