For the present the rise of knowledge-intensive global industries favours centres rich in infrastructure and specialised skills.

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Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, said he feared the loss of "special community centres, dedicated to knowledge".

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They include major centres of biodiversity, often coinciding with centres of cultural diversity where traditional ecological knowledge is maintained.

UNESCO: Ecological Sciences and Research

This matters, Mr Carter argues: skilled knowledge-workers, in particular, like to cluster in centres, and the spillover is what most boosts growth.

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Critics raised concerns that if local knowledge was lost because calls were being answered in a regional centre instead of the service's two centres in Devon and Somerset, it could affect response times and risk lives.

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One of the world's most conspicuously successful centres of enterprise lies in that bit of California known as Silicon Valley: computing is today's knowledge-based industry par excellence (see survey) The new jobs in tomorrow's industries, in manufacturing and services alike, will call for more than button-pressing automatons.

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