The management guru Peter Drucker in his book on Innovation and Entrepreneurship has some interesting things to say about building an entrepreneurial society that are relevant to the thinking of this Network. To quote Drucker:

There is a current blog in the Sustainable Cities Collective by David Thorpe which sets out 21 Features of the Future Sustainable City. These range across finance and auditing, transport, smart citiesw, buildings, energy, and food. While the list contains some items we would include in a Learning Cities for the Future list, eg "Joined up action", the list reflects the physical planning interests of the author so I wonder what a Learning City list would look like.

Now that the Networks web site is operating again, it is timely to consider the role of Networks in charting key characteristics of sustainable learning cities for the future- what we have termed Learning Cities 2020.

The five Networks have been selected to examine key areas of future sustainable learning cities : holistic development, urban and rural relationships, the role of cultural policies, inclusion objectives, and fostering enterprise and entrepreneurship.

There are importnt questions to be examined in each of these areas.

Abstract

The Gwydir Learning Region is a partnership that was originally formed in 2000 between local government, education, business and community stakeholders in the north-west area of New South Wales. An evaluation undertaken in 2006 included an examination of the conceptual framework of the Learning Region. The evaluation showed that since 2000 stakeholders of the Gwydir Learning Region have consciously investigated a range of other learning regions to see which concepts might apply in the Gwydir region.

Barcelona has been selected as the first European Capital of Innovation "for introducing the use of new technologies to bring the city closer to citizens. The new Capital of Innovation award looks at the outstanding achievements of cities building up an innovation ecosystem "ie a system which links the citizens (People) with a built environment (Place) and public organisations and policy makers (Public) and through business (Private). The award went to Barcelona for "introducing the use of new technologies to bring the city closer to citizens".