Delft: From Industraial City to Knowledge City

Delft is located in The Netherlands, in the province of south Holland. The city has a long tradition in industrial activity, in sectors like metal industry, chemical industry, construction, food and drinks. Especially before 1975, the industry employment was an important feature. However, in the decades of 1970s and 1980s, the difficulties that the industrial companies faced, resulted in a significant drop of employment in the industrial sector. Unemployment used to be a main problem for local authorities as well as for national government. The local government of Delft responded to this decline in employment in a way that can be distinguished in three phases:
Phase 1. In this phase, placed chronologically at the end of the decade of the 1970s, the objective was to maintain the number of jobs. The local government had the opinion that an active policy was necessary and recognized the importance of the local University of Technology and of TNO (research institute) in the direction of offering business in Delft. However, the local government did not translate this into specific policy measures.
Phase 2. Unemployment increased considerably in the beginning of the 1980s. Much attention was paid to social and cultural activities for the unemployed. At the end of the decade the local government realized that the city needed to have a clear vision for the future. The project known as “View of Delft” set a new direction for the local government. Delft, as a modern center of knowledge, was considered to be one of the strong points for future development.
Phase 3. The development of Delft, the knowledge city. A study implemented for the city, by TNO-INRO (TNO-INRO, 1990; Knight, 1995), named “Delft, the knowledge city”, offered an extensive analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Delft economy. The main conclusion was that knowledge was one of its strongest points. About one-third of jobs in Delft were knowledge-intensive. According to the report, the local government had the responsibility of taking the initiative to transform Delft into a knowledge city, through the promotion of networks linking local business, the university, research institutions and the local government as partners. In order to bridge the “traditional Delft” and the knowledge sector, a change in culture was needed. Citizens, companies and social organizations should be actively involved in this cultural shift. Knowledge was no longer an abstract meaning, but it was regarded as a production factor like labor and capital. In 1996, Delft City Council adopted the main strategy in order to further develop as a knowledge city. This strategy could not be accomplished by the city on its own. Practitioners from the “knowledge industry” were invited to take part in the planning process. Knowledge players in town were asked to help define the mission and develop an action plan, financed by the $3 million fund that was made available. Since then, 60 projects have been carried out. At the beginning of the 1990s, 30 percent of the economy was knowledge-based and had grown to 40 percent by the end of the century. The city clustered its knowledge intensive projects, included in the “Delft Knowledge City” initiative, in five streams, which reflect Delft’s strengths: (1) water and soil; (2) design and architecture; (3) information technology; (4) innovative transport systems; and (5) environmental technologies.
During implementation of the strategy, the intention was to strengthen these points and thereby increase employment levels in Delft as well as the familiarity of Delft as a brand.

Barcelona, City of Knowledge

According to the third strategic plan for the development of the city of barcelona (Barcelona, 1999b): “In the new context of globalization and the European Union, Barcelona, as the metropolitan region and capital of Catalonia, should press forward with a social and urban economic transformation process in order to place itself amongst the leading group of urban regions in the new information and knowledge society of the 21st century ...”. The general council and the executive board responsible for the implementation of this strategic plan, chose five strategic lines, with main points being “knowledge” and the “own strengths” of Barcelona. Strategic line 3 involved the concept of “city of knowledge”. A new councilor was added to the city’s political structure, who works horizontally within the city administration and is responsible for the project called “City of Knowledge”. The new councilor’s task is to make this concept an integral part of the policies of other departments – culture, tourism and urban development – with the concurrent support of the important agencies in knowledge production, transfer and application.
The success of the concept is particularly dependent on the private sector’s initiatives and actions. In this respect, Barcelona attempts to stimulate private sector with two types of measures: on the one side, by providing the basic infrastructure which is considered necessary – energy infrastructure, communication infrastructure, transport systems etc. – and on the other side by encouraging, through the appropriate regulations, the development of buildings for “knowledge” businesses.
Moreover, the offices of economic promotion, employment, tourism and commerce use the concept of “city of knowledge” in its activities, mostly through Barcelona Activa, which is an autonomous company fully sponsored by the City Hall and responsible for the overall economic development of Barcelona. Some of Barcelona Activa’s latest projects are related to the “City of Knowledge” strategy:
Barcelona Net Activa, a virtual community based on Internet/intranet/extranet technologies. It provides support to business people, accommodating a virtual community of enterprises and promoting the creation of enterprises through co-operation, innovation and continuous learning.
Cibernàrium, an “Internet multispace” for the professional and business community. Its main objective is to bring new technologies closer to enterprises, professionals, students and all the people interested in the opportunities offered by a knowledge society.
Infopime, a project that pursues the objective of creating an efficient communications system between Barcelona City Council and businesses, via a web site.
Barcelona Emprèn, a venture capital company addressed specifically to satisfy the financial needs of small innovative enterprises, for their development. The financing is derived from the municipality of Barcelona, financial institutions, insurance companies and large enterprises of the city.
It must be noted that the concept of knowledge city has quickly gained interest in Barcelona. All agencies involved in the implementation of Barcelona’s strategic plan, including local authorities, participated with equal power in the process of setting the priorities. In this way, the relations between public and private parties were strengthened. In addition, the appointment of the councilor mentioned above, made clear that the city wishes to use its innovative capacities to their full potential. The remaining question is whether the investments in knowledge and new innovative firms will eventually result to the anticipated economic success story that is anticipated. It is hoped that the presence of many small knowledge-intensive companies in certain sectors will make the city an important economic center and that bigger companies will be attracted by this environment.

Tehran's EarthQuake - On Behalf of Ehsan

The city of Tehran, with its vulnerability to earthquakes, has been planning a master disaster programme considering different aspects. It is hoped that, by activating all objectives. The city will achieve a better earthquake disaster management policy. A detail study based on available data only, was done to determine the seismic vulnerability of the mega-city of Tehran with a population of about 10 million people. About 640,000 residences out of 1,100,000 seem to suffer collapse or serious damage while 1,450,000 people are killed with about 4,330,000 suffering injuries. A total of 14 parameters were considered for each sub-division. Relative rating for each of the parameters considered was investigated and summarized in a table. This matrix of vulnerability indexes identified in more detail the severity of the problems for given sub-divisions. Total and then relative vulnerability for management priority attention was also considered. This indicates that relatively speaking from the worst to the least vulnerable divisions in city of Tehran are as follows: 20, 19, 16, 15, 17, 7, 8, 10, 6, 18, 14, 11, 12, 3, 2, 4, 5, 9, 13, 1. Of course this is the overall vulnerability.
Disaster management is a complex form of management which requires many disciplines and specialities. It requires a detailed allocation of tasks and a good knowledge of the domain of the disaster itself. In Iran, through many years of first-hand experience with disasters, a good knowledge of events and what to expect is well known. Also, a system has been established for handling situations. It works well but it is believed that it needs adjustment and modification. The number of earthquake disasters has increased due to the urbanization of the country, especially in earthquake-prone areas. Therefore, serious consideration of the management of these disasters is needed now more than ever. As stated, a more systematic and general approach to this phenomenon is proposed in this paper. The most important factor is that this plan considers all aspects of an earthquake disaster. It includes the problems and solutions to the general disaster cycle with little duplication of duties and tasks allocated to the respective responsible national bodies. Tehran should be redesigned and reconstructed in order to earthquake management. Most importanat and vital information should not only be at Tehran. Tehran citizens should learn how to face the earthquake.