Toward a Sustainable Relationship between City and University: A Stakeholdership Approach

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Journal of Planning Education and Research

DOI: 10.1177/0739456X07307208 2007; 27; 199 Journal of Planning Education and Research

Antonio P. Russo, Leo van den Berg and Mariangela Lavanga Toward a Sustainable Relationship between City and University: A Stakeholdership Approach

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Economic systems are made up of brains and bodies, and the knowledge economy is no exception. In the context of higher education, the natural

tendency for Western men and women to situate themselves in the contemporaryinformation-driven economic paradigm is frequently followed by periods ofadvanced academic and in-company training and, in some cases, university careers.

The knowledge economy itself is also made up of places. Large parts of pro-duced knowledge have been rendered footloose by new technologies, and this isone of the driving forces of globalization (allowing, for instance, the spatial disar-ticulation of production processes and the world-scale coordination of financialoperations). Yet the elicitation and production of knowledge is an inherently localprocess, feeding on territorial idiosyncrasies (Castells 1996) such as the following:local culture and creativity, social structures and political conditions, economicdevelopment trajectories, technology access regimes, physical versus virtual accessi-bility, and the quality and style of education.

In turn, it could be argued that produced knowledge contributes to the devel-opment of the places that host such processes to the extent that it becomes rootedin the structure of local interests. In this way, the local community becomes a stake-holder, establishing a stewardship for knowledge. As such, academic training—apowerful generator of knowledge—cannot be demarcated from the social and envi-ronmental context in which it takes place, as this will determine the extent to whichknowledge filters and sediments in local socioeconomic processes. The center ofattention in this case is typically the city, for higher education has been developingin Europe essentially as an urban phenomenon (Capel 2002). In particular, largecities and metropolitan areas are the places where “town-gown” relationships arelikely to be more complex, as the positions and ambitions of urban stakeholders areparticularly varied and well articulated.

One can argue that the generation of new knowledge serves global develop-ment, but it also becomes a solid factor of competitive advantage for cities whereit is produced to such an extent that it is managed in the best interest of the localsociety. This means, among other things, establishing strong and synergetic linksbetween the host community and the landscape generated by higher education.This consists of the extensive physical fabric of the university, with its faculties,laboratories, classrooms, student faculties, university premises, and public spaces.

Abstract

While the impact of knowledge assets onregional economies receives much attention inthe economic literature, management and plan-ning issues regarding the relationships betweenacademic and local agents are underinvesti-gated. In this article, it is argued that universitiescould be a driving force for urban development,provided cities succeed in embedding knowl-edge in the local social and economic networks,which is seen to depend to a large extent on thebalance in the process of exchange between thevarious stakeholders of higher education: stu-dents and academic communities, entrepre-neurs, and local communities. A model ofsustainable city-university relationship is pro-posed and matched with evidence from ninecase studies of European cities hosting a largehigher education sector; the role of policy andplanning to sustain and enhance such links isalso brought to the fore through the illustrationof various best practices in the case studies.

Keywords: higher education; student communities;stakeholders; planning

Journal of Planning Education and Research 27:199-216DOI: 10.1177/0739456X07307208© 2007 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning

Antonio P. Russo is an associate professor at theUniversity Rovira i Virgili, in Tarragona, Spain,and collaborates with the European Institute forComparative Urban Research. His researchinterests range from cultural economics tourban studies and tourism.

Leo van den Berg is the director of the Departmentof Regional, Port and Transport Economics at theErasmus University of Rotterdam and the Direc-tor of the European Institute for ComparativeUrban Research. He is a renowned scholar in thefield of urban studies.

Mariangela Lavanga is a postdoctoral researcherat the Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan andInternational Development Studies of theUniversity of Amsterdam. She has a strong inter-est in topics related to urban studies and culturalplanning.

Toward a Sustainable Relationship between City and UniversityA Stakeholdership Approach

Antonio P. Russo, Leo van den Berg, & Mariangela Lavanga

199



It also consists of the people who populate it, who for themost part include students, researchers, and the teachingstaff. Finally, it extends to the activities that such groups par-take of in the local environment and the associated social andeconomic impacts.

Thus, the physical and spatial form of higher educationinstitutions—their disciplinary orientation and activities, therelations that they establish with the residents’ and businesscommunity, and the impacts of academic settlements—should be the object of careful planning and management, topromote integration and synergy in local development.

While the impact of knowledge assets on regionaleconomies has received much attention in the economic lit-erature, we feel that management and planning issuesdeserve further elaboration. This article endeavors to over-come these shortcomings by proposing a conceptual frame-work of the relationships between the academy and host cityand then using this framework to analyze the pitfalls in suchrelationships as well as the role that policy and planning mayplay in redressing a sustainable balance.

Our main research hypothesis is that the role of highereducation to affect local development depends crucially onthe ability to balance the multiple relationships establishedbetween the place in question and its stakeholders. Thishypothesis will be tested against comparative evidence fromnine European cities: Birmingham, Eindhoven, Helsinki,Lille, Lyon, Munich, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Venice.

The next section of the article introduces relevant argu-ments regarding the relationship between cities and theirhigher education sectors. Based on these arguments, a modelof sustainable city-university relationship is proposed and dis-cussed. Next, empirical research in nine case studies is usedto provide insight into the implications of the model. Finally,the article concludes with general remarks on the validity ofthe model presented, and a number of general recommen-dations are made for policy makers and other agents involvedin the development of higher education as an urban driver.

� Background Issues: Academic Communities and Local Development

Universities, higher education institutions, and researchcenters have appreciable local impacts: direct, as employ-ment and revenue generators, and indirect, as developers ofknowledge and human resources. While the former impactshave been investigated according to standard methodologies,as in the case of Felsenstein (1995) and Harris (1997), the lat-ter impacts present the most evident conceptual challengesfor planners.

While the production and management of knowledge is by no means a purely public issue, it is considered criticalthat information-intensive sectors and knowledge-based

economic systems develop a solid and strategic relationshipwith the higher education sector (which in Europe is mainlystate funded) to boost their spatial effects. Indeed, accordingto district theorists such as Jane Jacobs (1969), the general-ized, wide-ranging knowledge generated in state-subsidizedhigher education institutions is bound to have more knock-on impact on local growth through agglomeration externali-ties than specialized knowledge produced in theprivate-sector R&D departments under the pull of competi-tion (the latter argument was upheld years later by Porter1990, among others). Florida and Cohen (1999) seem toshare Jacobs’s argument and project it into the knowledge-economy discourse, arguing that universities are “pivotalcomponent[s] of an underlying infrastructure for innovationon which the system of knowledge-based capitalism draws”(p. 604). Thus, the local availability of a large pool of intel-lectual and creative capital, generally referred to as “knowl-edge spillover,” is of primary importance for regionaldevelopment (Florax 1992; van Oort 2002).

At various stages, policy makers and planners haveendorsed this idea and tried to boost the role of universitiesand research centers as regional catalysts.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the regionalization of higher edu-cation was pursued by various national governments throughan array of strategies (such as the birth of new peripheral uni-versities, decentralization of special study curricula by existinguniversities, and diversification of university locations, with theaim of supporting weak regional economies. Yet such expecta-tions were largely frustrated. Dubet and Sembel (1994) blamethe “top-down” character of such initiatives and the lack of par-ticipation of local stakeholders in their planning. Later, in thewave of financial cutbacks and restructuring of higher educa-tion curricula, the trend has been just the opposite.

New momentum for higher education as a regionalbooster has stemmed from the loss of relevance of nation-states and the revamped role of cities as the hubs of theglobal economy (Ohmae 1995). While universities areincreasingly embedded in specialized regional networks andinnovation systems, research is more and more dependent onprivate sponsors, donors, and commercial partners, whichare typically local actors (van den Berg, Braun, and Otgaar2002). Thus, universities have a potential role as “networkers”activating a local buzz around development initiatives andpipelining global content into local structures and processes(Benneworth and Hospers forthcoming). In this context, thepotential synergies between universities and local communi-ties increase. In particular, former European industrial capi-tals and regions in transition compete to attract newresources—ideas, people, and capital—to accelerate the eco-nomic regeneration based on the growth sectors of the flexi-ble, information-intensive new economy: high-tech, thecultural industries, media, tourism, and so forth. Universitiesare duly acknowledged as strategic partners in this effort.

200 Russo et al.



Yet analysis of the relationship between universities andhost communities should not be limited to the institutionalsphere. In spite of their diverse social backgrounds, highereducation students (both undergraduate and postgraduate)and, to some extent, the rest of the academic community,may be described as an urban population that establishesimportant economic, social, and cultural relations with othergroups, modifying urban landscapes in specific ways, and ulti-mately determining the viability and extent of the knowledgespillover.

