Planning for creativity and innovation in a global city: Sydney's Information Technology clusters in the context of the 2005 metropolitan strategy

This article connects recent evidence on the geographical characteristics of the IT sector in Sydney to contemporary metropolitan planning. Firstly, the article builds on recent research (Searle, G. and Pritchard, B. (2005) 'Industry clusters and Sydney's ITT sector: Northern Sydney as 'Australia's silicon valley'?', Australian Geographer, Vol. 36, pp.145-169) that critically examines the claim that the Northern Sydney region is Australia's Silicon Valley. Examination of this industry suggests that its expansion in Northern Sydney has been motivated primarily by the increasing centrality of advanced producer services within the high-order business sector. It is Sydney's attributes for multinational business, as opposed to the propulsive dynamics of local clustering per se which appears to explain the spatial concentration of these activities. Hence, it is argued that the urbanisation economies of Sydney are more important than the localisation economies of the IT sector which account for the growth of this sector in the city. Then, taking these arguments as a point of departure, the second half of the article examines how these arguments fit within the economic strategies for Sydney articulated in the 2005 Metropolitan Strategy, a planning document designed to provide the context for the city's medium-term growth. Through this discussion, key elements of the potential role that can be played by the IT sector in regional development policies to encourage creativity and innovation are revealed.