From ‘Silicon Beach’ to ‘Tech Central’: spatially defining new technology sectors in Sydney
Topics: Urban Geography
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Keywords: Start-ups, growth coalition, innovation district
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 60
Authors:
Donald McNeill, University of Sydney
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Abstract
Digital technology sectors have experienced a burst of innovation and investment in cities around the world. Tech hubs, start-up ecosystems, and innovation precincts are part of an ‘innovation scene’ which policy-makers hope to retain or attract. But how do these scenes emerge, and how are they constituted as economic objects? The paper provides a historical reading of one such case, Sydney’s tech economy, tracing its transition from a diffuse and disorganised ‘Silicon Beach’ discourse to its condensation into a spatially defined innovation precinct known as Tech Central. The paper argues that these economic spaces are part of a conscious and reflexive effort to build a production and investment coalition among internet entrepreneurs, technology investors, and policy-makers. It describes four elements in this process. First, it discusses the ways in which metrological practices are used to map, position, order and rank Sydney’s start-up scene, particularly in the context of world start-up rankings. Second, it describes the reflexive co-production of a start-up ‘community’ based upon a range of ‘ecosystem leaders’ who used a number of devices to promote the ‘scene’. Third, it discusses the role of globally scaled local firms, and uses the enterprise software firm Atlassian as an example of how discourses of localism and loyalty are invoked as a means of sectoral strengthening. Fourth, it describes how the innovation discourse became spatialised as the New South Wales government translated it into a series of real estate devices, embedded in an governance model based on zoning changes and precinct marketing.
From ‘Silicon Beach’ to ‘Tech Central’: spatially defining new technology sectors in Sydney
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Virtual Paper Abstract
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