To begin with, students are eager consumers of culturaland recreational products (Wynne and O’Connor 1998) and,in many cases, are producers themselves (Griffiths et al. 1999).In this way, cities with a large student population sustain aleisure infrastructure that could normally be found only incities of higher rank, improving the quality of life of the resi-dent population. Furthermore, the informal, bohemian, andextrovert climate of student habitats enhances the attractive-ness of cities (Allinson 2006), with important impacts also interms of increasing numbers of visitors who value intangibleelements of the local identity, like animated public space,trendy lifestyles, and multiculturalism (Richards and Wilson2004). Williams, Baláz, and Wallace (2004, 30) argue thatinternational student mobility constitutes a major potentialsource of labor in the knowledge economy and a major deter-minant of uneven regional growth in Europe.

The notion that knowledge centers may contribute toenhance the profile of host communities has been revivedwithin the new development paradigm of the creative class.An innovative and dynamic working environment is supposedto stimulate those urban amenities that generate furtherattractiveness, in a virtuous cycle of knowledge-driven devel-opment. In particular, educated young people are now seenas the backbone of the creative city (Hospers 2003; Florida2002), where lifestyles, social networks, and informationassets blend in a unique environment supporting the growthof competitive and sustainable economies (Youl Lee, Florida,and Acs 2004).

On the other hand, the coexistence and interaction of dif-ferent populations, which according to Martinotti (1997) isone of the driving forces of contemporary urbanization, isnot without problems. Indeed, there exists a large body ofwork on the town-gown issue (McGirr, Kull, and Scott 2003;Gumprecht 2003): the sometimes difficult relationshipbetween residents and academic communities, mainly attrib-uted to the conflict of access to urban resources and publicservices, and to the valorization processes triggered by stu-dents’ demand, which tends to penalize the weakest sectorsof the local society.

The effect of students on the housing market has beenwidely researched. Students have spending behavior thatmay differ substantially from that of the host community. As

tenants, they enjoy lower protection and a faster life cyclethan the residents. Such characteristics are commonlybelieved to push up the price levels and increase the rigidityof the market. It is also noted in works such as Groves, Revel,and Leather (2003) that student presence may slow downregeneration processes—rather than fostering them—byexpressing a demand for below-standard housing stock andthus taking away incentives for restoration. Nel·lo (2004,370-73) notes, for example, that such processes havedetracted from any positive sociocultural effects in the regen-eration of the Raval area in Barcelona. More generally,Chatterton and Hollands (2002) consider the construction of“playscapes” for the urban youth as a powerful impulse inrestructuring urban economies in the direction of more stateand corporate control, sanitization, and mainstream culturalparadigms, thus questioning the regeneration abilities of stu-dent communities, in terms of a more “creative” environment.

In any case, it should be noted that remarkably, the town-gown debate has been restricted to the challenges posed bythe spatial concentration of students (and more often thannot, of undergraduates), whereas it certainly has not flour-ished with regard to other categories of the academic popu-lation, which instead are the focus of many “attraction”initiatives. Indeed, considering studentship as a temporarycondition, one has to question the consistency of much of thecriticism of the “studentification” of cities. Higher educationstudents may well be the future wealthy citizens and skilledprofessionals whom each city seeks to attract, and they couldbe offered an opportunity for integration already duringtheir study years to win in the emerging “global competitionfor talent” (Florida 2005).

The capacity of local stakeholders (governments, firms,community organizations, or other civic agencies) to recognizeand valorize this potential is critical. Florax (1992, 3) notes thatproactive behavior of cities toward academic communitiesmight have ancient origins: some Dutch provinces in the six-teenth century already granted fiscal benefits to members ofstudent communities as a means of attracting them to theseareas. The cultural role of the academic population is dis-cussed by Elliott et al. (1996), Chatterton (2000), and Hall(1997),1 among others. Chatterton (1999, 131) argues that thewidening participation in higher education in the last decadehas contributed to the breaking down of cultural barriersbetween host and guest communities in British cities.

However, seldom did such obvious links between universi-ties and cities translate into strategic common managementof all the areas of contact between them (van den Berg,Braun, and van Winden 2001). The process of fine-tuningand negotiating between the potential represented by acade-mic communities and the needs and interests of local actorsis a relatively new planning field for most European local gov-ernment, touching on many sensitive issues (citizenship,

Toward a Sustainable Relationship � 201



inclusion, diversity, gentrification, glocalization). Forinstance, it is uncommon for city planners to embrace theconcept of “unplanned” creative environments, which wouldhint at an “open ended” approach in the planning for stu-dent settlements (Landry 2000). On the other hand, nationaland European education policies often neglect the local orurban dimension of that issue, treating human capital asplace bound. However, human capital is highly mobile, and itneeds to be attracted, welcomed, and managed in specificplaces to fully exert its hoped-for effects.

Thus, optimal conditions for the full integration of stu-dents into local communities are not always met; studentsremain an invisible population, with an ambiguous role inlocal development and little presence in local policy.

Planning initiatives to address such challenges need to bebased on a systematic appraisal of the thick web of relationshipsand impacts generated by the academy in the city, at many dif-ferent levels. The economic/institutional role of universitieshas been central to many initiatives along the model of the“third wave” of regional innovation policies (Bradshaw andBlakely 1999). In our opinion, this approach needs to be inte-grated with a more thorough consideration of the role ofacademic populations (students in particular) and of theirpotentially destabilizing effects on knowledge generation andtransfer mechanisms. In the next section, we will analyze suchinterdependencies systematically and propose a simplifiedmodel of sustainable relationships between city and university;this model serves to analyze the impacts and shortcomings insuch relationships and to calibrate urban policy and planninginitiatives accordingly.

� The Local Stakeholdership of Higher Education: A Conceptual Framework ofRelationships and Transactions

Different stakeholders are affected in various ways and havespecific vested interests in the development of higher educationin a city. These interests may be partially contrasting and needto be reconnected to a comprehensive vision of a sustainableuniversity city: a negotiated development model based onhigher education, which in our opinion is the most likely toaccrue long-term benefits to the local community. Such a con-sensual, deliberative approach to urban governance emphasizes“collective, pragmatic, participatory problem solving” as animprovement over centralized regulation in contexts of highlocal complexity (Hajer and Wagenaar 2003, 12; see alsoLaurian 2007 for a comprehensive review of arguments in favorof participatory decision making in planning practice, andSwyngedouw 2005 for criticism to the consensualist discourse inurban governance2). The challenge for local policy is thus tobalance the needs and ambitions of every group with a stake inhigher education. We illustrate this concept in Figure 1.

While it should be acknowledged that many universities havea stakeholder community that is national or even internationalin scope, the direct links that they sustain with the local businesssector (see bottom left-hand side of Figure 1) are increasinglyseen as strategic for both parties and are on the rise (Hall, Link,and Scott 2001). Universities transfer their knowledge to the pri-vate sector through partnerships,3 research contracts, and train-ing programs such as the Teaching Company schemes in theUnited Kingdom. The financial resources fed back in to the uni-versities are used to expand educational supply, for instance, tobuild new facilities and to fund core research programs. At thesame time, the academy may involve private-sector practitionersin teaching, integrating practical expertise into the student cur-ricula, which is increasingly sought after in the labor market. Bydeveloping lifelong education programs and training courses,higher education institutions contribute to the companies’human resource development and come to upgrade the city’spotential as an innovative business location. Hence, it may beargued that there is a dual-tiered dependency between the acad-emy and the business sector (Poyago-Theotoky, Beath, andSiegel 2002, 13-14).

Some authors express circumspect views on the extent towhich public universities do contribute to local economic devel-opment (Feller 2004; Stephan 1996) and on the real “costs” and conflicts of interests involved in exchanges between acade-mia and corporations (Washburn 2006). The tension betweenpublic and private knowledge is arguably less pronounced inthe case of a business structure comprising small and mediumfirms that cannot sustain private R&D but are part of dynamiceconomic districts (Helper and Stanley 2006). In fact, the liter-ature on economic districts identifies support from the privatesector as customers or partners in research as a constitutionalelement of the district economy.

Higher education institutions are also tied to their host com-munities (see bottom right-hand side of Figure 1), as they arephysically located in a given place, generally a city, possibly ofmedium-to-large size, as with those included in this study. Theygenerate jobs and revenues, as any other urban industry, and inexchange, they express a demand for services and infrastruc-ture that the local governments should deliver and finance.Exchanges between higher education institutions and hostcommunity also take place at a less tangible level, as universitiesmay benefit from “city brands,” and in return they offer theirreputation and dynamism to the city, contributing to its com-petitiveness, as we have argued in the previous section.

Higher education is not only important as an urban indus-try; it is also the lever for a stronger, more competitive, andembedded local economy (see top of Figure 1). Upgradedhuman capital available locally influences not only the loca-tion decisions and the productivity of the companies but alsothe magnitude of the impacts that trickle down in the localsociety. Moreover, it enhances the economic dimension oflocal markets. Indeed, there is ample evidence (Audretsch,

202 Russo et al.



Lehmann, and Warning 2005) that location choices of firmsare also driven by the quality of the local skills pool.

