This paper traces the origin of the currently emerging innovation district (ID) concept in core cities in the global North and observes their emergence in a number of cities around the world. Due to the alleged ability of this concept to capture the needs of innovative firms and the urban lifestyles of their talented employees, and to provide urban planners and policy-makers a means to attract resources, the ID has become one of the many planning and policy concepts that “travel” internationally. What is new about the ID concept is its emphasis on the quality of inner-city life and its focus on re-engineering the mixed-use of urban space (work, housing, services, recreation) to prompt innovative encounters and interactions in diverse spheres of urban life in sustainable urban environments. We explore the emergence of this concept in a number of cities in the global North and South (Boston-Cambridge, Medellín, Turku, Christchurch, Bangkok). Through qualitative case studies, we show that IDs are linked to place-specific characteristics and are designed to address particular urban problems in the new contexts. Their implementation is turning out differently. This is in line with much of the policy mobilities literature. In the case of these IDs, distinct place-specific network models are evolving in the different cities, not only supporting innovativeness or place-making in their immediate neighbourhoods as emphasised in some of the earlier ID literature, but also being adopted to serve urban development needs in the cities as a whole.