Measuring and ranking the innovative potential of cities

Abstract

The ranking of cities according to their individual intellectual (innovative, organizational, creative, central, etc.) potential is actual and important for geographic studies in the epoch of post--industrialization. The results of such ranking can be applied in various aspects and directions of regional policy.The very idea of such ranking seems to have been first formulated in France in the early 1960s. The research concerned was aimed at solving the problem of hyper-centralization in that country through forming ‘metropoles d’equilibre’ in the periphery, to counterbalance Paris. The task was to find the French cities which were ready to fulfill this role. Later, we have used this idea to rank Siberian cities as to their administrative potential. The important innovation in methodology was introduction of a principally new index, crucial just for Siberia (although maybe less important in Europe). This index is the distance from the nearest comparable or obviously more significant city