A key point of this article is that such triangular relationshipsbetween higher education and the local environment exists notmerely between institutions but also (or rather) between stake-holders who establish relationships of mutual interest: studentsand the academic community, entrepreneurs, and citizens.Institutions can and do intervene, however; for instance, electedcity councils can negotiate the development of universities withthe boards of the institutes, and chambers of commerce stipu-late partnerships with the same boards to activate internship pro-grams. However, the relationships between students and other

urban players are “neither direct nor objective,” as Dubet (inUniversité 2001, 62) suggests, but are highly mediated by theenvironmental context and dependent on idiosyncratic factors.Similarly, transfer between the university and the business community—which is the basis of the new role of universities as the “spin-wheels” of the knowledge economy—depends crucially on personal ties and informal networking (Swan et al.1999; Sorensen 2004).

Furthermore, these relationships, or helices, are dynamic.If there is balance, meaning that a virtuous process ofexchange between university, community, and businesses isestablished, as in theories of local endogenous growth (for


PRIVATE SECTORBusiness community

Associations ofindustry

Trade unions

Citizens and theirassociations

Other user groupsInstitutions

JobsRevenues

Finance andinvestments

Human capitalR&D

JobsImage, prestige

Dynamism

STRATEGIC PLANNING

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE

Science parks, incubators,dissemination activities,

networking, etc.

KnowledgeBase research

LocationServices

Brand

URBAN PLANNING

Housing, spatial planning,transport and mobility, events,

welcoming and supportprograms, city marketing

Human capitalMarkets

HIGHER EDUCATIONInstitutions and services

InfrastructureStudents and their

organisations

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Skills development, wideningparticipation, continuingeducation, trademarks,employment matching

activities

PRIVATE SECTORBusiness community

Associations ofindustry

Trade unions

COMMUNITYCitizens and their

associationsOther user groups

Institutions

JobsRevenues

Finance andinvestments

Human capitalR&D

JobsImage, prestige

Dynamism

STRATEGIC PLANNING

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE


networking, etc.

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE


networking, etc.

KnowledgeBase research

LocationServices

Brand

URBAN PLANNING



URBAN PLANNING



Human capitalMarkets

HIGHER EDUCATIONInstitutions and services

InfrastructureStudents and their

organisations



activities



activities

Figure 1. Model of sustainable city-university relationship.



instance, Etzkowitz et al. 2000), the strategies of the threeagents considered tend to converge and overlay, producingsustained local growth. However, we focus on the potentialfor the development of an unsatisfactory triple helix. If adynamic balance is not established, consensus between theagents of growth is reduced, possibly invoking a downward spi-ral of investment withdrawal and restructuring (Benneworthand Hospers forthcoming). Drawing on case study evidence,the nature and impacts of such imbalances will now be analyzedand described graphically.

Relationships between local universities and the businesscommunity can in some cases be ill defined or insufficientlydeveloped (see A in Figure 2)—for instance, if universities’access to private funds for financing research and trainingprograms is constrained or if the flow of knowledge betweenthe academy and companies is inhibited. This can happenwhen national regulations prevent university researchersfrom exporting patents to private firms, or, for instance, do not allow business-sector experts without an academic curriculum vitae to occupy university chairs, which is still the normal situation in most—mainly southern—Europeancountries. In such a case, the important location factor forfirms would be less important. At the same time, universitiesthat cannot “sell” to private partners come to depend onshrinking public budgets for a larger share of their operatingcosts. In the end, the development costs of higher educationwould be transferred to the local community.

An unbalanced or malfunctioning process of exchangebetween the private sector and the higher education sectorcompromises the other areas of impact of higher educationin the local environment, diminishing the role of educationas a stimulus to local development (see B in Figure 2) andhampering the integration of student populations into thecommunity (see C in Figure 2).

In other cases, the link between higher education and thehost community (see Figure 3) could be subject to similarlyunstable dynamics. This can originate from an unbalancedtown-gown relationship or from straightforward conflict.Universities and other urban functions do indeed competefor space. In various cases, universities have expanded in con-gested city centers, challenging the quality of life of residentsand generating confrontation (Chatterton 1999).

On the other hand, academic institutions and their popula-tions require the provision of high-quality public services, such asaccessibility and public space, whose operational costs bearalmost exclusively on the residents’ community, given the volatilenature of a large part of their users (i.e., temporarily resident,nontaxpaying students). Long-term residents may be unwilling toprovide such services on an ongoing basis if they perceive that theeconomic impact of universities is unsatisfactory, potentially lead-ing to the formation of anti-university development coalitionsamong citizens.

This may result in the movement of older, more estab-lished universities out of city centers into suburban locations(Hall 1997, 301, quotes several examples), often with ambigu-ous results (Vassal 1987). However, this outflow of knowledgefrom a city may also occur at a more subtle level, through thetransfer of researchers to more welcoming places when thequality of the local working environment is considered belowpar (see the case of Venice below).

The mobility choices of students and the progression oftheir careers are also central to this issue. Indeed, students dohave a chance to become truly integrated in the local societyand contribute to it structurally when they are not students any-more: at the end of their study period, graduates often decideto stay or may well flee elsewhere if other job markets offer bet-ter opportunities. This is normally the case with small universitycities, but a large number of medium-to-large cities do seek

204 Russo et al.

PRIVATE

SECTOR

LOCAL

COMMUNITY

HIGHER

EDUCATION

A

B

C

PRIVATE

SECTOR

PRIVATE

SECTOR

LOCAL

COMMUNITY

LOCAL

COMMUNITY

HIGHER

ATIONT

A

B

C

Figure 2. Unbalanced relationship between higher education andprivate sector.

PRIVATESECTOR

LOCALCOMMUNITY

HIGHEREDUCATION

A

B

C

Figure 3. Unbalanced relationship between higher education andlocal community.



nowadays to retain their students and upscale their human cap-ital pool. This choice does not only consider economic conve-nience but also looks at subjective factors, such as the quality oflife in the period of their studies, the social ties established, orthe sense of integration in the community (as may be gauged byanecdotal evidence4 and specific studies such as Ocen W,RISBO, and SCO Kohnstam Instituut 2001). If favorable condi-tions are met, students may come to shape the social and eco-nomic organization of parts of the city around their own needsand practices (Pallares and Feixa 2000). In this way, they arelikely to become integrated into the community, and they arelikely to become a driving force of urban development andchange. On the other hand, negative effects might prevail, andstudents could be seen as aliens by other local stakeholders.

In the end, an unbalanced relationship between highereducation and host community (see A in Figure 3) may affectthat city’s competitiveness on the human resource and capi-tal market (see B in Figure 3) in negative terms. It may alsosour the relationship between the academy and the privatesector (see C in Figure 3) by influencing university locationdecisions and the public perception of the university as a pos-itive brand for the city.

Finally, the university may not accomplish its institutionalmission to produce the skills to be employed in local economicdevelopment or to generally increase the welfare standards ofthe local community and thus its market potential (see A inFigure 4). In this case, it can be expected that on one hand, theprivate sector sees fewer reasons to support research and edu-cation when locally trained human capital is subsequently likelyto be dispersed to other regions (see B in Figure 4) and, on theother hand, that the host community does not see the interestin investing in its higher education at all (see C in Figure 4).

In conclusion, any imbalance in the relationship betweenany two key stakeholders of higher education is likely have anegative effect on the others as well, producing a downward

spiral that goes in the opposite direction of the triple helix,ultimately dissipating the local growth factors.

Any lasting contribution of higher education to local devel-opment might therefore require some form of interventionfrom the public sector to bring these relationships into balancewherever they are not (which is likely to be the case in adynamic urban environment). In this way, a virtuous cycle ofdevelopment may be undertaken, in which an attractive cityworks like a magnet for higher education and research, and thisfosters an even more attractive environment for citizens,investors, tourists, and so forth. In the end, higher educationmay truly be a sustained growth factor for the regional economyand society.

As illustrated in the lower part of Figure 1, different plan-ning solutions for higher education institutions and theircommunities may address and restructure each critical rela-tionship in this scheme. By providing shared facilities andprograms, and promoting local academic-business partner-ships at many levels, local governments may “tie” businessesand universities, enhancing knowledge transfer and themutual dynamic relationships, which, beyond institutionalarrangements, may co-evolve into a structural alliance as fore-seen by Etzkowitz et al. (2000).

By planning for optimal services (accessibility, quality ofthe campus site, adequate housing) and an attractive socialand cultural environment, the integration of the academiccommunity is facilitated, and the regeneration role of theuniversity can be sustained, while conditions for mutual syn-ergies in economic development strategies (e.g., interna-tional branding) can be established.

