Abstract
Education is one of the central assets for employment in the knowledge economy. It is widely assumed that increasing knowledge—going hand in hand with the rise of the creative class—has produced more opportunities for employment, with white-collar work and a less class-divided urban population. Our research, however, shows that the granting of educational certificates and the access to higher levels of education by no means follow meritocratic rules. By using the case study of Heidelberg, Germany, a well-known, long-established university town, this chapter delineates the emergence of new social inequalities related to education in cities and how current creative city-policies may influence these.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The German phrase is a pun, as “Wissenschaft” also means “Science”. In German, therefore, the phrase has the double meaning of “Knowledge makes the city” and “Science-City”. This has provoked a discussion to what extent the focus of the IBA has to be broadened to “education” and “knowledge” more generally. The IBA has recently changed the English translation into “Knowledge | Based | Urbanism”.
- 2.
With the increase in migrants’ figures in 2015 in Germany, Heidelberg became the central initial reception facility for the whole federal state of Baden-Württemberg. The facility is located in one of the mentioned conversion areas, Patrick Henry Village. It is too early to decide how the social reality of the new migrants in Heidelberg will counteract with the mantra of a knowledge city, that is, how the integration of the migrants succeeds.
- 3.
In a captious interpretation, this special situation in itself follows an inherent neoliberal growth logic: Not looking at problems and working on them, but to support already existing strengths, hoping that there will be spill-over-effects also for existing weaknesses.
- 4.
However, public subsidies to cultural institutions (138 euro per capita) are well below what would be expected in Germany for a city of Heidelberg’s size.
- 5.
Data for the different cities are taken from the respective statistical offices: Heidelberg: Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Württemberg 2015; Groningen: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek 2014; Oxford: Office for National Statistics 2011 Census; Montpellier: Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques 2010, 2015; Debrecem: Központi Statisztikai Hivatal Népszámlálás 2011. We are well aware of the ambivalences to compare international data or statistics. These numbers just serve as one way to discuss different regional contexts.
- 6.
Compared to the average income, Heidelberg exhibits even the fourth highest rents of all German cities (see Immoscout, accessed 23 May 2016).
- 7.
While building affordable housing is envisaged for some of the conversion areas in the future, the near-to-city-center-area Bahnstadt was explicitly built without social housing.
- 8.
German pupils are in general sorted into one of three different school-types after grade 4 (aged around 10): The most basic one is the “Hauptschule”, offering another five years of schooling. The next one is the “Realschule”, offering six years of schooling (up to grade 10), and the most demanding school is the “Gymnasium”, offering nine years of additional schooling and ending with the “Abitur”, which is still the normal prerequisite for studying. While the figure has grown during the last few years, overall still only around 50 % of pupils get the “Abitur” (37 % in the year 2000).
- 9.
The composition of migrants in Heidelberg was quite specific, as a huge share of them has moved to the city either as student or as member of the university. For example, two-thirds of Heidelberg’s migrant population had at least an ICSED-level-3-qualification, granting them direct access to higher education (Stadt Heidelberg 2009: 11). This figure refers to the situation before the huge increase in migrants in 2015, though. The new migrants have much less favorable educational backgrounds. See footnote 2.
- 10.
This has been one of the most pressing issues of a homeless gathering in a shelter, interviewed during field-work in Heidelberg.
- 11.
Florida (2002: 79) admits himself that “while the creative class favors openness and diversity, to some degree it is a diversity of elites, limited to highly educated, creative people”.
- 12.
Some figures: Overall basic institutional funding for socio-cultural centers in Germany decreased between 2011 and 2013 from 51.8 to 45.3 million euros; and public funding per visitor is 6.54 euros for socio-cultural centers, but 109.54 euros for the more high-brow public theatres (Bundesvereinigung Soziokultureller Zentren 2013).
Bibliography
Abel, Jaison R., and Richard Deitz. 2012. Do colleges and universities increase their region’s human capital? Journal of Economic Geography 12(3): 667–691.
Amin, Ash, and Nigel Thrift. 2007. Cultural-economy and cities. Progress in Human Geography 31(2): 143–161.
Anheier, Helmut K., Yudhishthir R. Isar, and Michael Hoelscher (ed). 2012. Cities, Cultural Policy and Governance, Cultures and Globalization Series. London: SAGE.
