Regional Innovation and Cooperation among Industries, Universities, R&D Institutes, and Governments - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 32

At the end of this section where we were conveying a positive view of cluster
development it is only fair to state that critics of cluster policy may be found in the
literature: E.g., the cluster concept might not be generally transferable to any
industry and any region (Alsleben 2005 ; Alecke et al. 2006 ; Audretsch 2003 ). In
(Huber 2012 ) certain seemingly well-grounded statements about synergies in
clusters are questioned. Therefore, further research on the cluster concept is needed.
However, the case of the City of Dortmund, presented in the sequel, provides a
convincing example for regional cooperation which resulted in resolving a severe
economic crisis of the 1980s. In Dortmund, all relevant actors including institutes
of research and education, enterprises, local and regional government, and finan-
cial institutions worked together (and continue to do so) in a vibrant network in
order to promote regional innovation and economic development. In this case the
cluster concept proved to be a promising approach to promote economic devel-
opment of knowledge-based industries, thus improving the regional competitive-
ness and overall economic situation of the region concerned.

4 The City of Dortmund

4.1 Location of Dortmund

The City of Dortmund is located in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia
(NRW) in the western part of Germany. This state is Germany's largest with
respect to population (17 million inhabitants). The metropolitan area of the Ruhr, a
region of around 4,500 km 2 , 53 communes, and a population of 5.2 million is
situated in this state. Located at the eastern edge of this area, Dortmund is one of
these

communes-with about 600,000 inhabitants the seventh-largest city in

Germany and a regional metropolis Fig. 2 .

4.2 Economic History

For a period of more than 100 years the economy of Dortmund was based on coal
mining and the production of steel. In addition, Dortmund was famous for its beer
industry. One may say that Dortmund and its region essentially contributed to
Germany's industrial productivity and wealth for decades. However, starting in the
late 1970s of the last century these industrial sectors began to decline, as could be
seen in many others places world-wide. This decline affected the fortunes of
Dortmund severely. In 1997 the two biggest steel producing companies in
Germany ''Thyssen'' and ''Krupp Hoesch'' decided to merge and closed steel
production in the City of Dortmund. They then transferred production to the city
of Duisburg, located at the other edge of the Ruhr area, about 100 km away.