Finally, through the development of skill-enhancementprograms, labor-matching facilities, and widening participa-tion (which requires an active involvement of higher educa-tion as a provider), the local market conditions forcompanies may improve.

This framework will now be used to benchmark a numberof case studies of European cities. The aim is to evaluate sys-tematically the state of the city-university relationship, identi-fying critical points, planning priorities, and best practice aswell as strategic developments that may serve as a referencepoint for other cities.

� Empirical Research

Sample Cities Profiles

Nine European cities were selected as case studies:5

Birmingham, Eindhoven, Helsinki, Lille, Lyon, Munich,Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Venice. The nine cities are not stu-dent cities in the traditional sense of being smaller, histori-cally academic communities where higher education woulddominate the city’s economic base and social profile. They


PRIVATESECTOR

LOCALCOMMUNITY

HIGHEREDUCATION

A

B C

PRIVATESECTORPRIVATESECTOR

LOCALCOMMUNITY

LOCALCOMMUNITY

HIGHEREDUCATION

HIGHEREDUCATION

B C

Figure 4. Unbalanced relationship between private sector and localcommunity.



are also not megacities, where higher education issues wouldbe dispersed within the wider articulation of global economicfunctions and citizenships. Instead, this article focuses onmetropolitan areas of a size ranging from half a million to 2million inhabitants, where the academy holds key importanceas a stimulus for other economic sectors, and where thedevelopment of higher education has to be accommodatedwithin a complex urban environment.

In each city, after analyzing secondary information (policyreports, statistical data, and previous research), the researchteam conducted an in-depth survey with a number of keystakeholders. Semistructured interviews with an average dura-tion of one hour were held in each city with ten to fifteen rep-resentatives of the higher education sector, the studentcommunity, the business community, the real estate sector,local and regional governmental authorities, and community-based organizations, as sampled by the city representatives.After a general description of their respective roles, ambi-tions, and awareness of the inherent problems, the discussionthemes included the power of initiative and the level ofinvolvement of each stakeholder in public policy and plan-ning for higher education development and knowledge man-agement in the region. A fuller presentation of the case studymethodology and results is provided in van den Berg andRusso (2004).

The case studies covered a broad range of situations withregard to city size, economic structure, and administrativecontext. Table 1 illustrates the key elements in each of thenine case studies as far as the main city characteristics andhigher education sectors are concerned.

Comparative Analysis

The model of a sustainable city-university relationshipdescribed in Figure 1 can be used to assess the relativestrengths and weaknesses in the dynamic relationshipbetween city and higher education in the nine cities analyzed.

Relationship between Higher Education and the Private Sector.Helsinki, Lyon, Munich, and Birmingham are cities in whichuniversity-business relationships are more developed. In partic-ular, Helsinki’s higher education institutions are embeddedwithin a dense network of formal and informal links with localfirms. The private sector contributes generously to researchprograms, and Helsinki’s R&D and knowledge transfer facilitiesare among the best developed in our sample of cities. The citygovernment and metropolitan authorities/agencies played akey role in fostering this connection within their “growth clus-ters” strategies (van den Berg, Braun, and van Winden 2001),providing seed funding for infrastructure. Birmingham’s andLyon’s experiences with science parks was successful as far asknowledge transfer is concerned, but less so in terms of starters.

Among the other cities, leaving aside the cases of Eindhoven(where Philips has been a fundamental actor in the develop-ment of higher education) and Utrecht (where the university isa national rather than local player), Venice, Lille, andRotterdam evidently present the most problems. Higher edu-cation institutions are not considered by the local businesscommunity as a strategic partner in R&D, and the transfer ofknowledge and resources between the dominant players of thelocal economy (the port-related industries in Rotterdam, thesmall and medium firms of the rich Italian northeasternregion) is judged unsatisfactory.6

Even in a context of historical links between industry andthe academy, as in Lille, private-sector and university devel-opment strategies are substantially disconnected; forinstance, it has been impossible to find space for jointresearch facilities and incubators in the technological cam-pus of the Cité Scientifique.

In such contexts, universities have had difficulties inadapting their educational programs and development strate-gies to a highly dynamic social and economic environment.These universities were born—or have been developing—inclose association with their host cities’ modern industrial eco-nomic and social spirit: the Christian social enterprise ofLille, the traditional labor-intensive port economy ofRotterdam, and the cultural primacy of Venice. The radicalchanges that affected these cities—spurring new ambitionstypical of postindustrialism—have not been completelymetabolized by their universities’ structure and orientation.Such changes include the following: the novel centrality andaccessibility of Lille following the TGV connection and itsincrease in economic weight as the center the Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam triangle; the port of Rotterdam’s shift towardtechnology and intelligent logistics, together with theincrease of creative sectors; and the crisis of mass tourism anda growing disconnection from the regional economy inVenice, which has triggered a debate on new creative sectorsas a natural evolution of old cultural strengths. These citieshave been steadily losing out on student applications and lec-turers, as well as losing out on links with the local businesscommunity and private support to nearby emerging universi-ties. For instance, in the case of Venice, Padua and Ferrarahave been setting up new faculties and research centers thatchallenge the Venetian ones as far as regional embedding isconcerned. Following the diagram in Figure 2, when there issuboptimal synchronization between universities and firms,the business community may be expected to develop lessbinding connections with the place. In an increasingly foot-loose economy, this is a great risk for cities like Venice orRotterdam that are seeing their economic base getting thin-ner as a result of strategic relocations.

Relationship between Higher Education and Local Communities.Only few cities in this study score very positively in the link

206 Russo et al.

(text continued on p. 211)



207

Tab

le 1

.M

ain

case

stu

dy c

itie

s’ c

hara

cter

isti

cs.

City

Bir

min

gham

,U

nit

edK

ingd

om

Ein

dhov

en, t

he

Net

her

lan

ds

Hel

sin

ki,

Fin

lan

d

Res

iden

ts in

Met

ropo

litan

R

egio

n (i

n m

illio

ns)

2.6

0.7

1.2

Hig

her

Educ

atio

nSt

uden

tPo

pula

tion

55,0

00

18,0

00

60,0

00

Stud

ent/

Res

iden

tR

atio

(%

)

2.1

2.6

5.0

Num

ber

ofU

nive

rsiti

es/

Hig

her

Educ

atio

nIn

stitu

tions

3 2 9

Stud

ent R

ecru

itmen

t and

Ret

entio

n Pa

ttern

s

Dra

ws

mai

nly

fro

m

cen

tral

En

glan

d.R

eten

tion

rat

e “l

ow”

acco

rdin

g to

inte

rvie

wee

s.

Dra

ws

from

all

Net

her

lan

ds. L

arge

repr

esen

tati

on o

f fo

reig

n s

tude

nts

.R

eten

tion

rat

e “l

ow”

acco

rdin

g to

inte

rvie

wee

s.

Dra

ws

from

all

Fin

lan

d. L

imit

ed

repr

esen

tati

on o

f fo

reig

n s

tude

nts

.R

eten

tion

rat

e “h

igh

” ac

cord

ing

toin

terv

iew

ees,

but

decl

inin

g be

caus

e of

unfa

vora

ble

hou

sin

gco

ndi

tion

s.

Mat

ch b

etw

een

Aca

dem

icSp

ecia

lizat

ion

and

Loc

al E

cono

mic

Stru

ctur

e; L

abor

Mar

ket A

bsor

ptio

n

Goo

d. H

igh

la

bor

mar

ket

abso

rpti

on.

Goo

d, b

ut b

iase

don

tec

hn

ical

prof

essi

ons.

Very

hig

h

labo

r m

arke

tab

sorp

tion

du

rin

g an

daf

ter

peri

od o

fst

udy.

Goo

d, b

ut b

iase

don

tec

hn

ical

prof

essi

ons.

Hig

h la

bor

mar

ket

abso

rpti

on.

Geo

grap

hica

l Loc

atio

nsof

Cam

puse

s an

dSt

uden

t Res

iden

ces

On

e do

wn

tow

n,

two

peri

pher

alca

mpu

ses.

Stu

den

th

ousi

ng

on

cam

pus.

On

e do

wn

tow

n

cam

pus.

Stu

den

th

ousi

ng

in c

ity

cen

ter.

Th

ree

mai

n

peri

pher

al

cam

puse

s an

dm

any

dow

nto

wn

sett

lem

ents

, wit

hon

e do

wn

tow

nca

mpu

s. S

tude

nt

hou

sin

g on

ca

mpu

ses

and

inci

ty.

