Description:Innovative Citiespresents a unique international comparison of innovation in Amsterdam, London, Milan, Paris and Stuttgart. Based on research funded by the ESRC program on ''Cities: Competitiveness and Cohesion'', it compares and contrasts the reasons why these sites are among the top ten innovative cities in Europe. The research reported here takes a careful and directly comparable look at what characteristics and conditions in the five cities have led to the flourishing of innovation in them. Researchers with detailed local knowledge have applied the same analytical tools and survey techniques to investigating this question and the results present a unique international comparison of innovation in the five cities.