cities mediating technological transitions: understanding visions, intermediation and consequences

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Cities mediating technologicaltransitions: understanding visions,intermediation and consequencesMike Hodson a & Simon Marvin aa Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (SURF),University of Salford, Cube Building, 113–115 Portland Street,Manchester, M1 6DW, UK

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Technology Analysis & Strategic ManagementVol. 21, No. 4, May 2009, 515–534

Cities mediating technological transitions:understanding visions, intermediationand consequences

Mike Hodson∗ and Simon Marvin

Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (SURF), University of Salford, Cube Building, 113–115 PortlandStreet, Manchester M1 6DW, UK

Approaches to technological transitions and their management have generated considerableinterest in academic and policy circles in recent years. The development of this body of workmay be seen as a response to the complexities, uncertainties and problems which confrontmany western societies, in organising ‘sustainably’ various aspects of energy, agricultural,water, transport and health systems of production and consumption; problems which are seenas systemic and entwined or embedded in a series of social, economic, political, cultural andtechnological relationships. For all the light that transitions approaches shine on such processesthey say little explicitly about the role of places. In this paper we address this through lookingat the way in which London is currently beginning to shape a systemic transition in its energyinfrastructure. We outline and discuss key aspects of the roles of strategic intermediary organ-isations, which have been strategically set up to intervene between technological possibilitiesand the territorial context of London. We draw on the case of London to highlight an emblematicexample of a city’s attempt to systemically re-shape its energy infrastructure and the lessons tobe drawn from this. We also outline the particularity of London in this respect, the limitationsof the transferability of experiences in London and highlight directions for future research inthis area.

Keywords: transitions; cities; visions; intermediary organisations

1. Introduction

Cities have historically been powerfully shaped by the development of key infrastructuraltechnologies. Complex socio-technical systems of water, energy, transport, communications andwaste make the concept of the contemporary city possible (Graham and Marvin 1996, 2001).While there have been dramatic changes in the social organisation of infrastructure and driversshaping its development the physical infrastructure of the city is often slow to change. The paperargues, with this in mind, that the central question is not only how do infrastructures shape cities butalso how do cities shape their infrastructures, particularly when they have little direct control overprivate and often liberalised systems? Cities face the challenge of shaping complex technological

∗Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 0953-7325 print/ISSN 1465-3990 online© 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/09537320902819213http://www.informaworld.com

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transitions – refitting new and often hybrid energy infrastructures, laying new ICT systems over oldinfrastructures, through road pricing and control technologies, introducing decentralised new andrenewable technologies into centralised systems (see Graham and Marvin 1996; Guy and Marvin2001; Guy, Marvin, and Moss 2001). Yet we lack a systemic way of understanding the role ofplaces in shaping such socio-technical transitions (Eames et al. 2006; Hodson and Marvin 2006).

Technological transitions (TT) and transition management (TM) approaches have generatedconsiderable interest in academic and policy circles in recent years (Kemp and Loorbach 2005;Rotmans and Kemp 2002; Geels 2004), where, in terms of a loose definition, a ‘transition canbe defined as a gradual, continuous process of structural change within a society or culture’(Rotmans, Kemp, and Van Asselt 2001, 2). The development of these approaches, much of whichhas occurred within the context of the Netherlands, may be seen as a response to the complexities,uncertainties and problems which confront many western societies, in organising ‘sustainably’various aspects of energy, agricultural, water, transport and health systems of production andconsumption. Problems such as pollution, congestion, the vulnerability of energy or water suppliesand so on are seen as systemic and entwined or embedded in a series of social, economic, political,cultural and technological relationships.

The systemic nature of many of these problems highlights the involvement – in the functioningof a particular system and any subsequent transition – of multiple actors or ‘stakeholders’ acrossdifferent local, national and international levels of activity. With this in mind, such problemsbecome difficult to ‘solve’ and ‘solutions’ are seen to require systemic innovation rather thanindividual or episodic responses. The point being that ‘these problems are system inherent and . . .

the solution lies in creating different systems or transforming existing ones’ (Kemp and Loorbach2005, 125).

While transitions approaches acknowledge the interplay and interpenetration of different land-scape (macro), regime (meso) and niche (micro) levels they say little explicitly about the role ofthe city and regional scale in processes of transition. This is problematic to us for three reasons.First, a significant level is not explicitly nor adequately dealt with in an approach that does takethe need for multi-level analysis seriously. Second, responsibilities for key aspects of technol-ogy, innovation and competitiveness policy have been devolved from the nation state to city andregional scales. Finally, at the city and regional scale significant efforts are now being made toshape strategically technological transitions through strategic intermediaries that mediate rela-tions systemically between technological potentials and local context. Consequently a key scaleis currently inadequately conceptualised or perhaps at worst missing from an approach that isgenerating new insights into technological transitions.

