Learning cities in a knowledge based society

Traditionally, Cities have been seen as places in which through the exchange and combination ofdiverse knowledge pools innovative social, political and economical practises are created and testedwith large positive spill-over effects to the (perhaps even nationally defined) hinterland (e.g. Cooke &Piccaluga 2006). Castells (1996) firstly considered internationally organized flows of information andsupply chains, which are not spatially embedded as traditionally seen, as perhaps even more importantsources of new knowledge. Recently finished scholarly articles (e.g. Morgan & Quack 2006) aboutinternationally organized networks of professional business firms underline the importance of spatiallydisembedded flows of information and best practise routines which are maintained by internationalcommunities of practise. In my article I want to demonstrate that cities gain their economic and politicalimportance not in merely creating new knowledge, but in being overlapping nodes of internationallyorganized communities of practise which have the possibilities to exchange information and ideasbecause of spatial density. Cities are therefore reinforced as focal points of knowledge and wealthcreation in an global knowledge-based economy.