There are plenty of comparative studies of the innovativeness of metropolises. However, I made another one examining innovativeness in the sphere of social media. In Futura journal, I represented a comparison between the Nordic metropolises, which are usually performing well in different innovation rankings.
Examining where there is the most Twitter activity related to the exact term of innovation, Swedish cities are the top performers. When examining Twitter activity proportional to city size, Stockholm is the leading innovation hub in Northern Europe with Malmö following second. What comes to themes related to innovativeness, Helsinki is the most important concentration of startups and technology in the Nordic countries. Stockholm and Malmö are the second and the third largest concentrations of both, startups and technology. Related to innovativeness and economic growth, also the tolerance of the citizens was considered. Interestingly, perhaps the most famous city in the Nordics facing problems related to immigration, Malmö is welcoming refugees most generously. In fact, Malmö is the only metropolitan area, where there is significant movement related to hashtag #refugeeswelcome. Different themes related to innovativeness combined, the same cities appear high in ranking. Overall, Stockholm (in the picture below) is the most innovative metropolis in the Nordic countries. Helsinki has the second most Twitter activity related to innovativeness and Malmö the third most. From the results, it is obvious that metropolitan areas should be compared to metropolises approximately the same size - even if measured proportional to city size. The capitals and the largest metropolises of the Nordic countries are competing with each other, while the secondary cities of Nordics are competing in their own race (empirics of them later on).
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Photo by Rob Hurson
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July 2018
AuthorJuho Kiuru, geographer living in Helsinki, Finland. |