Innovation infrastructure as an element of community economic development: BioSpaces; TechShops; Maker Spaces; Arts spaces

The response to the pandemic has engendered a wide variety of "innovative responses" by people, businesses, and nonprofits, to address gaps of all sorts--lack of personal protection equipment, food, access to cultural resources, schooling, etc., which has been a surprise compared to a general "hardening of the arteries" when it comes to the ability of organizations to respond and transform.

-- "Innovation in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis," Academic Medicine
-- "FDA Oversight Emerges For Additive Manufacturing," Forbes
-- "How 7 local businesses are pivoting to PPE production," Boston Globe
-- "7 Weird And Unexpected Business Pivots During The Coronavirus Pandemic," Forbes

Jane Jacobs and Urban Innovation. In Death and Life of the Great American City, JJ argues that "a large stock of old buildings" is one of the four key requirements for healthy cities, because old buildings, paid off and with low running costs, offer cheap rent, and startups (and artists) are fostered by low cost space.  This argument was extended in her second book, The Economy of Cities.

Note that JJ didn't anticipate that there would be a serious disconnect between supply and demand of space in cities and that even old buildings would end up being significantly repriced upward in strong market cities.

Space and facilities as infrastructure for innovation. My arts-based revitalization writings ("Arts, culture districts, and revitalization"), citing John Montgomery's crucial distinction between arts as consumption and arts as production, reference a publication by the Creative City Network of Canada, Cultural Infrastructure: An Integral Component of Canadian Communities, which provides a framework categorizing the types of spaces and facilities that artists and arts organization need to have a functioning arts production system.

Using that framework, I argue that within cultural planning, space needs for artistic disciplines must be differentiated, and that we should endeavor to ensure the availability of the variety of spaces needed to support a healthy and functioning local arts ecosystem.

Best practice discipline-specific arts center examples include Baltimore Clayworks,  London Sculpture Works, UK, Pittsburgh Glassworks, Podcast Garage, Boston, Pyramid Arts Center (printing) in Hyattsville, Maryland, and The Writing Center in Bethesda Maryland

Multidisciplinary examples include BRIC House in Brooklyn, Cabelfactory in Helsinki, GoggleWorks in Reading, Pennsylvania, La Friche in Marseille, and Symphony Space in NYC.

Hackerspaces as infrastructure for innovation.  One type of space not included in the CCNC Cultural Infrastructure framework are hackerspaces.  The framework needs to be extended outward from the arts, for innovative business, various creative endeavors, nonprofits, etc., to provide spaces, technical assistance, and access to specialized equipment.

Hackerspaces are non profit, community run spaces where people with a common interest and a need for specialized equipment, such as computing, machining, technology, digital media, and science can have access to workspaces, equipment, and meeting and collaboration spaces.  Training, classes, talks and other programming may be offered.

The types of spaces and range of equipment vary.  Universities often have such spaces, although access is typically limited to people affiliated with the school.  These days, "maker spaces" in public libraries are in vogue, with some interesting resources, from 3D printers to sewing machines, but not highly technical equipment.

Woodworking.  An early example is the creation of woodworking clubs, which have a wide variety of specialized equipment.  People can become members and be certified and then able to work with specialized machinery.

People like me without that kind of interest or skill can usually take pieces to such places to be worked on, at a reasonable cost. For example, I didn't have the equipment to do a precise cut for butcher block kitchen counters.  So we took the counter to Woodworkers Club of Rockville and they did the cuts.

Community Kitchen.  As a way to support local food production and business development, the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks created a food production kitchen with a food safety manager and other technical assistance programming to support local business development around agriculture.

Other places have developed similar operations, including La Cocina in San Francisco ("What Are Food Incubators and Do They Create Viable Businesses?," Eater), which is focused on supporting immigrants and Spice Kitchen Incubator in Salt Lake City, which is focused on job training and business development.

In DC, Union Kitchen operates similarly but on a for profit basis ("Food Entrepreneurs Have Much to Weigh Before Tying Their Fates to Union Kitchen's Accelerator," Washington City Paper).

Business Incubators.  On the economic development side, business support organizations and/or government agencies or universities create incubators to support business development.  There are various types, depending on the area and what business specializations a community might have.

Incubators sponsored by economic development organizations usually offer other technical assistance and programming.  One distinctive element is that business incubators usually have an "up and out" approach, putting a limit on the amount of time a business can be housed at low rents.

