European Cities in Dynamic Competition

The paper delivers a brief summary of what growth and structural change of the global economy as well as technological and demographic trends mean for urban agglomerations and rural areas in Europe. It covers theoretical models, empirical evidence and political challenges. Its main conclusion is that, at least in Europe, the time of “natural” convergence of regions in geographical space is over as the knowledge-based economy of the future favors innovative centers over the periphery. As a consequence, competition between urban growth poles in space will become ever more intense, and a traditional egalitarian regional policy ever more difficult. This may raise the level of economic and political tensions within the European Union and within individual member countries. The debt crises of southern European countries, the rise of populist movements as well as the recent referenda in the United Kingdom—on Scottish Independence and Brexit—may be first cases in point. Therefore, a thorough redesign of regional policy tools is called for: away from physical to intellectual infrastructure that fosters innovative capacity.

Besides facing challenges like globalization, agglomeration, digitalization, and demographical change, a nation finds its growth and development to be strongly influenced by its innovativeness. Innovation emanates from interaction and knowledge flows, and countries’ systems of innovation shape the manifold innovation processes. Cities are the focal point of these processes, as they serve as regional hubs that facilitate the interplay between all involved actors and the exchange of related knowledge. Consequently, cities as fonts of innovation are central to policymakers’ concerns. Despite cities’ high value as a unit of analysis, few studies have investigated strategies leading to a high innovative capacity in cities. However, much research has occurred at the national level. Among this, one study introduces an innovative methodology to identify so called pathways to success for European member states using a comparative method. As the national level is an aggregate of the lower levels, the authors assume that such proven concepts from the national level also apply to cities and claim that different innovation strategies with the same outcome exist, thus allowing cities to define appropriate policies in line with their specific preconditions. The few academic works on the determinants of innovative capacity of European (secondary) capital cities, as well as several practical studies in this field, provide first evidence of the truth of this theory. Drawing on these fragmented sources, the authors propose a consolidated set of 43 variables reflecting a local innovation ecosystem, thus setting the scene for a quantitative proof of the concept in the future.

Public sector organizations increasingly make use of modern technology to interact with citizens. Whereas communication between citizens and public employees was characterized by one-way (e.g., front-desk) or two-way transaction (e.g., e-mail) in previous times, advances in information and communication technology provide new possibilities for citizen-government interaction such as platform-based collaboration. Leveraging innovative channels facilitates many-to-many collaboration, and enables an increased level of government openness in terms of information and citizen integration.

In this exploratory study, we investigate the patterns of citizen-government interaction by focusing on an example of mobile open government. We examine which groups of citizens use the mobile application and why they are motivated to collaborate with local government. Furthermore, we analyze the interaction between mobile government users and public employees and shed light on users’ perception of mobile government.

Survey findings provide evidence for a quite heterogeneous group of users in terms of age. However, the great majority of users are men. Users’ motivation for communicating with local government via mobile phone is mainly driven by their interest in forwarding concerns easily and contributing to city improvement. Regarding users’ activity in mobile government, results indicate that citizens with offline experience in communicating with public employees due to infrastructural defects write online reports less frequently than those without experience.

This chapter contributes to a better understanding about citizens’ role in open government and about how individuals leverage mobile technology to collaborate with local government. To stimulate and design citizen participation more efficiently, we give some future research directions.

Leipzig is one of the most dynamic cities in Eastern Germany, with approximately 580,000 inhabitants. After years of population decline and above-average unemployment rates, Leipzig has started to regain popularity in recent years. The number of inhabitants is continuously increasing. Population forecasts anticipate up to 720,000 inhabitants by the year 2030. Leipzig’s economy is successfully turning from a post-industrial to a modern, knowledge-based structure.

In 2015, the city joined the HORIZON 2020 Smart city and communities project TRIANGULUM (www.​triangulum-project.​eu) as a Follower City. This was the starting point for a Smart City strategy for the City of Leipzig. The municipality is developing a Smart City implementation strategy by means of a broad participation process, involving the municipal utilities, the scientific institutions and the civil society. The case study is Leipzig West, a former industrialized area which has been turned into a lively and attractive neighborhood in recent years. The area has been one of the main focus areas for urban regeneration processes during its years of decline and high vacancy rates. With the help of national and EU subsidies the district became a role model for similar neighborhoods in Leipzig. Now, it will take on this role once again as it becomes the first district in Leipzig to develop a Smart City strategy.

This article summarizes the current project activities. Special focus will be put on the governance structures that have been established and the co-creation processes between different stakeholders for the elaboration of the Smart City implementation strategy for Leipzig West.