Atkinson, Rowland, and Hazel Easthope. 2009. The consequences of the creative class: the pursuit of creativity strategies in Australia’s cities. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33(1): 64–79.
Bathelt, Harald, Anders Malmberg, and Peter Maskell. 2004. Clusters and knowledge: local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation. Progress in Human Geography 28(1): 31–56.
Becker, Gary S. 1975. Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education, 2nd edn. New York: Columbia University Press.
Becker, Rolf, and Andreas Hadjar. 2009. Expected and Unexpected Consequences of the Educational Expansion in Europe and the US. Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Findings in Comparative Perspective. Bern: Haupt.
Beerkens, Eric. 2008. University policies for the knowledge society: global standardization, local reinvention. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 7(1): 15–36.
Bell, Daniel. 1973. The Coming of Post-industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. New York: Basic Books.
Benneworth, Paul, et al. 2011. The ‘science city’ as a system coupler in fragmented strategic urban environments? Built Environment 37(3): 317–335.
Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Böhme, Gernot, and Nico Stehr (ed). 1986. The Knowledge Society: The Growing Impact of Scientific Knowledge on Social Relations. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Bontje, Marco, and Sako Musterd. 2009. Creative industries, creative class and competitiveness: expert opinions critically appraised. Geoforum 40(5): 843–852.
Boudon, Raymond. 1974. Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality: Changing Prospects in Western Society. New York: Wiley.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1979. La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Les Ed. de Minuit.
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1964. Les héritiers : les étudiants et la culture. Paris: Les Ed. de Minuit.
Brenner, Neil (ed). 2013. Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization. Berlin: Jovis.
Brenner, Neil, and Christian Schmid. 2015. Towards a new epistemology of the urban? CITY 19(2/3): 51–182.
Bröckling, Ulrich. 2016. The Entrepreneurial Self. London: SAGE.
Brown, Phillip. 2001. Skill formation in the twenty-first century. In High Skills. Globalization, Competitiveness, and Skill-Formation, ed. Phillip Brown, Andy Green, and Hugh Lauder, 1–55. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bumiller, Daniel. 2015. Urbane Ungleichheiten. Eine kleinräumige Sozialraumanalyse am Beispiel Heidelberg-Bergheim. Unpublished thesis.
Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung (BBSR). 2011. Die Zukunft internationaler Bauausstellungen: Internationale Fallstudien und ein Monitoringkonzept. Berlin: Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung. Available from http://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/DE/Veroeffentlichungen/BMVBS/WP/2011/heft74_DL.pdf;jsessionid=51C282C11D2CD102666C7FE08A281310.live2051?__blob=publicationFile&v=2.
Bundesvereinigung Soziokultureller Zentren e.V. 2013. Soziokulturelle Zentren in Zahlen. Berlin. Available from http://www.soziokultur.de/bsz/sites/default/files/file/flipviewer/Statistik2013_WEB/Statistik2013_opf_files/pdfs/Statistik2013__.pdf.
Castells, Manuel. 1977. The Urban Question. London: Edward Arnold.
———. 1989. The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process. Oxford: Blackwell.
———. 2000. The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd edn. Malden: Blackwell.
Charles, David. 2011. The role of universities in building knowledge cities in Australia. Built Environment 37(3): 281–298.
Chatterton, Paul. 1999. University students and city centres—the formation of exclusive geographies, the case of Bristol, UK. Geoforum 30(2): 117–133.
D’Este, Pablo, Frederick Guy, and Simona Iammarino. 2013. Shaping the formation of university-industry research collaborations: what type of proximity does really matter? Journal of Economic Geography 13(4): 537–558.
Delanty, Gerard. 2001. Challenging Knowledge: The University in the Knowledge Society. London: Open University Press.
Dore, Ronald. 1976. The Diploma Disease: Education, Qualification and Development. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 1997. Reflections on the diploma disease twenty years later. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 4(1): 189–207.
Duru-Bellat, Marie, and Bruno Suchaut. 2005. Organisation and context, efficiency and equity of educational systems: what PISA tells us. European Educational Research Journal 4(3): 181–194.
Eurostat. n.d.. R & D personnel. Available from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/R_%26_D_personnel.