There can be for profit variants.

-- InBIA: Global Network of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Builders

BioCurious Lab.

BioSpaces.  This entry is sparked because a recent issue of New Yorker Magazine has an article ("The Rogue Experimenters") about hackerspaces or "community labs" for biology, such as the Baltimore Underground Science Space, which has lab equipment, storage freezers, and a PCR machine to duplicate DNA.

The article discusses the DIY-bio movement, which even includes an effort to create nonprofit insulin production, because of increasingly high cost of insulin sold by traditional pharmaceutical companies. e-NABLE is a 3D printer-supported network of volunteers creating low cost or no cost prosthetics.

-- Just One Giant Lab network
-- GenSpace, Brooklyn
-- BioCurious, Santa Clara, California
-- Counter Culture Labs, Oakland, California
-- Harlem BioSpace

Photo by Leonard Ortiz, in This Village is Orange County's first building dedicated to housing nonprofits," >Orange County Register.

Nonprofit Centers Network.  NCN supports shared facilities for nonprofit organizations ("BTMFBA revisited: nonprofits and facilities planning and acquisition," 2016). In Philadelphia, Cultureworks provides space, back office support, and other technical assistance and support to nonprofit cultural organizations.

For profit attempts

Third Ward/Brooklyn and Philadelphia.  Third Ward was an for profit attempt at a broader type of maker space, with equipment beyond wood, and a combination of a co-working space.  But the reality is that there isn't tons of profit in such facilities (cf. WeWork), and investors looking for quick returns end up pushing such facilities to bankruptcy.  That's what happened to Third Ward ("What happened to Third Ward," New York Observer).

Philadelphia Sculpture Gym.  Technically was a for profit too, but more like a community facility including a gallery. It had a wood shop, metal shop, jewelry shop, forging area, ceramics area and a mold making and casting area.

But the owner decided to sell the building and there wasn't a system in Philadelphia able to assist the organization in moving, especially to equally cheap space (they were paying about $4/s.f.) and the organization folded ("A FOND FAREWELL TO THE PHILADELPHIA SCULPTURE GYM," Knight Foundation).

Shepard Test Stand, TechShop Arlington.

TechShop.  Like Third Ward, TechShop was a for profit maker space.  Started in the Silicon Valley, it expanded across the country, stoked by venture capital.

But after a few years, it failed also ("Sad but not a surprise: bankruptcy and shutdown of TechShop MakerSpace chain." 2017 blog entry).

Shared Office Spaces/WeWork. One way to address the need for lower cost space but providing greater opportunities for networking ("agglomeration economies") are shared work spaces like WeWork or business incubators, where participants pay a fee for access to shared space and business equipment (printers, etc.), meeting rooms, a mailbox (ideally with a more distinguished address), etc.

For Profit Business Incubators.  Venture capitalists, property owners seeking active uses for their spaces, and others create business incubators too.

And like with TechShop and Third Ward some fail, like 1776 in DC ("Why 1776 is closing its original incubator location, and thoughts on its future in DC," Technical.ly).  For communities focused on community economic development, nonprofit approaches may work better.

Conclusion.

(1) Community economic development planning needs to include the creation and maintenance of "hackerspaces" as an element within facilities and entrepreneurship development planning.

(2) Hackerspaces need to be included in cultural facilities planning frameworks like that of the Creative City Network of Canada.

(3)  Frequent examples of failure of for profit maker space type ventures demonstrate that expecting such facilities to be wildly profitable are unrealisttic.  A nonprofit approach may work best.

(4) If for profit hackerspaces/incubators exist, they should be monitored and like in the case of TechShop or Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, scenarios for stepping in to ensure continued organizational existence should be developed.

(5)  In high cost markets, the primary need isn't "start up" space per se, it's relatively permanent--or at least long term--access to lower cost space and equipment.  Community development corporations could be an avenue for creating and maintaining making spaces within a broader network of spaces and capacities.

(6) A focus on incubation as a start up initiative may be too limiting.  To me, too many people are focused on helping people "start up" organization be they for profit or nonprofit, when the longer term need is for maintenance.  People focused on creating incubators offering short term space miss the point.

The same goes for "up and out" approaches to business incubation.  Artificially short time limits on participation may be unrealistic and more flexible approaches are required.