The contribution we want to make to the debate is to develop an understanding of the role ofthe urban and regional scale within technological transitions. Critically we ask in what ways andto what extent cities and regions can shape technological transitions? We address this questionin the following steps: Section 2 compares the treatment of level within two broad multi-levelapproaches to technological change. This allows us to engage with transitions debates and connectthem with recent debates around the ‘re-emergence’ of cities and regions and, in doing so, moreadequately understand their role in transitions. Section 3 examines how cities and regions shapetransitions by focusing on the critical role of place-based intermediaries that are established towork between technological possibilities and local context. We examine intermediaries’ roles indeveloping visions of the future for cities and regions through technological transitions and thework they undertake in building capacity to work towards these visions. Section 4 then takes theexample of hydrogen energy economy development in London as a means of exploring London’semerging systemic transition and the role of strategic intermediaries in building visions and

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Cities Mediating Technological Transitions 517

translating these into action. Finally, Section 5 offers conclusions around the key question of theextent to which cities and regions can shape technological transitions and develops suggestionsfor further research in this area.

2. Understanding transitions approaches and cities and regions

This section compares and contrasts the treatment of level within two multi-level approachesto technological change – first through technological transitions and second through urbanand regional governance approaches – in order to start building an enlarged conceptual under-standing of the active role of place within technological transitions. In doing so, it addressesagency in technological transitions, an issue that is often omitted or underplayed in transitionsaccounts.

2.1. Multiple levels within technological transitions

Technological transitions (TT) is a multi-level approach that focuses on three interconnectedlevels – the landscape, regime and niche. Critically these three levels ‘are not ontological descrip-tions of reality, but analytical and heuristic concepts to understand the complex dynamics ofsociotechnical change’ (Geels 2002a, 1259). Consequently these levels are understood in thefollowing ways:

First, the concept of landscape is important in seeking to understand the broader ‘conditions’,‘environment’ and ‘pressures’ for technological transitions. The landscape operates at the macrolevel and focuses on issues such as political cultures, economic growth, macro economic trends,land use and utility infrastructures (Geels 2002b, 369).

Second, the concept of regime operates at the meso level and relates to existing or incumbenttechnologies being intertwined within a configuration of institutions, practices, regulations andso on, where configurations impose a logic, regularity and varying degrees of path dependencieson technological change. Regime is defined as: ‘the whole complex of scientific knowledge, engi-neering practices, production process technologies, product characteristics, skills and procedures,established user needs, regulatory requirements, institutions and infrastructures’ (Hoogma et al.2002, 19). A regime can also exist through overlapping patchworks of related regimes including,for example, science regimes, policy regimes, technological and product regimes (Geels 2004).

Finally, there are socio-technical niches operating at a micro level. These are ‘protected spaces inwhich actors learn about novel technologies and their uses’(Geels 2002b, 365). The niche providesa context for developing radical innovations where initially ‘commercial viability might well beabsent’ (Hoogma et al. 2002, 25). This requires ‘special conditions created through subsidies andan alignment between various actors’ (Geels 2002b, 367).

Critically the interrelations between these levels are fundamental to TT because the aim of theapproach is to address not only the ‘creation of technology, but also its diffusion and utilisation’(Geels 2004, 898, original emphasis). While landscape pressure may signal broader shifts in thecontext in which technologies exist, e.g. in response to climate change – the emphasis on regimeshighlights the issues and complexity involved in enabling and or constraining new technologiesbreaking through. Often incremental forms of evolutionary change may be more likely than‘revolutionary’ change:

Such reconfiguration processes do not occur easily, because the elements in a sociotechnical config-uration are linked and aligned to each other. Radically new technologies have a hard time to break

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through, because regulations, infrastructure, user practices, maintenance networks are aligned to theexisting technology. (Geels 2002a, 1258)

Consequently in order to reconfigure rigid technological systems and ‘get the new technologyon the agenda’ there is emphasis on the potential of previously ‘unproven’ technologies as‘actors make promises and raise expectations about new technologies’ (Geels 2002b, 367). Theconstitution of new social networks and the expectations of a technology they present are impor-tant in the creation of niches where a variety of possible radical innovations can be generated inways that are ‘protected’ from the constraints of the regime:

In the niche model, lock-in and path dependency assumptions are relaxed. Various technologicaloptions can co-exist over a long period; precisely because of the existence of niches requiring otherfunctionalities . . .. Niches may also persist because actors such as firms and governments act strate-gically by keeping certain options alive which might be important for future competition or otherbroader societal goals. (Hoogma et al. 2002, 26)

Technological transitions are premised not on radical regime shifts but through a ‘stepwise processof reconfiguration’ (Geels 2002a, 1272). Regime shifts may take place over a considerable periodof time. Geels (2002a, 1262) points out that TT involves the linking of ‘multiple technologies’and that the use and development of innovations in different domains and contexts see an accu-mulation of niches – an important mechanism in gradual regime shift. Early linkages betweenniche and regime may rely on ‘link up with established technologies, often to solve particularbottlenecks’ (Geels 2002a, 1271). There is an important focus on ideas of technological add-onand hybridisation where existing and new technologies ‘form some sort of symbiosis’ (Geels2002a, 1271).