Stra

tegi

c an

d O

ther

Pla

nnin

g In

itiat

ives

1990

s: R

egen

erat

ion

of

city

cen

ter

for

tour

ism

/lei

sure

fun

ctio

ns

(Bri

ndl

eyPl

ace)

. 200

0s: e

asts

ide

rede

velo

pmen

tin

clud

ing

Ast

on S

cien

ce P

ark/

univ

ersi

tyca

mpu

s. E

urop

ean

Sum

mer

Un

iver

sity

prog

ram

laun

ched

by

coun

cil t

o m

arke

tB

irm

ingh

am a

s an

inte

rnat

ion

al

educ

atio

nal

hub

.19

80s:

clo

sure

of

Phili

ps a

nd

DA

F pl

ants

,ec

onom

ic r

estr

uctu

rin

g ba

sed

on s

mal

lan

d m

ediu

m e

nte

rpri

ses

and

know

ledg

eec

onom

y. 1

990s

: wor

kgro

up E

indh

oven

Stud

iest

ad s

et u

p by

cit

y to

dev

elop

avi

sion

for

an

impr

oved

stu

den

t ci

ty(f

aile

d). 1

996:

Tec

hn

isch

e U

niv

ersi

teit

as

a w

ired

com

mun

ity

linke

d to

cit

y se

rvic

es.

2000

s: e

xpan

sion

of

acco

mm

odat

ion

capa

city

for

sh

ort

stay

ers

on c

ampu

s.19

87: T

he

Ota

nie

mi s

cien

ce p

ark

is o

pen

edin

Esp

oo, c

lose

to

the

Hel

sin

ki U

niv

ersi

tyof

Tec

hn

olog

y. 1

990s

: Hel

sin

ki b

oom

s as

a te

leco

m c

ity.

In

200

0, it

is t

he

Eur

opea

nC

apit

al f

or C

ultu

re. I

n 2

000,

th

e A

rt a

nd

Des

ign

Cit

y pr

ojec

t is

sta

rted

by

the

city

in c

oope

rati

on w

ith

th

e U

niv

ersi

ty o

f A

rt a

nd

Des

ign

. 200

0s: n

ew U

niv

ersi

ty

of H

elsi

nki

cam

pus

open

ing

in t

he

peri

pher

al d

istr

ict

of V

iikki

.

(con

tinue

d)



208

Tab

le 1

. (co

ntin

ued)

City

Lill

e, F

ran

ce

Lyo

n, F

ran

ce

Res

iden

ts in

Met

ropo

litan

R

egio

n (i

n m

illio

ns)

1.2

1.2

Stud

ent/

Res

iden

tR

atio

(%

)

8.3

8.3

Num

ber

ofU

nive

rsiti

es/

Hig

her

Educ

atio

nIn

stitu

tions

8 12

Stud

ent R

ecru

itmen

t and

Ret

entio

n Pa

ttern

s

Dra

ws

from

all

Fran

ce.

Fair

rep

rese

nta

tion

of f

orei

gn s

tude

nts

.R

eten

tion

rat

e “l

ow”

acco

rdin

g to

inte

rvie

wee

s.

Dra

ws

from

all

Fran

ce.

Fair

rep

rese

nta

tion

of f

orei

gn s

tude

nts

.R

eten

tion

rat

e “f

air”

acc

ordi

ng

toin

terv

iew

ees;

di

ffic

ulti

es f

or

fore

ign

stu

den

ts.

Mat

ch b

etw

een

Aca

dem

icSp

ecia

lizat

ion

and

Loc

al E

cono

mic

Stru

ctur

e; L

abor

Mar

ket A

bsor

ptio

n

Exc

elle

nt.

Hig

hla

bor

mar

ket

abso

rpti

on.

Goo

d. V

ery

hig

hla

bor

mar

ket

abso

rpti

on.

Geo

grap

hica

l Loc

atio

nsof

Cam

puse

s an

dSt

uden

t Res

iden

ces

Two

peri

pher

al

cam

puse

s an

d on

edo

wn

tow

n c

ampu

s.St

uden

t h

ousi

ng

on c

ampu

s an

d al

l aro

und

met

ropo

litan

regi

on, w

ith

co

nce

ntr

atio

ns

inso

me

dist

rict

s.

Th

ree

mai

n

peri

pher

al

cam

puse

s, o

ne

dow

nto

wn

se

ttle

men

t. M

any

smal

ler

sch

ools

inth

e ri

ng.

Stu

den

th

ousi

ng

on c

am-

pus

and

in p

riva

tere

side

nce

s do

wn

tow

n.

Stra

tegi

c an

d O

ther

Pla

nnin

g In

itiat

ives

Lat

e 19

60s:

dev

elop

men

t of

per

iph

eral

cam

puse

s of

Un

iver

sité

de

Lill

e 1-

2-3.

1990

s: L

ivin

g C

ondi

tion

s M

onit

orin

gU

nit

(le

d by

P. M

auro

y) p

ush

es c

ultu

ral

revi

taliz

atio

n o

f th

e ci

ty. 1

990s

: Eur

alill

eco

mpl

ex d

evel

oped

; Lill

e to

bec

ome

the

“mos

t ac

cess

ible

cit

y in

Eur

ope”

by

2020

.19

92: d

evel

opm

ent

of P

ôle

Un

iver

sita

ire

Eur

opée

n L

ille-

Nor

d-Pa

s-de

-Cal

ais.

199

5:L

ille

2 re

cen

tral

ized

in r

egen

erat

edM

oulin

s di

stri

ct. 2

000:

Esp

ace

Cul

ture

open

ed a

t L

ille

1 ca

mpu

s. C

reat

ive

Alle

é se

t up

by

priv

ate-

sect

or le

ader

s to

stim

ulat

e th

e en

trep

ren

euri

al s

piri

t in

the

regi

on. I

n 2

004,

Lill

e is

Eur

opea

nC

apit

al f

or C

ultu

re.

Lat

e 19

60s-

1970

s: d

evel

opm

ent

of

peri

pher

al c

ampu

ses

at L

a D

oua,

Bro

n,

Vaul

x-en

-Vel

in. 1

992:

Eco

le N

orm

ale

EN

Sop

ens

in L

yon

. 199

8: c

ity

cen

ter

incl

uded

in W

orld

Her

itag

e L

ist

by U

NE

SCO

an

dn

ew c

ultu

ral i

nfr

astr

uctu

re a

dded

to

the

city

. Tou

rism

gro

ws

acco

rdin

gly.

199

7:ec

onom

ic d

evel

opm

ent

sch

eme

for

Gre

ater

Lyo

n (

Sch

éma

Dir

ecte

urÉ

con

omiq

ue)

targ

ets

hig

her

edu

cati

onst

uden

ts a

nd

fres

hm

en t

o su

ppor

t yo

ung

entr

epre

neu

rs. T

he

Man

date

Pla

n o

f th

e n

ew m

ayor

set

s ou

t to

“op

en t

he

diff

eren

t un

iver

sity

cam

puse

s to

th

e ci

ty.”

En

d of

199

0s: d

evel

opm

ent

ofTe

hcn

olpo

le G

erla

nd.

Cen

ter

d’In

form

atio

n I

nte

rnat

ion

al s

et u

p as

a

hel

pdes

k fo

r ou

tgoi

ng

and

visi

tin

g h

igh

er e

duca

tion

stu

den

ts. 2

000s

:ol

d to

bacc

o-m

anuf

actu

rin

g co

mpl

exre

con

vert

ed t

o un

iver

sity

use

: Lyo

n I

I fa

cult

ies

rece

ntr

aliz

ed.

Hig

her

Educ

atio

nSt

uden

tPo

pula

tion

100,

000

100,

000



209

Mun

ich

,G

erm

any

Rot

terd

am, t

heN

ethe

rlan

ds

2.4

1.4

3.3

3.3

5 6

Dra

ws

from

Bav

aria

an

dso

uth

ern

Ger

man

y.R

eten

tion

rat

e “f

air”

acco

rdin

g to

in

terv

iew

ees;

di

ffic

ulti

es f

or

fore

ign

stu

den

ts.

Dra

ws

from

reg

ion

Sout

h-H

olla

nd.

Ver

yla

rge

repr

esen

tati

onof

for

eign

stu

den

ts.

Ret

enti

on r

ate

“fai

r”ac

cord

ing

to

inte

rvie

wee

s.

Exc

elle

nt.

Very

hig

h la

bor

mar

ket

abso

rpti

on.

Un

sati

sfac

tory

.L

ow la

bor

mar

ket

abso

rpti

on.

Four

mai

n

peri

pher

al

cam

puse

s an

d va

riou

s do

wn

tow

nse

ttle

men

ts.

Stud

ent

hou

sin

gon

cam

puse

s an

din

th

e ci

ty.

On

e m

ain

cam

pus

just

out

side

cit

yce

nte

r an

d on

em

edic

al c

ampu

s in

cit

y ce

nte

r.St

uden

t h

ousi

ng

spre

ad a

roun

d th

e ci

ty.

