The Distribution And Evolution Mechanism Of The Urban Innovation Space In Hangzhou City

China regards the construction of innovative cities as a national strategy,and promotes the economic transformation to innovation driven economy through top-down policies.Innovation strategy must find its space to implement,and it is urban innovation space.Therefore,urban innovation space is an important part of the construction of innovative city.However,the production of urban innovation space is not a simple top-down process,but a multi role participation process.A solid understanding of the innovation space and its evolutionary mechanism,and an exploration of the key role in the urban innovation space production in China’s social,cultural and institutional backdrop is of vital importance for policy-making,urban planning and city governance in the construction of inno vative cities.For that purpose,this paper conducts its research.It studies the origin and development of the concept of innovation.From here,this paper gets through the current literatures on urban innovation space from three aspects:the distribution of innovation activities,spatial innovation system and evaluation of innovation ability.It holds that there is no sound and independent research system on urban innovation space,and the understanding of innovation space is not comprehensive.Therefore,this paper aims to establish a comprehensive understanding in regard of the systematism and spatiality of urban innovation space through the critical application of the evolution theory,complexity theory,space theory and actor network theory.The systematism of urban innovation space is embodied in knowledge system,innovation system and form system,which respectively represent the foundation,internal essence and external performance of innovation space system.The spatiality of urban innovation space is embodied in two characteristics of space:the evolutionary nature of space and the dialectical unity of space in geography,society and history.By analogy,the biological evolution mechanism is applied to the study of the evolution of urban innovation space.Taking Zhongguancun,Shenzhen high tech Zone,Shanghai cultural and creative industry parks and innovation space in Ghent as examples,the framework of the evolution mechanism of urban innovation space is constructed.The core of the evolution of urban innovation space is the evolution of innovation groups.The urban innovation space is developed retroactively from its perceived space,practical space and conceived space.The conceived space has the strongest power to the evolution process,thus driving the changes of the other two space aspects.Based on this framework,this paper conducts an empirical study of Hangzhou City,and finds that the evolution of urban innovation space in Hangzhou is a process of circular change of perceived space,conceived space,practical space,whereas the conceived space is the pioneer of the evolution.The government and other innovation groups are not regulating and obeying/resisting,but collaborative evolved with each other.Only by competing and cooperating can realize the production of innovation space.This paper finds that in Chinese cities the evolution of innovation space is path dependent,the government group plays a decisive role in the distribution of innovation space,the leading firms directly affect the way and process of innovation space evolution,and the external environment affects the evolution of urban innovation space as well.This paper provides a more comprehensive perspective for the understanding of urban innovation space,and explains the evolution mechanism of urban innovation space through multi-disciplinary framework,which is the supplement of urban innovation space research.