Critically the TT approach highlights the importance of the nested interrelationships of widerlandscape ‘environments’, the stability and interrelationships of regimes and the innovative pos-sibilities of niches. It outlines a way of thinking about the relationships, resources and practices,including technologies, institutions, skills, etc, that sustain existing configurations and regimesbut also addresses processes of adapting and evolving such a regime in relation to ‘pressures’ for,and contexts of, new technological possibilities and innovations through processes of branching,add-on and hybridisation, but where is the urban and regional scale in this analysis?

2.2. Bringing cities and regions to technological transitions

Thinking about different transitions contexts opens up questions about the role of place in tran-sitions. Although we are sympathetic to technological transitions’ commitment to a multi-levelanalysis and its insights into managed socio-technical change we have also struggled to conceptu-ally and empirically understand the role of cities and regions in transitions. Are cities and regionssimply convenient sites within which niches are developed or do cities and regions actively seekto pull down and make relevant landscape pressures in their distinctive local contexts? This thenbegs the questions of whether cities and regions can establish their own regimes within whichniches and transitions are able to exist.

We can only find ways of addressing these questions by stepping outside the TT framework tolook at the implications from more critical approaches to technological change that specificallyaddress the urban and regional. The ‘re-emergence’ of the city and region raises critical issues ofhow we think about the relations between place and transitions.

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While the multi-level approach is useful in understanding the distributed nature of technologicaltransitions our critical concern is that institutions, social interests and knowledge are often assumedto be ‘out there’ (Geels 2004, 902). Place is implicit within the three fold division of landscape,regime and niche. Only within the niche is the notion of place more explicit as some sort ofbounded, experimental local context. We argue that TT would clearly benefit from an appreciationof ‘multi-level governance’and the politics of scale in understanding attempts to shape transitionsin place. Key to this is the development of a conceptual framework that permits us to analysethe entangled relations and interactions of governance at different scales which inform potentialtransitions. This is particularly significant in times of increased ‘globalisation’and neo-liberalism,where the changing role of the state and issues of multi-level governance raise a whole series ofissues not only about how we might think about the city and region but also the interrelationshipsbetween regions, the local, national and supranational. How do we understand cities and regionsthrough multi-level governance in relation to the place-based shaping of technological transitions?

Critical to understanding these shifts are changes in the international economy, through thereconfiguration of national and international financial and political institutions (see Aglietta 1979)over the last three decades that have generated neo-liberal pressures for increased ‘competitive-ness’, ‘entrepreneurialism’ and ‘innovation’. This raises issues related to both governance andtechnology, in particular, the changing role of the nation-state is important, where we are seeinga shift from the Welfare State to a Competitive State (Jessop 2002). The competitive state, hasa ‘concern with technological change, innovation and enterprise and its attempt to develop newtechniques of government and governance to these ends’ (Jessop 2002, 96). Consequently newconfigurations of governance create and respond to increasing international economic compet-itiveness through encouraging (particularly technological) innovation at different scales. Thesestructural shifts have three significant implications for our understanding of cities and regions intechnological transitions:

(1) To highlight the pervasiveness of notions of ‘competitiveness’ and the ways in which thisis manifest in wider ‘pressures for’ city and regional transformation through science, tech-nology and innovation. This emphasis on a narrowly defined economic governance has alsobecome a central concern of many local authorities (see Fuller, Bennett, and Ramsden 2004).What often follows is an institutionalisation of ‘permanent innovation’ (Lovering 1999),predicated on the pervasiveness and ‘naturalisation’ in government and policy circles of thevirtues of particular forms of neo-liberal competition, a ‘race’ for competitiveness and a con-stant search for transformation at the urban and regional scale. Cities and regions developpositions on technological potentials to position themselves in the global race for economiccompetitiveness.

(2) City and regional analyses need to take account of a complex interplay of relationships atvarious political scales. Critically, this requires ‘an appreciation of the complex geometry ofpower and the political and cultural struggles through which societies assume their regionalshape’ (MacLeod and Jones 2001, 670). A focus on the ‘endogenous’ city and region and‘creating the conditions’ for city and regional socio-technical innovation often ignores whatdrives city and regional economies and in doing so underplays the differential economic,ecological and political positions of places and the wider role of the nation-state in devolvingresponsibility (but not power and resources) for technology and innovation strategies to thecity and regional development (Ward and Jonas 2004). Cities and regions are differentiallypositioned within existing social, political, economic and ecological relations (see Bulkeleyand Betshill 2005) that delimits their capacity to shape technological transitions.

