The Innovation Complex

“I found the book particularly interesting for those scholars dealing with innovation and entrepreneurship in a rather quantitative manner, since it may help them to better comprehend the interesting stories behind innovative entrepreneurship, which too often risk being hidden by the ‘cold’ numbers of econometrics.” – Luca Grilli, Regional Studies”Sharon Zukin’s Innovation Complex proves once again that she is one of the most astuteÂobservers of American cities. For decades, innovation and the tech industry were thought to be the province of the suburbs. But Zukin shows how and why innovation and startup companies have come back to the city en masse and the economic contradictions that the rise of the urban innovation complex brings.” – Richard Florida, author of The Rise ofthe Creative Class”With a keen eye and a sly sense of irony, Sharon Zukin takes us behind the doors of the startups, venture capital firms, business incubators, co-working spaces, and coding camps that have made New York a major hub of what she aptly dubs ‘The Innovation Complex.’ ÂBeneath the technical wizardry and relentless boosterism of this new world, Zukin sees reasons to be skeptical about its promises to deliver a better life for us all.” – Joshua B. Freeman,author of Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World?“In The Innovation Complex, Sharon Zukin masterfully reveals how New York City-of all places-pivoted to tech and established an ecosystem rivaling Silicon Valley. In the process, she helps us understand cities, the startup world, and the economic tensions that come with progress.” – Steven Levy, author In the Plex and Facebook: TheÂInside Story”Sharon Zukin deftly argues in The Innovation Complex that tech capitals do not simply bubble up from a primordial soup of young entrepreneurs’ inventions. They are made through ideas, norms, and narratives as well as by policies and investments. Zukin takes us on a tour of the specific places and activities that make up the New York City innovation complex-hackathons, meetups, innovation districts, tech campuses, boot camps, and co-working spaces.What we come to see is the political process of innovation itself and how this process reconfigures cities. The result is a nuanced and critical look at the costs that a tech boom exacts on cities and citizens.“– Gina Neff, University of Oxford, author of Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries

Sharon Zukin is a Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. Her books, including Loft Living, The Cultures of Cities, and Naked City, profile change in New York from the 1970s to the 2020s.