Innovation districts are land developments for research and development (R&D) institutions, companies, and others that develop integrated strategies and solutions to develop thriving innovation ecosystems–areas that attract entrepreneurs, startups, and business incubators. Unlike science parks, innovation districts are generally physically compact, leverage density and high levels of accessibility, and provide a mix of uses including housing, office, and neighborhood-serving amenities. Districts signify the collapse back of innovation into cities and is increasingly used as a way to revitalize the economies of cities and their broader regions. As of 2019, there are more than 100 districts worldwide.
Since the 1950s and Stanford Industrial Park, entrepreneurial clustering had followed the Silicon Valley model of suburban corridors with sprawling research centers and campuses. In the late 1990s, Internet startups and creative companies started to cluster in downtown neighborhoods such as Silicon Alley (New York), Mission District (San Francisco), Seaport (Boston), Shoreditch, (London), and Silicon Sentier (Paris), because of their central locations, abundant urban amenities, and low rents. In the early 2000s, European and American cities began to mimic these areas through policy and planning by dedicating zones exclusively for the purpose of clustering entrepreneurs, startups, business accelerators and incubators. These spaces are easily accessible via public transportation, wired for public Wi-Fi, support mixed-use development, and nurture collaboration and knowledge-sharing.