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(3) Cities and regions are clearly constructed in an unfolding and structured set of social, politicaland economic relationships. Importantly, new technology and innovation is both a productof, and produces political pressures for, institutional change. Seeing the city and regionallevel as merely responding, as reactive, ignores specific relationships informing a city andregional response but also ignores attempts to shape relationships across space with a varietyof, for example, national, supranational and other city and regional government depart-ments and agencies. This highlights the importance of seeing city and regional developmentin relation to technological transitions not only through the lens of ‘endogenous’ institu-tional interrelationships, but also in terms of the influence of, and relationships with, thenation-state. Cities and regions actively and strategically work both internally and exter-nally in developing the resources, networks, and relationships to actively shape technologicaltransitions.

In summary, landscape pressures (e.g. macro economic trends, climate change, resource con-straints) are interpreted in city and regional contexts through the collective anticipations, responsesand reactions to these types of pressures of networks of institutions and individuals. These net-works inform the re-envisioning of places. We should understand this not in respect of a naïveemphasis on free agency but in terms of the prior trajectories – the logics or path dependenciesin other words – of city and regional contexts and the networks that constitute them. In this viewcities’ and regions’ role in transitions is linked to their capability to adapt and transform throughreconfiguring and adjusting urban and regional institutions of governance to technological transi-tions. The key question this raises is: what are the implications of this analysis of the re-emergenceof cities and regions for our understanding of technological transitions?

3. Sensitising technological transitions to cities and regions

A ‘multi-level governance’ approach allows us to re-focus on three sets of issues that are cur-rently weakly conceptualised and understood within existing TT approaches (see for instance thesympathetic critique by Berkhout, Smith, and Stirling 2003).

First, there is the issue of the dominance of normative visions – a key step in transitionprocesses – and the degree of problematisation that is often lacking from transitions accounts.For Berkhout, Smith, and Stirling this highlights the univalent nature of transitions approaches,especially the overplaying of consensus and the underplaying of power relationships. The criticalinsight from the ‘re-emergence of cities and regions’ is the prevalence of the particular visions per-haps most powerfully embodied in the notion of the race for technological progress and economiccompetitiveness. This means that the processes through which visions are produced requires afocus on whose views inform such visions, and importantly who is excluded, underpinned bywhat forms of expectations and aspirations as well as resources, through what mechanisms werethey negotiated, with what forms of dissent and compromise?

This, second issue, then, relates to what is often seen as a key shortcoming of transitionsapproaches – understanding the motivations, negotiations and unfolding relations of actors intransitions. Even among key transitions authors there is recognition that:

Research must first be carried out into so-called systems of interaction. Attention must be paid to thesocial and material context of interaction, and processes of co-evolution. (Rotmans, Kemp, and VanAsselt 2001, 15)

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Working through cities and regions allows us to look more critically at processes of interactionacross scales in a way that can acknowledge differential positioning, power relations and varyingcapacities and potential for adapting local contexts. This brings the suggestion that: ‘contemporaryurban regions must be conceived as pre-eminently “glocal” spaces in which multiple geographicalscales intersect in potentially highly conflictual ways’ (Brenner 1999, 438).

Finally, it also adds to our understanding of the role of government in ‘creating the conditions’fortransitions.Although the nation-state is still important so also, increasingly, are various other levelsand scales of governance that are related often in complex and different ways in various contexts. Inparticular: ‘In major urban regions throughout the EU, regionally scaled regulatory institutions arebeing planned, promoted and constructed as a means to secure place-specific locational advantagesagainst’ (Brenner 1999, 440). We increasingly need to acknowledge the role of city and regionalscales in shaping technological transitions as part of a wider devolution of responsibility, but notnecessarily powers, to reshape the technological and economic competitiveness of places.

In summary the reinsertion of cities and regions provides a way of conceptually understandingthree key insights from Berkhout and colleagues’ work, namely:

(1) The negotiated and potentially conflictual nature of visions of the future through technologicaltransitions;

(2) The related limited understanding of processes of interactions in transitions; and(3) The role of government in ‘creating the conditions’ for transitions.

This relates to our starting point that the transitions approach says little about the role of place.This, we suggest, should be rectified because of the ‘re-emergence’ of the city and regional scalein purposively shaping technological transitions.

3.1. Mediating between cities/regions and technological transitions

Thinking about the negotiation of visions, the processes of interactions involved in their productionand their consequences raises the questions: who are the social interests involved in promoting cityand regional transitions and how do we understand them and the work they do. Cities and regionsoften develop specialist intermediaries (Marvin and Medd 2004) who seek to shape relationshipsstrategically between technology and local context.

