From Digital Cities to Mobile Regions : a policy learning process fostering local systems of innovation and competence building

Given the current socioeconomic context, in which innovation is a key driver of sustainable development, what are the challenges facing information-based development and cooperation, in a way that contributes to regional policies that stimulate localized learning and indigenous development? This broad question has motivated the work behind the present paper, which considered the development of case studies in selected Portuguese cities and regions and the emerging urbanization trends of increasing urban population, but reduced urban density. It is argued that the progressive integration of mobile ICT´s with sustainable mobility equipments and concepts will facilitate improving well being in urban regions if adequate incentives, infrastructures and institutions are adaptively implemented through a policy learning process. The analysis builds on the concept of local system of innovation and competence building, in a context much influenced by a dynamic of change and a necessary balance between the diffusion of mobile technologies and the social and cultural shaping of information technologies.