ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Knowledge Economy in Germany - Small Towns in the Shadow of Large Cities?

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Oral SS 16 | SMALL TOWNS – Big challenges and high potentials?

Speaker

Dr Madeleine Wagner (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT))

Description

The increasing dynamism of the economy and the intensifying competitive environment are precipitating novel challenges for societies of knowledge, organisations and enterprises. Urban areas are recogised as focal points for social-spatial, cultural and economic activities within metropolitan and rural contexts. Despite the increasing connectivity facilitated by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the subesquent integration of rural areas into communication networks, empirical studies conducted on metropolitan regions suggest that large cities and their environs continue to be attractive hubs for creative and knowledge-intensive employment opportunities.
The flexibilisation of work and the increasing agglomeration disadvantages in large cities have led to an increased focus on knowledge-intensive activities in the development of urban hinterland. However, the extent to which large cities also borrow specific functions from small towns in the surrounding area in the opposite directions (Mayer/Knox 2010), and can benefit from their facilities (Meijers/Burger 2022) has been largely ignored (Wagner 2024).
The objective of this paper is therefore to analyse the role of small towns with regard to the knowledge economy in the surrounding areas of the 50 large city regions in Germany between 2012 and 2019. The methodology employed in this study involves an analysis of spatial concentration patterns of the knowledge economy, categorised according to distinct knowledge bases, namely analytical, synthetic and symbolic. Secondly, I will compare functional specialisation processes of knowledge-intensive occupations in large towns and small towns in large city regions. The central argument of this study is that specialisation processes can occur in small towns independently of the development of the core city.
Finally, the argument is made for multidimensional perspective on city-hinterland developments that consider different town size classes, location factors and the needs of knowledge-intensive employment.

References

Mayer, Heike/Knox, Paul (2010). Small-town Sustainability: Prospects in the Second Modernity. European Planning Studies, 18 (10), pp. 1545-1565.
Meijers, Everts/Burger, Martijn (2022) Small and medium-sized towns: out of the dark agglomeration shadows and into the bright city lights? In Heike Mayer & Michaela Lazzeroni (Eds.), A Research Agenda for Small and Medium-Sized Towns (pp. 23-28). Edward Elgar.
Wagner, Madeleine (2024). On the relationship between centres and small towns in a city-regional context: knowledge-intensive concentration and specialization in Germany. European Journal of Spatial Development, 21 (2), pp. 82-116.