Intermediaries are deliberately (rather than neutrally) positioned to act in-between by bringingtogether and mediating between different social interests. Intermediaries position themselves tohave a particular role in literally intermediating between sets of different social interests (andtechnology), to produce an outcome that would not have been possible, or as effective, withouttheir involvement. Such intermediaries we could say are defined by their function: they become‘strategic’ intermediaries.

The role of intermediaries in shaping technological transitions has been examined by Van Lenteet al. (2003). Within a transitions context intermediaries play key roles for three reasons. First,intermediaries play an important role as a broker by connecting, translating and facilitating flowsof knowledge between different parties. They situate this within the context of a move from ‘mono-disciplinary’ to ‘multi-disciplinary’ forms of knowledge production. The latter requires multipleand varied interactions between the world of research and users, and consequently, this creates a‘breeding ground’for the development of strategic, intermediary functions’(Van Lente et al. 2003,65). Second, they cite a variety of organisations that function as intermediaries: knowledge inten-sive business services; research and technology organisations; industry associations; chambers of

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commerce; innovation centres; university liaison offices. Each of these offers different types ofintermediation between different actors and they distinguish between ‘hard’ functions (transfer ofknowledge, provision of specific technical services) and ‘soft’ functions (management support,organizational and institutional aspects). Finally, they argue that due to the changing characteris-tics of innovation systems, namely a move to systemic transitions, so too the roles and functions ofintermediaries are changing. More specifically, they argue there is a shift towards the emergenceof ‘systemic intermediaries’. They argue that, in contrast to intermediaries that work primarily inone-to-one interactions, that is bi-laterally, these new systemic intermediaries work at the networklevel and offer support at the strategic level. The specific functions that these intermediaries per-form will vary in different contexts, but broadly will involve ‘articulation of options and demands’,‘alignment of actors and possibilities’, and support ‘learning processes’.

The critical issue for us is how do place based systemic intermediaries established by cities andregions attempt to purposively shape and manage technological transitions.

3.2. Intermediaries in cities and regions: how do they work?

With the increasing responsibilities devolved to cities and regions to shape technology and inno-vation, specialist network intermediaries are being developed within places to shape technologicaltransitions. These intermediaries are usually cross-sectoral in composition, network based (ratherthan bi-lateral), with a focus on a broad technological sector (rather than a single technology) andcan be characterised as transition managers within a particular local context. There are two keysets of activities that characterise their work.

The first is the work involved in developing place-based images of technological transitions.Intermediaries develop a collective but particular understanding of existing city and regional con-texts (either from ‘within’ or ‘outside’ the city and region) and they position themselves betweentechnological possibilities and local contexts to re-think city and regional contexts through tech-nological transitions. In doing this, they identify (multiple) points of intervention within existingand new systems of provision (between systems of production and consumption). In the languageof transitions they develop a ‘vision’ of a transition of the city or region which takes (a particular)account and attribution of city and regional history and outlines a vision of transition. Visions arenot fixed and will change over time with the variety of social interests who become involved.

The second role is in the governance of place-based transitions. Intermediaries build social net-works of actors who either position themselves favourably in relation to the debate or whom arepositioned by the intermediary. These actors can operate at various scales (local, national, inter-national scales) and may be public or private, governmental or non-governmental. The potentialinvolvement of multiple actors needs acknowledgement that they are embedded in particular insti-tutional settings with associated institutional enablement and constraints, and views of the city orregion, in pursuing their expectations (i.e. they are not ‘free agents’). This raises the possibilityof a variety of expectations (see Van Lente 1993) of city and regional technological transitionsfrom multiple institutional positions. In short, intermediaries ‘manage’ processes and governanceof city and regional transitions.

4. Researching intermediaries, cities/regions and technological transitions: the caseof London’s hydrogen economy

Our argument is that transitions unfold in particular places and that places are differentiallypositioned in terms of their ability to inform transitions. The concept of systemic intermediaries

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allows us to address the extent to which particular places, here cities and regions, strategicallyshape technological transitions. In doing this, we suggest that understanding the early stages oftransitions in particular cities and regions mean we address the following three issues:

(1) Outlining the vision that has been developed for a particular place-based transition.(2) Also to understand the negotiations of these visions:

(i) The social actors involved(ii) The expectations from different positions embodied in them – this requires a focus not

only on ‘endogenous’ relationships within cities and regions but also on the ‘exogenous’relationships with national government, private capital, etc.

(3) Step 1 allows us to outline particular place-based visions and step 2 informs how we look notonly at the vision but also at the differently positioned social actors involved in the productionof the vision and attempts to translate the vision into action. In this respect this requires afocus on the mediation of visions and actions. We are, thus, interested in the role intermediaryorganisations play between visions and territorial manifestations of these visions.