Faggio, Giulia, et al. 2007. The evolution of inequality in productivity and wages: panel data evidence. CEP Discussion Paper 821.
Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Communitiy and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.
———. 2005. Cities and the Creative Class. New York: Routledge.
Frank, Robert, and Philip J. Cook. 1996. The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us. New York: Penguin Books.
Freytag, Tim. 2010. Being a tourist in Heidelberg: exploring visitor activities and spatial mobility in the city. Rivista Geografica Italiana 117(2): 379–389.
Friedmann, John. 1986. The world city hypothesis. Development and Change 17: 69–83.
Gabe, Todd, Jaison Abel, Adrienne Ross, and Kevin Stolarick. 2012. “Knowledge in cities.” Urban Studies 46 (6):1179-1200.
Gerhard, Ulrike, and Editha Marquardt. 2015. The Greener, the happier? Urban sustainability in the knowledge city: Policies, programs and practices in the German context. In The Politics of Urban and Regional Sustainability. Appraising the Concept and Process, ed. David Wilson, 65–86. Champaign, IL: Common Grounds Publishing.
Glückler, Johannes, Martina Ries, and Heiko Schmid. 2010. Kreative Ökonomie in Heidelberg. Perspektiven schöpferischer Arbeit in der Stadt Heidelberg.
Graham, Brian. 2002. Heritage as knowledge: Capital or culture? Urban Studies 39(5/6): 1003–1017.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1992–2007. In Prison notebooks, ed. Joseph A. Buttigieg, and Antonio Callari. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 2004. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: Penguin Press.
Hoelscher, Michael. 2012a. Creativity and innovation. In Encyclopedia of Global Studies, ed. Helmut K. Anheier, and Mark Juergensmeyer, 306–310. London: SAGE.
———. 2012b. Universities and higher learning. In Encyclopedia of Global Studies, ed. Helmut K. Anheier, and Mark Juergensmeyer, 1713–1718. London: SAGE.
———. 2012c. Indicator suites—describing and comparing culture in cities globally. In Cities, Cultural Policy and Governance, ed. Helmut K. Anheier, Yudhishthir R. Isar, and Michael Hoelscher, 353–442. London: SAGE.
Hoelscher, Michael, Georg Mildenberger, Andreas Putlitz, Annika Müller, and Michael Weiler. 2014. Das Netzwerk der Internationalen Bauausstellung Heidelberg. Bericht der Pilotstudie. Heidelberg: Centrum für Soziale Innovationen der Universität Heidelberg (unpublished report to the city of Heidelberg).
Howells, Jeremy R.L. 2002. Tacit knowledge, innovation and economic geography. Urban Studies 39(5/6): 871–884.
Hristova, Svetlana, Milena Dragicevic Sesic, and Nancy Duxbury (ed). 2015. Culture and Sustainability in European Cities. Imagining Europolis. London: Routledge.
Immoscout. 2016. Available from http://www.immobilienscout24.de/immobilienbewertung/ratgeber/mietpreise-und-kaufpreise/wohnkostenanteil-grossstaedte.html
Isar, Yudhishthir R. 2012. “Heritage.” In The Encyclopedia of Global Studies, edited by Helmut K. Anheier and Mark Juergensmeyer. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Jackson, Philip W. 1968. Life in Classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Knight, Richard V. 1995. Knowledge-based development: policy and planning implications for cities. Urban Studies 32(2): 225–260.
Kunzmann, Klaus. 2004. Wissensstädte: Neue Aufgaben für die Stadtpolitik. In Stadtregion und Wissen. Analysen und Plädoyers für eine wissensbasierte Stadtpolitik, ed. Ulf Matthiessen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.
———. 2009. Planning and new labour: a view from abroad. Planning Practice & Research 24(1): 139–144.
Landry, Charles. 2000. The Creative City : A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London: Earthscan.
Lange, Bastian, and Hans-Jochaim Bürkner. 2010. Wertschöpfung in der Kreativwirtschaft. Der Fall der elektronischen Klubmusik. Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie 54(1): 46–68.
Lee, Neil, and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose. 2013. Innovation and spatial inequality in Europe and USA. Journal of Economic Geography 13(1): 1–22.
Lefebvre, Henri. 1974. The Production of Space. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Lever, William F. 2002. Correlating the knowledge-base of cities with economic growth. Urban Studies 39(5/6): 859–870.
