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Knowing Communities and the Innovative Capacity of Cities

The buzz-and-pipeline model (Maskell et al. 2006; Bathelt et al. 2004) claims that clusters of economic activity need both a rich “local buzz” and the creation of “global pipelines” with external actors to increase their innovative capacity. While co-location is sufficient to profit from the “buzz”, “pipelines” require a high investment in their construction and nurturing. This paper complements this model by emphasizing the role that actors outside firms, especially communities, play in facilitating both the local and the global knowledge dynamics in cities. The knowledge transfer between distant similar communities is facilitated by the cognitive proximity that bonds members of knowing communities and that appears more determinant than geographic proximity. This community-based model is empirically illustrated by a three-case study on different knowing communities in Barcelona (fabbers, coworkers and makers). The paper concludes that by fostering the development and nurturing of such communities, policy makers might contribute to increase the innovative capacity of urban agglomerations.