We approach these three issues through a case study of recent attempts to position London as ahydrogen energy economy.1 There have been numerous attempts to define the hydrogen economy(see Romm 2006; Rifkin 2002), which may be broadly understood as the widespread use ofhydrogen as a fuel for transport, heat and electricity generation, and there have been enthusiasticattempts to develop a hydrogen economy in the London City-region (Mayor of London 2004a).We take London as a focus specifically because of the complexity of its governing arrangements,especially with the new formal governance for Greater London in 2000 (see Travers 2004).

4.1. Outlining two emerging visions

Our focus is now on outlining the two dominant emerging visions of attempts to re-imagineLondon through hydrogen: (1) ‘the progressive urban governance of London’ and (2) ‘the politicsof the showcase city’.

Emerging vision 1: envisioning the progressive urban governance of LondonNew governance arrangements since 2000, and in particular the role of the mayor Ken Livingstone2

has seen Livingstone keen to position London as a world leader in re-fashioning ‘progressive’urban governance through a series of statutory and non-statutory strategies that address issues ofclimate change and air quality (Mayor of London 2002), noise (2004c), economic development(2005), energy (2004a) and transport (2001).

A central issue in terms of energy strategy was increasing renewable energy generation at theexpense of fossil fuels, with an emphasis on ‘cleaner’ energy generation including encouragingcommunity-level and small-scale combined heat and power (CHP) systems. In particular, themayor focused on the introduction and increased ‘take-up’ of ‘cleaner’ road vehicles, ‘cleanerfuels’, ‘low emission zones’ in specified parts of London and in the ‘longer term’ increasing ‘take-up’ of zero emission vehicles, which would include hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. This ‘inward’focus also sat alongside a more ‘outward’ facing view of London positioning itself as a ‘worldleader’ and making ‘London a leading city for sustainable energy’ (Mayor of London 2004a,8). Within this there was seen to be the potential for London to create a ‘competitive edge’ indeveloping its ‘green economy’ which would have wider resonances in terms of its contributionto the British economy generally.

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Livingstone aspires that by 2050 ‘London has a radically different energy system to that whichcharacterized the 20th century’ (Mayor of London 2004a, 7). In this vision: ‘Our road transportis characterised by highly efficient, quiet, and pollution-free hydrogen fuel cell vehicles’ (Mayorof London 2004a, 7). There is, furthermore, extensive use of renewable energy sources, CHP atthe domestic, community and business and industry levels, and a ‘decentralised energy systemhas provided the foundations for an emerging hydrogen economy’ (Mayor of London 2004a, 7).

A senior policy advisor to the mayor with a close understanding of the mayor’s thinking onthese issues argued that:

He [the mayor] wanted to be at the forefront of the world. He wanted to be seen as the city in theworld that’s leading on the hydrogen economy.3

In being an ‘early mover’, however, a substantial amount of work is required to realise this objective(Mayor of London 2004b). In particular the proposal is that transport, which accounts for around20% of energy consumption in London, could underpin the development of a hydrogen economy,particularly given the large number of fleet vehicles and public transport. This could exploit the‘large potential market for hydrogen’ (Mayor of London 2004b, 86) and also the developmentof refuelling infrastructure that ‘could “fan out” to the rest of the country’ (Mayor of London2004b, 86). In this sense, London is represented as not only a ‘world leader’ but also as a nationalexemplar of the development of the hydrogen economy.

What is evident from this strategy is the different scales of activity for London to operate at interms of the city’s effort to develop the hydrogen economy. These include the unproblematicallyspecified ‘race’ to be first mover in relation to other ‘world cities’, to ‘fan out’ refuelling infras-tructure across the UK from London, but also to be able to deal with local level air quality andfuel poverty.

Emerging vision 2: envisioning the politics of the showcase cityA second key emerging vision we characterise as the politics of the showcase city. Here thecentral concern is with the question of how a future London was envisioned by a variety ofactors ‘exogenous’ to the city. The Clean Urban Transport Europe (CUTE) initiative offers auseful example of the politics of the showcase city, one that is characterised by a coalition ofsupranational political interests and multinational capital. CUTE was underpinned by a ‘public–private partnership’established at the end of 2001 and involved the demonstration, over two years,of 27 fuel cell powered buses in nine European cities (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Hamburg, London,Luxembourg, Madrid, Porto, Stockholm and Stuttgart). It is claimed that this was the largest fuelcell transport demonstration fleet in the world (European Commission nd, 26). The initiative waspart-funded by the European Commission, which contributed around ¤21 million out of total costsof ¤60 million. The remainder of the funding came from a variety of commercial interests in thepartnership. The network built around the initiative was brought together by a large automotiveproducer, Daimler-Chrysler, and included a central role for the energy provider BP and also BOCas a supplier of hydrogen.

In undertaking these demonstrations objectives were largely related to the technical and costperformance of particular technologies and combinations of technologies within cities. Citieswere frequently represented in terms of places from which performance data could be extracted.Different combinations of hydrogen production, distribution, storage and ‘end use’ technologieswere to be demonstrated in various cities. Figure 1, taken from the CUTE project’s own GeneralIntroduction Brochure, provides illustrations as to how the different combinations were viewed

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Figure 1. Cities as showcases for assemblages of technologies.Source: European Commission nd.

in relation to different cities, with different notions of the production, distribution, storage andutilisation of hydrogen.

