Creative cities as built places of the knowledge society

subtheme: The future of cities in the knowledge age 1. Introduction A lot has been talked about the knowledge society and the impact of knowledge on the structure of a society 's economy. But a society is always located somehow – it does not exist in a vacuum. Are there specific places for the knowledge society? And what effects these places have on the economic and social development of the society? I argue that the so-called 'creative cities' that increasingly emerge in contemporary Western societies are built places of the knowledge society. My paper presents findings of my empirical research which I conducted from 2007-2009 in the cities of Dublin (Ireland) and Gothenburg (Sweden). I studied how planning authorities programmatically integrated the concept of creativity in local city development strategies and what underlying concepts of society that implied. The empirical research showed that the Triple Helix concept serves as tool to reorganize the city and its social and economic structure. Thus, the concept is used as a means to meet the underlying objective to assure the cities ' character as places of the knowledge society. Using the examples of Lindholmen Science Park in Gothenburg and The Digital Hub in Dublin, I show that these technology parks, using a specific understanding of creativity and representing spaces for knowledge-intensive industries, are constitutive elements for cities aiming at becoming a 'creative city'. Both Gothenburg and Dublin can therefore be described as paradigmatic cities of the knowledge society.