Attracting High-Technology Firms to Local Areas: Lessons from Nine High-Technology and Industrial Parks

摘要

The study examines the question of whether high-technology development calls for different types of local initiatives than traditional economic development. The question was examined by collecting information from nine successfully developed parks across the country. Five of the parks had a large percentage of high-technology firms as tenants and four parks had almost no high-technology firms. The findings showed that both types of parks used many of the same types of initiatives, but the high-technology parks went further, and used three additional initiatives in order to attract high-technology tenants. The study concludes by highlighting the fact that these local initiatives can only be used to 'permit' but not to push economic development. High-technology firms are attracted by locational and economic factors and the presence of the appropriate local initiatives will aid in high-technology development in specific parks, whereas their absence tends to impede high-technology development.