Cities were viewed as places within which combinations of technologies could be demonstratedunder ‘different operating conditions’ to be found in Europe. This would also facilitate the ‘design,construction and operation of the necessary infrastructure for hydrogen production and refuellingstations’. The types of data to be ‘extracted’ included: ‘safety, standardisation and operatingbehaviour of production for mobile and stationary use, and exchange of experiences including busoperation under differing conditions among the numerous participating companies for replication’.There would also be a focus on an: ‘Ecological, technical and economical analysis of the entirelife cycle and comparison with conventional alternatives’ and the ‘quantification of the abatementof CO2 at European level and contribution to commitments of Kyoto’ as well as ‘investigating theacceptance of these vehicles’ (European Commission nd, 2).

This vision of cities and hydrogen technologies and demonstrations was largely producedthrough social interests ‘exogenous’ to the demonstrator cities and also viewing of the cities assites for demonstration and showcasing of technologies. This subsequently required differential

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forms of political negotiations between actors within local contexts. In this respect, and also tovarying degrees, ‘more than 40 organisations throughout Europe and the rest of the world arenow involved in the project’ (European Commission nd, 4) – although local networks of transportproviders, energy suppliers, political support and so-on varied.

The London demonstration, which commenced in 2003, included three fuel cell buses oper-ating on the streets of London. In doing this, understanding the politics of the showcase city inLondon required not only an appreciation of the networks of multinational capital, the EuropeanCommission and their expectations and aspirations but also the relationships that were negotiatedwith the organisational and institutional context within London. This brought together a networkof interests which included Daimler-Chrysler, BP, London Buses and its operator First Group andthe Energy Savings Trust.

4.2. Intermediaries and negotiating London hydrogen futures

The development of and attempts to translate into action these two visions of hydrogen economydevelopment in London were negotiated within the context of two strategic intermediaries: theLondon Hydrogen Partnership and a public–private partnership of the CUTE initiative.

The London Hydrogen Partnership as strategic intermediaryThe vision of London as a world leader in progressive urban governance can be understood interms of the possibilities and constraints on the relatively new role of mayor to develop strategicagendas of personal interest. This needs to be set within the context where resources available tothe mayor were generally low (Rydin et al. 2004) and, crucially, where there was a heavy relianceon central government for funding resources (Sweeting 2003). This combination of a degree ofmayoral discretion and limited resources provides the context within which we can understandthe role of new governing arrangements in London and the relationships struck up from withinthis context.

With this in mind, the mayor, Ken Livingstone, attempted to define his role particularly throughstrategies that addressed themes of environmental concern, economic regeneration, social equityand a ‘world’ leadership role for London. Furthermore, the vision of a future London would beshaped in terms of a more socially equitable and environmentally friendly relationship betweenproduction and consumption interests but also around being a ‘leader’, and a business attractor inrespect of environmental technologies, here particularly, the hydrogen economy.

In attempting to move from these aspirations to being, as one of Livingstone’s policy advisorstold us, ‘the city in the world that’s leading on the hydrogen economy’ there was a key rolefor policy advisors in developing the mayoral agenda. This chimes with other work which hasoutlined the role of policy advisors in influencing Livingstone’s policy agenda (Rydin et al. 2004).An advisor pointed out to us the role of policy advisors in such a process:

I mean if you take it back to how some of these things started, Ken will have said at some speech,right we’re going to become the lead on the hydrogen economy or something.

The key movement then was in the active interpretation of policy advisors: ‘And then [our job is]to interpret that and try and make it happen’. ‘Making it happen’ required understanding and locatingthe ‘relevant people’ in the Greater London Authority (GLA), communicating the mayor’s aspirationsoutlining that: ‘this is what the mayor wants to happen. Go away and work on it. Come up with an ideaof how we can implement it.’ In addressing this the ‘relevant people’ come back to policy advisors‘with problems, lists of options and things which we can then either help with or, if necessary, takethem to the mayor for him to make a decision’.