1970

s: p

erip

her

al c

ampu

ses

of

Lud

wig

-Max

imili

ans-

Un

iver

sitä

t an

dTe

chn

isch

e U

niv

ersi

tät

open

inG

arch

ing,

Obe

rsch

leiß

hei

m, a

nd

Gro

ßhad

ern

-Mar

tin

srie

d. 1

990s

: de

velo

pmen

t of

bio

tech

clu

ster

at

Mar

tin

srie

d. H

ealt

h-s

cien

ces,

med

ia, a

nd

then

sof

twar

e de

velo

p as

gro

wth

sec

tors

.20

02: S

tude

nte

nw

erk

laun

ches

a p

rogr

amto

pro

duce

5,5

00 n

ew s

tude

nt

apar

tmen

tsin

th

e n

orth

ern

par

t of

Mun

ich

, in

vest

ing

€37

mill

ion

. Tec

hn

isch

e U

niv

ersi

tät

stud

ents

col

labo

rate

wit

h S

tude

nte

nw

erk

to d

esig

n h

ousi

ng

unit

s in

con

tain

ers

for

fres

hm

en, t

o be

loca

ted

on id

le m

ilita

ryla

nd.

1970

s: c

risi

s an

d re

stru

ctur

ing

of

port

-rel

ated

indu

stri

es. I

mm

igra

nts

fro

mD

utch

col

onie

s br

ing

loca

l pop

ulat

ion

to

600,

000.

Un

empl

oym

ent

peak

s at

mor

eth

an 2

0 pe

rcen

t. 19

90s:

reg

ener

atio

n o

fci

ty c

ente

r an

d w

ater

fron

t, ec

onom

icre

vita

lizat

ion

wit

h 5

0,00

0 n

ew jo

bs

crea

ted

from

199

6 to

200

0. 1

995:

in

tern

atio

nal

stu

den

t re

side

nce

bui

ldin

ges

tabl

ish

ed c

lose

to

Era

smus

Un

iver

sity

Cam

pus.

200

0: B

erla

ge I

nst

itut

e of

Arc

hit

ectu

re t

ran

sfer

red

from

Am

ster

dam

to

Rot

terd

am. R

otte

rdam

isth

e 20

01 E

urop

ean

Cap

ital

of

Cul

ture

.20

04: a

“st

uden

t ci

ty”

task

gro

up s

et u

pby

cit

y co

unci

l.

(con

tinue

d)

Tab

le 1

. (co

ntin

ued)

City

Res

iden

ts in

Met

ropo

litan

R

egio

n (i

n m

illio

ns)

Stud

ent/

Res

iden

tR

atio

(%

)

Num

ber

ofU

nive

rsiti

es/

Hig

her

Educ

atio

nIn

stitu

tions

Stud

ent R

ecru

itmen

t and

Ret

entio

n Pa

ttern

s

Mat

ch b

etw

een

Aca

dem

icSp

ecia

lizat

ion

and

Loc

al E

cono

mic

Stru

ctur

e; L

abor

Mar

ket A

bsor

ptio

n

Geo

grap

hica

l Loc

atio

nsof

Cam

puse

s an

dSt

uden

t Res

iden

ces

Stra

tegi

c an

d O

ther

Pla

nnin

g In

itiat

ives

Hig

her

Educ

atio

nSt

uden

tPo

pula

tion

80,0

00

46,0

00(e

xclu

din

gU

niv

ersi

tyof

Del

ft)



210

Tab

le 1

. (co

ntin

ued)

City

Utr

ech

t, th

eN

eth

erla

nds

Ven

ice,

Ita

ly

Res

iden

ts in

Met

ropo

litan

R

egio

n (i

n m

illio

ns)

0.5

0.3

(Mun

icip

alit

y)

Stud

ent/

Res

iden

tR

atio

(%

)

11.0 8.3

Num

ber

ofU

nive

rsiti

es/

Hig

her

Educ

atio

nIn

stitu

tions

4 4

Stud

ent R

ecru

itmen

t and

Ret

entio

n Pa

ttern

s

Dra

ws

from

all

Net

her

lan

ds. F

air

repr

esen

tati

on o

f fo

reig

n s

tude

nts

.R

eten

tion

rat

e “f

air”

acco

rdin

g to

in

terv

iew

ees.

Dra

ws

from

n

orth

east

reg

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illustrated in Figure 3, among them Helsinki and Utrecht,where higher education has historically been an important andresponsible stakeholder in local development. In manyrespects, these two cities may be considered examples of suc-cessful town-gown integration. Both have taken advantage oftheir vibrant atmosphere and the open attitude toward stu-dents and foreign researchers, and both have become favoredworking locations within their respective national systems.Also, both host top-class universities of arts and design, whichcontribute substantially to their “cultware.” Lately, however, inboth cases, the use of space for university-related functionsseems to have become somewhat exhausted. This is not per-ceived as a major problem, as it is possible to commute to thesecities from their hinterlands in the face of a scarcity of housingin central locations. However, further future expansion mayconflict with other urban functions. The attractiveness ofHelsinki clashes to some extent with the Finnish governmentstrategy, which would rather favor the development of humancapital in secondary cities. In Lyon, Munich, and Birmingham,those city–higher education relationships developed in anunsatisfactory manner could affect the fast pace of economicgrowth that characterizes these urban economies. Higher edu-cation institutions are like islands, both physically and cultur-ally. The student community is disperse and not generallyperceived as part of the local society; more often than not, stu-dent settlements are a source of friction with the local residentsin congested housing markets.

There are indeed signs that these cities—second cities intheir own national systems—are losing ground in terms of eco-nomic vitality, not only with respect to national capitals but alsowith respect to smaller, more attractive cities with a better-quality student experience (e.g., Toulouse and Grenoble inFrance, Würzburg and Stuttgart in southern Germany,Manchester and Bristol in central England). The current chal-lenge for them is maintaining their competitive edge bygrounding the knowledge produced at the local universitieswithin the local economy. In Venice, Rotterdam, Lille, andEindhoven, graduates flee after completing their studies,mainly due to the limited size of the local labor market but alsobecause of the suboptimal housing supply, which is seen as aconstraint to building a “life project.” Yet there is room toimprove the city-university relationship by investing in urbaninfrastructure, facilities for students, and opportunity forexchange between students and the host community. In thisway, these cities could strengthen urban development strate-gies that have until now fallen short in terms of social capital.

Relationship between Private Sector and the Local Community.Lille, Eindhoven, and Munich are the cities in which weobserved the best match between academic specialization andthe growth sectors of the local economy. However, in the casesof Lille and Eindhoven, this is not translated into high gradu-ate retention rates, due to the close proximity with Paris andthe Randstad, respectively, faced with the unattractive local

image and labor markets. Cities like Eindhoven and Helsinkihave had the problem of having to diversify their economicbase after the shock of the information and communicationtechnologies bubble burst at the end of the 1990s.Collaboration between business communities and universitiesis mainly in terms of technical specialization. A weak relation-ship between the private businesses and the local communitymeans that firms do not contribute satisfactorily to the devel-opment of local welfare, maintaining a strong outward orien-tation (see Figure 4). This is likely to depend on an unfocusedrole for higher education institutions as engines of urbandevelopment, thus incapable of driving the job market towarda more desirable structure. The Arabianranta Art and DesignCity in Helsinki (centered on the research and practice carriedout at the University of Art and Design) proved that a dynamictechnological environment could benefit from stimuli fromother knowledge fields and social arrangements. For Utrecht,low graduate retention rates are natural in a compact countrylike the Netherlands at whose center it lies; but this is a prob-lem for Venice, an aging and depopulating city that is losingout on growth potential to its dynamic hinterland. The sameoccurs in Rotterdam, a city that cannot fill its skill gap com-pared to the other Randstad cities.

Areas for Strategic Planning. Whenever the relationshipbetween higher education and the private sector is developedunsatisfactorily, initiatives that strengthen knowledge exchangeare welcome, as illustrated in the bottom left-hand side of Figure 1. In several of the cases analyzed, programs thatimprove networking and/or student and staff exchangebetween education, research, and business have been started bythe city or the private-sector confederations. Varying from caseto case, the tools employed can include grants and other sup-port mechanisms for internships and staff mobility (Lille,Utrecht), the setting up of knowledge sharing and transfer cen-ters like science parks or incubators of small- and medium-sizedenterprises as spin-offs of university laboratories in close physi-cal proximity to education facilities and campuses (Munich,Eindhoven, Birmingham), and the establishment of city chairs(for example, the City of Helsinki pays for six professorships inurban studies at the University of Helsinki).

The overt branding of excellence in higher education to pro-mote the city as a business location has been a tough challengefor cities like Lille, Birmingham, Eindhoven, and Rotterdam. Inthese cities, higher education institutes were originally createdto serve the industrialization process of the region. Today, theyhave to reorient thoroughly toward a more diverse range of dis-ciplines, adapting to the blurring disciplinary boundaries of theknowledge economy. The University College of Utrecht wasestablished as a flagship for higher education as an initiative ofthe mayor of Utrecht to put the city on the international map.Lyon’s Young Ambassadors is a club supported by some GrandesÉcoles and the Chamber of Commerce. It aims to maintain linksbetween the city and its temporarily hosted foreign students andto use the resultant network of international relations as an




instrument for cooperation and trade strategy for the local busi-ness community.