The first-hand report of the former Mayor for Economic Affairs, Real-Estates and Tourism of the City of Leipzig and present-day consultant and economic mediator covers the entire range from the beginnings of the reconstruction of the City of Leipzig via its successful repositioning in the 25 years after the German wall came down up to the establishment of a management and marketing concept for the development and institutionalization of rules in the corporate governance principles of the city as an enterprise. The “LEIPZIG KOMMT!” location campaign and its successor “Leipziger Freiheit” represent measures which in every aspect were successfully developed and implemented. This article portrays the development of the campaign, outlines the project structure and describes the principle of the marketing management process which has had the effect of creating consensus among the decision-makers of the region.

The following paper addresses the most important factors for a successful integrated city marketing strategy. It underlines the importance of goals and objectives and the need for a clear and competitive concept for the desired identity of the city. Further important aspects are strong city advocates and strong leadership, since cooperation between institutions, politics, companies and associations are of key importance to a city marketing organization in these times of a digitalized society.

The key factors and important aspects of integrated city marketing are illustrated with examples from the work at Münster Marketing, where the claim for the city has actually been accomplished. Its success is mainly based on the good communication achieved between the city, the university and the citizens. Furthermore, putting together the claim was done by including the opinions of the citizens, giving them the opportunity to actively participate in the process thereby making the municipality take on the role of a partner rather than an authority.

For the future, there is potential for city marketing organizations to act as intermediaries and troubleshooters between politicians and the citizenry, involving both of them in the creation of city brands and their own future. I hope that the idea of what could be called the civilizing of an agency or organization will be taken into account in the future development of city marketing organizations.

The following chapter thus identifies the most important factors for the success of an integrated city marketing campaign in nine short chapters, concluded by taking a personal perspective on the sector’s future, though it might not be quite complete just yet and also somewhat bold in outlook.

The paper starts with a short history of the economics of cities: one city, location of many cities, competition of cities in a single currency region, global competition of cities. The chapter second section deals with the strategies of cities that compete with each other for growth, attractiveness and welfare of the citizens. The city of Bonn is used as an example. The limitations of competition strategies are described using the example of Trier. Legal structures of Chicago and Tokyo are analysed for comparison.

Urban growth is driven by structural change in the economy. While the manufacturing sector is moving away from the cities, the fast-growing company-oriented and knowledge-based services are drawn into the urban centers. There they find the most favorable conditions, allowing them to develop in an above average way.

The suburban area is becoming increasingly significant to urban growth. In addition to its traditional relief function regarding residential and business areas, it is the spatial division of labor that emerged in the sectoral structural change, which supports urban growth. The highly competitive industry located in the suburban area represents the most important consumer of services concentrated in the cities. To stand its ground within the global competition of innovation, industry must be able to revert to application-oriented knowledge. For this purpose, an increasing number of training, research and technology transfer services were established outside of the major cities over the last few years. They are tailored to the specific needs of the regional economy and benefit the development of the entire region.

The City of Bonn and the Rhein-Sieg District can serve as a model for the cross-pollination of the city and its surrounding area. After losing its status as Germany’s governmental seat, the region has so far successfully mastered the structural change through cooperation. At the same time, the first signs indicating a gradual shift of the growth from the city towards the region can be detected from the development of the two local authorities as well as the recent migration movement in the large cities.

The digital revolution inevitably alters brick and mortar retailers. In particular, retail cities face enormous challenges. If they want to survive as a retail location, they have to improve their image and work on their appeal for digitally oriented customers. These cities need to digitalize their infrastructure. Local retailers must go online. Retail has to be reinvented to create new kinds of digital experiences. It needs to integrate digital commerce into the offline world. This process can be supported by most city councils. They should create more centrality for the city centers, especially in small and medium-sized towns. A city has to find its unique identity. It can build up attraction points for the city center as shopping location. This was the aim of the project “MG Retail.2020”, using Mönchengladbach as a pilot city. The study produced a joint master plan for local retailers, the municipal policy and also the real estate industry. Core result was the concept of “Mönchengladbach on eBay” as a regional marketplace. This platform serves as a model for other cities. It has already received nationwide and international attention. The “Digital City” initiative launched by the German Retail Federation (HDE) and eBay is another outcome of the project.

Globalization and digitalization have lead to new challenges and perspectives in intermodal transport logistics of large city sea ports and megahubs. In particular, due to an enormous increase of the container throughput over the last decades and the automatization of megahubs, new planning problems in this field must consistently be addressed by smart software solutions. In this research article, we sketch some challenges that arise at megahubs and outline how mechanism design, as a popular tool that combines ideas from game theory and computer science, can be an approach to tackle logistics problems that involve multiple selfish players.