UCLA

The recent urban economic restructuring processes that occurred in Los Angeles, as in many other cities in the world, formed a more flexible, global and knowledge and innovation-based New Economy. Although downtowns and core areas are still the most preferred location to Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) because of agglomeration economies, other non-core and increasingly distant centers emerge in the city-region's knowledge-based economy network. The nature of these centralities and the knowledge and innovation industries that locate in them whether they are concentrated or specialized is vital for the current motor of urban and regional development. This thesis aims at (1) defining a clearer and more accurate definition of what exactly KIBS activities are and what their role in current urban and regional economies is, (2) analyzing the KIBS location pattern in the Los Angeles city-region to understand whether polycentricity is a help or a hindrance to KIBS development, (3) comparing the concentration and specialization character of its KIBS' clusters, and (4) building similarities among them and with other city-regions in the U.S. so better planning and governance practices can improve Los Angeles' regional development.