Cities like Lyon, Munich, and Helsinki are at a moreadvanced stage of their respective economic developmentprocesses and are carrying out specific growth strategies. Localgovernments have taken the lead to involve private parties inthe creation of centers for education and knowledge transfer.The District for Innovation in Venice and the Utrecht Centerfor Knowledge are good examples to look at. The EuropeanSummer University organized in Birmingham also provided agood opportunity for the city to take leadership of a highereducation project and use it to the benefit of the communitythrough student projects based in disadvantaged neighbor-hoods, while at the same time widening the international ori-entation of the city.

In Utrecht and Venice, the biggest challenge is to use thehigher education sectors to further the development of theuniversity settlements within a sensitive urban environment.To do this, they need to focus the fragmented effort under aplanning umbrella that integrates the interests of the city, theuniversity, and the business community. The Culminatum Öyagency (a multi-agent organization involving different levelsof government in the Helsinki region) may be taken as a ref-erence point as it promotes higher education as a metropoli-tan function and coordinates various initiatives to bemutually reinforcing.

Urban physical planning could be the key tool in reestab-lishing a satisfactory city-university relationship and generatingor maintaining positive conditions for urban development.One specific problem raised in all the case studies is that ofplanning for student accommodation: responding to differentimperatives, avoiding creating segregated student communities,balancing student settlements and resident housing, avoidingdistortions in the housing market, and covering all types of stu-dent housing, from the low-end subsidized segment to fullyequipped solutions for short stayers and top-quality facilities foryoung researchers and starting-out professionals. Indeed, thesettlement pattern of the student community as well as that ofthe university facilities has proven to be a key element in a bal-anced city-university relationship. Two different models are pos-sible: one that foresees informal downtown settlements and onethat is organized in one or more “education citadels” or cam-puses, often physically separated from the rest of the city.

Should the downtown model prevail, fruitful opportunitiesfor cultural and economic exchange between the academy andthe city are presented, but so would be the risk of conflict withthe local community. However, it is possible that the housingdemand of most students, especially international students andshort stayers, is not satisfied by the normal real estate marketbut rather requires dedicated structures, like low-price unitsclose to the university areas, for which there might be a short-age. To this avail, campus accommodation—especially popularin Anglo-Saxon countries and in France—might be a proper

solution, even if this diminishes the opportunities for encoun-ters between students and host communities (Vassal 1987).Isolated and unattractive campuses may be just as unsustainableas unplanned downtown settlements, as the cases of the Frenchcities in this study demonstrate. This apparent contradictionmay be solved through planning solutions that favor mixedfunctions and multiple uses. In any case, typical mistakes mustbe avoided, such as relying on rigid regulations to limit theinflow of students into residential areas (which in Eindhovenhas been an obstacle to integration) and allowing the subdivi-sion of large flats to host numerous students, which ultimatelydiminishes housing values (as in the case of the Selly Oak district in Birmingham, documented by Groves, Revel, andLeather 2003).

Creative solutions to the housing scarcity that plagues student communities in congested cities like Munich,Utrecht, or Venice could come from the cooperation of hous-ing corporations and student support organizations, as well as the students themselves. A good example is given byStudentenwerk in Munich and its project involving the refur-bishment of containers (decorated by art students) as flats forfirst-year students.

International exchanges increase the number of short stay-ers, and as such, specific opportunities need to be offered tothis group (i.e., furnished, central housing units) so that theirperiod spent in the city is as pleasant as possible and they maybecome ambassadors of the host city when they go back to theirhometowns. Through a partnership with private developers,the University of Technology of Eindhoven built the Fellow-telinside its campus: a special structure that can host hundreds ofgraduate students and researchers for short stays.

Different student populations use the city in differentways. But while current students’ attitudes, behavior, studyfields, and lifestyles may be quite different, it was found thatthey appreciate good-quality housing and personalized solu-tions over price and proximity to the campus, as was thecase in the past. On the other hand, there are still specificpeculiarities—a clear distinction to emerge from our researchwas that students in technical and scientific disciplines stillattach a high importance to campus life, as their progressdepends centrally on the quality of the education facilities.

The education policy of higher education institutions withtraining periods organized in local firms may help to connectthese communities more closely with the local environment.Through regular events and meetings, some empathy can beestablished between local residents and student populations.Students in human and social sciences, art studies, and liberalprofessions tend to be more predisposed to use the city in acomprehensive way. In Utrecht, Venice, and Rotterdam—citiesthat were considered far from dynamic in the past—the devel-opment of higher education facilities in the past three decadeshas brought tangible improvements to the social environment.However, this integration needs to be assisted. Weaker groups

212 Russo et al.




such as the elderly and the unemployed can perceive the pressure from student communities as a threat. It is thereforenecessary to keep communication channels open and to support and guide the activities of student groups.

The Professional School of Rotterdam (InHolland) hasrecently moved to a new location, wedged between a high-class redeveloped area and a deprived neighborhood. Theschool (itself characterized by an ethnically mixed studentpopulation) decided to be functional to the development of the area, opening a helpdesk to assist residents and givesupport to community initiatives. The student population ofLille found its own way to make itself felt as a resource for the community. Each year it organizes a balloon race, theMongolfiades, which is very popular among the locals and asource of pride for the city. The city gives this initiative fullfinancial and logistic support. In other circumstances wherestudents are less active, the integration policy has to be moresophisticated. In the cadre of the “knowledge quarter”(Kenniswjk) project, every student in Eindhoven is equippedwith a laptop and has unlimited broadband access. They formvirtual communities among students (for instance, in e-learn-ing facilities), but also with residents, for access to urbanfunctions such as culture, commerce, government, and soforth. In this way, two separate communities—barely interact-ing in everyday life—may get together on the Web.

Cities like Birmingham and Lyon, where the student pop-ulation is not large compared to the host community, have aconcentration of problems in specific neighborhoods. Theyshould instead look for a better-spread layout for these settle-ments. One of the main results from our investigation is thatlatin quarters with a high concentration of students and cul-tural producers have a short life cycle and frequently becomea source of external costs for the community. In this regard,organizing accessibility between different campus locationsand between campuses and city centers is crucial. Lille’s VALmetro system managed to rejoin the campus to the city cen-ter, making it possible for students to enjoy city life while liv-ing in cheap residences on campus.

A balanced approach combining the location of studentfacilities and meeting places in strategic locations and regen-eration areas might achieve sustainable results, while con-taining the associated costs of gentrification. Venice has beensuccessful in combining regeneration objectives with achange in the settlement model of the university, althoughthis process went through hard times. Today, the student dis-trict is the liveliest cultural hub of the city, an island in thedull, mass tourist climate. St. Marta, once a deprived and iso-lated neighborhood in Venice, has gained a new centrality bywelcoming faculty and student facilities. Helsinki has har-nessed the potential from its University of Art and Design tosupport a whole regeneration project based on the intersec-tion of art education and city life. The Arabianranta Art andDesign City project came out of an integral vision of higher

education and research as driving forces of urban develop-ment, working in and for the community.

The case of Arabianranta demonstrates that the horizon forurban planning based on higher education extends well overthe time period of studentship. Housing programs for gradu-ates, who could be offered a convenient package if they decideto remain in their city to work, could achieve a large responsein terms of job market profile. Welcome and familiarizationprograms for first-year and international exchange studentscould improve the quality of their experience as temporary cit-izens and enhance opportunities for integration within thelocal community. Organizing the administrative procedures forforeign students to take up their residence permit in the citycan facilitate this process of integration. The universities ofLyon are active in organizing a link between foreign studentsand the Préfecture where they need to be registered to be eli-gible for a house or a part-time job.

Finally, economic development strategies may refocus therole of universities and reestablish a balance between eco-nomic base and local resources, both in terms of marketsserved and human resource pools. Skills development, widen-ing participation, continuing education, job matching initia-tives, and scouting (as well as the development andmanagement of property rights on research output) can tiein the local community and the local firms more closely whileraising the profile of local consumers and workers andincreasing the strategic importance of the locality, faced witha globalizing economic environment.

Birmingham, Helsinki, and Lyon were found to be themost active cities in pursuing a fine-tuning process betweenhuman capital and the economic base through the adapta-tion of (and in some cases also a proactive) strategic reorien-tation of academic curricula. Other cities, like Eindhoven,Lille, and Rotterdam, struggle to become more attractive andcompetitive for investment and human/intellectual capital,but to some extent, their efforts are hampered by the lack ofa clear vision on which to organize the action of the manyplayers involved, higher education in particular.