Maiolo, John R., and Jeffrey Johnson. 1992. Determining and utilizing communication networks in marine fisheries: a management tool. Proceedings of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute 41: 274–296.
Matthiesen, Ulf (ed). 2004. Stadtregion und Wissen : Analysen und Plädoyers für eine wissensbasierte Stadtpolitik. Wiesbaden: VS Verl. für Sozialwiss.
Mayer, Heike. 2008. Segmentation and segregation patterns of women-owned high-tech firms in four metropolitan regions in the United States. Regional Studies 42(10): 1357–1383.
Merrifield, Andy. 2013. The Politics of Encounter: Urban Theory and Protest Under Planetary Urbanization. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Merton, Robert K. 1968. The Matthew effect in science. Science 159(3810): 56–63.
Meusburger, Peter. 1997. Grundstrukturen und Leitmotive der Stadtgeographie von Heidelberg. In Heidelberg—Stadt und Universität, ed. Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, 115–155.
———. 2013. Relations between knowledge and economic development: some methodological considerations. In Knowledge and the Economy. Knowledge and Space 5, ed. by Peter Meusburger, Johannes Glückler and Martina el Meskioui, 15-42. Dordrecht: Springer.
Mossig, Ivo. 2011. Regional employment growth in the cultural and creative industries in Germany 2003-2008. European Planning Studies 19(6): 957.
Navarro, Clemente J., and Terry N. Clark. 2012. Cultural policy in European cities. European Societies 14(5): 636–659.
Németh, Balàzs. 2010. The accelerating roles of higher education in regions through the European Lifelong Learning Initiative. European Journal of Education 45(3): 451–465.
Nijkamp, Peter. 2011. Innovation, Growth and Competitiveness : Dynamic Regions in the Knowledge-Based World Economy. Berlin: Springer.
Oakley, Kate. 2012. Rich but divided... the politics of cultural policy in London. In Cities, Cultural Policy and Governance, ed. Helmut K. Anheier, Yudhishthir R. Isar, and Michael Hoelscher, 204–211. London: SAGE.
OECD. 2008. Tertiary Education for the Knowledge Society. Available from http://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/tertiaryeducationfortheknowledgesocietyvolume1specialfeaturesgovernancefundingquality-volume2specialfeaturesequityinnovationlabourmarketinternationalisation.htm
Parsons, Talcott, Edward A. Shils, and Edward C. Tolman (ed). 1959. Toward a General Theory of Action, 4 edn. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Peck, Jamie. 2005. Struggling with the creative class. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29(7): 740–770.
Polanyi, Michael. 1966. The Tacit Dimension. London: Routledge.
Ponzini, Davide, and Ugo Rossi. 2010. Becoming a creative city: the entrepreneurial mayor, network politics and the promise of an urban renaissance. Urban Studies 47(5): 1037–1057.
Powell, Walter W., and Kaisa Snellman. 2004. The knowledge economy. Annual Review of Sociology 30: 199–220.
Roy, Ananya. 2015. What is urban about critical urban theory. Lecture Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Chicago.
Sage, Joanna, Darren Smith, and Phil Hubbard. 2012. The diverse geographies of studentification: living alongside people not like us. Housing Studies 27(8): 1057–1078.
Sassen, Saskia. 1991. The Global City. New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Smith, Darren. 2004. ‘Studentification’: the gentrification factory? In The New Urban Colonialism: Gentrification in a Global Context, ed. R. Atkinson, and G. Bridge, 72–89. London: Routledge.
———. 2008. The politics of studentification and ‘(un)balanced’ urban populations: Lessons for gentrification and sustainable communities? Urban Studies 45(12): 2541–2564.
Smith, Darren, and Phil Hubbard. 2014. The segregation of educated youth and dynamic geographies of studentification. Area 46(1): 92–100.
Sörlin, Sverker, and Hebe Vessuri (ed). 2007. Knowledge Society vs. Knowledge Economy: Knowledge, Power, and Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stadt Heidelberg. 2009. Heidelberger Migrantenstudie 2008. Schriften zur Stadtentwicklung. Heidelberg: Amt für Stadtentwicklung und Statistik Available from http://www.heidelberg.de/site/Heidelberg_ROOT/get/documents_E468669412/heidelberg/PB5Documents/pdf/12_pdf_HeidelbergerMigrantenstudie_2008.pdf.
