Cities are machines for innovation, incubators of ideas born of necessity as people from different places and social classes rub up against each other, creating a space for ideas and inventions. Look at Rome in the first century, Baghdad 1,000 years later, London in the 19th century or New York in the 20th; the city stands out as an engine of progress and modernity.
Yet a city’s pre-eminence does not necessarily last. Detroit, a city that was only a few decades ago at the forefront of industrial innovation and production, is now an epic example of collapse. So, how to create the conditions that attract and encourage entrepreneurs and ideas?
Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute in Toronto, believes the first thing governments must do is “get out of the way – stop ‘squelching’ entrepreneurial culture”.