As a general addendum to this analysis, it ought to be notedthat any city has to deal with a decision-making environmentthat may favor the implementation of optimal solutions. Eachof the cities in our study has a local higher education policy,whether or not this is formally their competence and whetheror not it is explicitly formulated in policy documents.

The role of formal policy makers in building a cohesive strat-egy to attract and manage students is paramount. However, thequality of the decisional networks, the cooperation and empa-thy established between the city and the universities on onehand and the private sector on the other, all influence the effec-tiveness of such strategies to a great extent. Through theiractions, private-sector stakeholders, community organizations,and students and their associations can influence the impactsfrom student communities in either direction as desired. In all



214 Russo et al.

the cities analyzed, platforms of discussion and fora have beenestablished, but only in a few cases are they effective in fosteringany strategic cooperation between the city and the higher education sector (e.g., Culminatum Öy in Helsinki and theCommittee Grand Lille). In other cases, objectives were notachieved due to a lack of focus or the absence of importantactors.

Governing the integration of higher education and the com-munity is also a complex spatial planning process, as is shown inthe cases of Utrecht, Venice, Helsinki, and Munich. In thesecities, the expansion of higher education cannot be containedwithin the city center or even the municipal borders but neces-sarily takes place at a metropolitan level. Organizing theinvolvement of peripheral administrations may be problematicbecause of the possible conflict of interest regarding, amongother things, student mobility or residence. For this reason, it isnecessary that the planning of higher education developmentbecome a task of metropolitan governments. Utrecht providesa good example of such planning initiatives, as the province hascome to be an important stakeholder. In Helsinki, CulminatumÖy has developed the concept of a knowledge corridor as aphysical link connecting all the peripheral campuses, bothbetween them and with the city center.

It is also important to recognize the role of intermediaryorganizations in the process of enhancing the communica-tion between institutions of a different nature. Associations ofuniversities, like the Pôle Universitaire Européenne in Lille,may help to the extent that they acquire a real leadership,dominating that of single-partner institutions. Also, studentassociations can enhance role of the student community asstakeholder. Student unions in Helsinki, Eindhoven, andVenice did become effective interlocutors to local govern-ments. The involvement of students in local policy, forinstance, through student participation in council activitieswith matters of interest for students (as happens in Helsinki)or through participation in local elections (as was the case inEindhoven with its “List 11”), can make the city more awareof its student population. In turn, students themselves learnto have a more responsible, insider attitude toward the hostcommunity. City administrations can play a role in support-ing these initiatives through funding, locations, and promo-tional backup.

� Final Remarks and Policy Recommendations

The main lesson derived from the analysis of nine casestudies is that in the “space of flows,” several characteristicsare increasingly important for the long-term competitivenessof cities. These include the networked structure and theincreased velocity of contemporary societies (Castells 1996)and explicit strategies targeting localized but volatile

resources (which, of course, academic communities andother urban stakeholders of higher education tend to be).

Universities may be “good” to cities, and cities may be“good” to universities (Indovina 1998), but such a virtuousrelationship, and the benefits expected from the triple helixdevelopment model, is far from automatically achievable. Aswe have argued in this article, the chances of success areenhanced when a balance is sustained in the relationshipsbetween three key agents of the knowledge economy—thehost community and its institutions, the local business com-munity, and the student population and academic commu-nity at large. Each group has specific interests in thedevelopment of higher education as an urban function—fre-quently divergent—and the strategic power to react to per-ceived imbalances in the processes of exchange that bindhigher education to the local.

Our analysis of the way in which the city-university rela-tionship unfolds in nine European cities displays a wide typol-ogy of situations and problems: for example, the importancethat firms today attach to flexible, locally oriented educationcurricula (which in turn puts increased pressure on highereducation to work together with local governments and busi-ness communities in defining places) and the importance ofa stimulating, creative urban environment to attract and inte-grate academic communities. Successful cases in this researchshow that it is important to develop a vision of the city as anattractive, welcoming host of higher education and researchfunctions, which are today just as important as pillars of eco-nomic development as manufacturing and technologicalexcellence have been in the past.

This study has presented evidence that good managementof academic communities and the planning of high-qualityfacilities for education, research, and also daily life activitiesare just as important as other policy initiatives typical of theknowledge economy era—such as knowledge transfer andskills upscaling. At the same time, this field of governmentactivity is arguably underresearched by urban scholars andnot sufficiently considered by city managers. A city has to beattractive to its academic community at all stages of its mem-bers’ trajectories: from the first moment when students haveto decide on a study location (and this decision is increasinglydissociated from the reputation of the universities andinstead dependent on the perceived quality of life in the city)to the moment when they plan for their future work and res-idence locations, as academic staff or more generally asskilled workers in the knowledge economy. Lipsky (inUniversité 2001, 56) suggests that the micro-scale (“easyaccess to copying machines, the quality of mattresses in stu-dent residences, the flexibility of libraries [sic] openingtimes”), rather than big infrastructure projects, may have adecisive impact on the way in which students feel comfortablein a place and make choices on their future careers.



In synthesis, a comprehensive urban strategy for a student-friendly city should include the following points:

• Attracting the students: marketing the city as a student-friendly community, to be on the map of the global com-petition for talent, which is emerging as one of the keychallenges in the restructuring of the world’s economy.

• Assisting the students: offering high-quality services forwelcoming and assisting the students, to achieve a betterintegration with the host community.

• Housing the students: the optimal pattern of student set-tlement according to the local context must be identifiedto minimize the impact of student communities on thelocal housing market.

• Increasing the opportunities for contact between studentsand the other local stakeholders, to integrate them into theweb of relationships that characterize the local economicenvironment and enhance the embeddedness of the uni-versity in the city fabric.

• Empowering the students: recognizing a right of citizen-ship for students, granting them a role in local decisions,which may vary from informal consultation arrangementsto direct participation in democratic life.

• Keeping the students linked to the city so that the humancapital is not dispersed after studies are completed suchthat the benefits from knowledge and cultural impacts aremaximized.

A similar argument may be extended to any other stake-holder of higher education, remembering also that employedresearch staff are increasingly mobile and sensitive to theirworking conditions as well as to the intellectual and eco-nomic stimuli coming from the local environment. These areconditions that can be greatly enhanced by local policy,adding and channeling national government initiatives in thefield of knowledge transfer to local issues. Finally, neglectingthe local community as a full stakeholder of higher educationis a mistake, which may explain the distance between thosecommunities epitomized in the town-gown discourse. Tosome extent, planning for an academic- or student-friendlycity may be mirrored in the right conditions for a stress-freeintegration of the host and guest community, which also pro-duces clear advantages for the former in terms of increaseddynamism and opportunities.

Local governments and planners could play a crucial role inbringing forward such favorable conditions, promoting a nego-tiated, consensual development process based on higher edu-cation. Yet this article has highlighted that joint city-universityplanning of higher education settlements in cities remains anuncommon practice. The level of involvement of the technicaloffices of universities in city development plans is allegedly verylow, according to the interviewees in our study. Besides, thequest for socially responsible attitudes on the part of firms inenhancing the quality of education facilities has emergedneatly. Models of public-private cooperation, which could spurreal improvement in quality of education and hospitality, arecertainly worthy of further research.

Authors’ Note: We express our gratitude to three anonymous referees forvaluable criticism and suggestions. We also acknowledge the partner insti-tutions and the interviewees in the case cities, who made this study possi-ble. Finally, we are grateful to Julie Wilson for intellectual stimulus andpractical help on this work.

� Notes

1. Paladini (1996) relates the revived policy orientation ofthe city of Venice toward its universities with the growing pres-ence of members of the academic community among the city’sopinion leaders, trendsetters, and policy makers.

2. According to Swyngedouw (2005), overreliance on con-sensual models of governance may be criticized as a postpoliticalor postdemocratic stance, which either eliminates fundamentalconflict or elevates it to antithetical ultrapolitics, excluding radi-cally those who posit themselves outside the consensus.

3. The increase of university-industry collaborations has beenexplicitly pursued by the U.S. government and by variousEuropean Union programs as a response to the slowdown in pro-ductivity growth in the late 1970, as documented by Poyago-Theotoky, Beath, and Siegel (2002, 11). Feller (2006) describesexhaustively the various forms that such partnerships have taken.

4. See various “Erasmus testimonies” collected on the Web site ofthe Erasmus program (http://ec.europa.eu/education/programs/socrates/erasmus/).

5. These cities are part of the EUROCITIES network andresponded to a call to participate in this study, financing it andbeing case studies.

6. Important changes in this sense have been emerging veryrecently in Rotterdam, where strategic links between the ErasmusUniversity and the Port Authority, mediated by the city govern-ment, have led to a number of initiatives regarding knowledgesharing and staff mobility.

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Toward a Sustainable Relationship between City and University: A Stakeholdership Approach

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