———. 2011. Bericht zur Sozialen Lage in Heidelberg. Heidelberg: Amt für Stadtentwicklung und Statistik Available from http://www.heidelberg.de.
———. 2012. Memorandum: Perspektiven der Europäischen Stadt in der Wissensgesellschaft. Internationale Bauausstellung Heidelberg. Available from http://www.heidelberg.de/site/Heidelberg_ROOT/get/documents/heidelberg/PB5Documents/pdf/61_pdf_IBA_Wissenschafftstadt_Memorandum.pdf
———. 2013a. Mietspiegel 2013. Heidelberg: Amt für Stadtentwicklung und Statistik. Available from http://www.heidelberg.de/hd,Lde/HD/Leben/Mietspiegel.html.
———. 2013b. Wohnraumbedarfsanalyse Heidelberg 2030. Schriften zur Stadtentwicklung. Heidelberg: Amt für Stadtentwicklung und Statistik Retrieved 28 May 2015 from http://www.heidelberg.de/site/Heidelberg_ROOT/get/documents_E-999837103/heidelberg/Objektdatenbank/12/PDF/12_pdf_WohnraumbedarfsanalyseHD2030.pdf.
———. 2014. Bevölkerung 2014. Entwicklung und räumliche Verteilung der Einwohner im Stadtgebiet (Statistische Kurzmitteilungen). Heidelberg: Amt für Stadtentwicklung und Statistik. Available from http://www.heidelberg.de.
———. 2015. Heidelberger Nachhaltigkeitsbericht 2014. Schriften zur Stadtentwicklung. Available from http://www.heidelberg.de/site/Heidelberg_ROOT/get/documents_E-1463535727/heidelberg/Objektdatenbank/12/PDF/12_pdf_Nachhaltigkeitsbericht%202014.pdf
———. no year. OB Würzner initiiert Bündnis für Wohnen. Available from http://www.heidelberg.de/hd,Lde/HD/Leben/OB+Wuerzner+initiiert+Buendnis+fuer+Wohnen.html.
———. 2016. Heidelberg-Studie 2015. Leben und Mediennutzung. Heidelberg: Amt für Stadtentwicklung und Statistik.
Stehr, Nico. 2001. Wissen und Wirtschaften: die gesellschaftlichen Grundlagen der modernen Ökonomie. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main.
Steinmüller, Bastian. 2015. Studentische Urbanität. Art und Auswirkungen der Prägung urbanen Raumes durch Studierende—Eine vergleichende Fallstudie in den Universitätsstädten Heidelberg und Montpellier. Unpublished Master-thesis, University of Heidelberg.
Storper, Michael, and Anthony J. Venables. 2004. Buzz: face-to-face contact and the urban economy. Journal of Economic Geography 4: 351–370.
Taylor, Peter J. 2005. Leading world cities: empirical evaluations of urban nodes in multiple networks. Urban Studies 42(9): 1593–1608.
UN Habitat. 2008. State of the World’s Cities 2010/2011. Bridging the Urban Divide. London: Earthscan.
UNESCO. 2005. Towards Knowledge Societies. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
Van Reenen, John. 1996. The creation and capture of rents: wages and innovation in a panel of U.K. companies. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 111: 195–226.
Van Winden, Willem. 2010. Knowledge and the European city. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 110(1): 101–106.
Van Winden, Willem, Leo van den Berg, and Peter Pol. 2007. European cities in the knowledge economy: towards a typology. Urban Studies 44(3): 525–549.
Weber, Luc E., and James J Duderstadt. 2006. Universities and Business: Partnering for the Knowledge Society. London: Economica.
Wilke, Helmut. 1998. Organisierte Wissensarbeit. Zeitschrift für Soziologie 27(3): 161–177.
World Bank. 2002. Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gerhard, U., Hoelscher, M. (2017). Knowledge Makes Cities: Education and Knowledge in Recent Urban Development. The Case of Heidelberg, Germany. In: Gerhard, U., Hoelscher, M., Wilson, D. (eds) Inequalities in Creative Cities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95115-4_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95115-4_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95114-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95115-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)