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Fleshing this process out accounts in many ways for the development and structures of the LondonHydrogen Partnership (LHP) – which encapsulates many aspects of a strategic intermediary –through which endeavours were being made to develop a London hydrogen economy. Attemptsto develop hydrogen and fuel cell initiatives, which address the mayoral agenda, have been under-taken under the auspices of the LHP since April 2002 (LHP 2002). The LHP functions in supportof four key aims: (1) to produce and implement the London Hydrogen Action Plan as a ‘routemap for clean energy’; (2) to establish and maintain dialogue among all sectors/actors relevant tothe hydrogen economy; (3) the dissemination of relevant materials; and (4) to provide a platformfor funding bids and initiation of projects (LHP 2003).4

The underpinnings of the LHP were first of all via ‘internal’ GLA discussions as to what the‘relevance’ of a hydrogen economy might be to the GLA and how might a hydrogen economybe achieved through ‘partnership’. The role of ‘partnership’ was central to the constitution of aLondon hydrogen economy, where an Action Plan became the embodiment of and embodied by abroad-base of different social interests. This, according to a GLA official centrally involved in thedevelopment of the LHP, placed an emphasis on the drafting and re-drafting of the Action Planas a ‘long-term visioning document . . . to try to shape everybody’s thinking and bring everybodyalong’. The view was that an Action Plan would not only flesh out what a hydrogen economycould look like and sketch steps to get there but was also fundamental to ensuring that ‘we[achieved] consensus’. This needs to be understood in a context where the role of mayor andthe GLA were relatively undefined and required ‘getting them [institutions of the GLA] up andrunning, as much as making any bold or radical policy statements’ and that ‘this – as much as anygenuflection on Livingstone’s part – is ensuring that he pursue an ideologically uncontroversialpolicy of co-operation and partnership within London’ (McNeill 2002, 77, original emphasis).

This search for ‘consensus’, captures the interpenetration of actors from various scales of polit-ical activity, which included representation from the GLA and national government departmentsand agencies, business and industry and academia, predicated on and lubricated by the proxim-ity of national, city-regional and multinational political, academic and business interests in theLondon goldfish bowl. The LHP was organised, see Figure 2, around a Steering Group (chairedby the Deputy Mayor), a Forum (a meeting and networking forum) and five Task Groups (Sta-tionary Applications; Transport Applications; Infrastructure & Renewables; Safety & Regulation;Skills, Training & Communications) with the broad spread of interest involved providing a contextwithin which London was positioning itself as ‘prepared’ for the multifarious possibilities of thehydrogen economy.

‘Public–private partnerships’ as strategic intermediariesThe vision of London as a showcase city is informed by a small number of supranational and multi-national capital interests. Both Daimler-Chrysler, as a leading automobile producer, and BP, in itsrole as a petroleum supplier, viewed the CUTE initiative as providing a context within which ‘alter-native’ technologies and non-fossil based fuels could be developed, demonstrated and showcasedin a variety of urban contexts – of which London was one – and subsequently re-developed.

For BP, according to a leading member of its Hydrogen Team, ‘as an energy company hydrogenpresents both a massive opportunity and potentially a massive threat to our business if we don’t playit in the right way. So a lot of what we do in the Hydrogen Team is to manage risk for BP’. This wasparticularly important within the frame and discourse of a competitive ‘race’ among automobileand petroleum companies and informed anticipations about future commercial trajectories thathydrogen and fuel cells were seen as one set of technologies among a range of possible futuretechnologies.

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Figure 2. Structure of the London Hydrogen Partnership.Source: London Hydrogen Partnership 2003.

In terms of the key role of the European Commission in the CUTE initiative, it had a focusnot only on a targets approach to CO2 emissions reduction but also in promoting the utilisationof hydrogen and fuel cell technologies and in understanding different configurations of technolo-gies in contexts. This view of technologies in action cut across EU policies on CO2 emissionreductions – in particular traffic emissions – sustainable transport and diversifying energy supply.Additionally, the coalition of interests brought together in a ‘public–private partnership’, as astrategic intermediary, was a means of developing and highlighting ‘European competitiveness’in what was seen to be a key strategic area but also in a ‘Europe-wide’ focus that informed andfed-back into the unfolding development of an EU hydrogen and fuel cells strategy (EuropeanCommission 2003). In undertaking the CUTE initiative an official from the European Union’s(EU’s) Directorate-General for Energy and Transport (DGTREN) highlighted the crucial impor-tance of involving multinational capital in the project, claiming the initiative ‘wouldn’t havehappened at all were it not for the likes of Daimler-Chrysler, and then, later on the energy com-panies driving it forwards and putting the whole proposal together . . . and then putting out to thecities for interest if you like’. This was as: ‘You need the major manufacturers involved to bringthis new technology forward or to drive this technology forward’.

The rationale, according to a source in the EU’s DGTREN closely involved in CUTE under-pinning this ‘real life experimentation’, was radical social and technical transformation, and inparticular, transforming energy infrastructures and the automobile industry, from one way of doingthings to something radically different. In terms of trying to address this way of understandinglarge-scale social and technical change the claim was made that multiple fuel cell buses andassociated infrastructures needed, in a series of highly ‘visible’ cities, to be ‘tested-out’ under a‘variety of conditions’.

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4.3. Consequences: negotiating a vision within London and a vision from outside of London

The key issue these – both competing and complementary – visions of a future London in relation tothe hydrogen economy raise is in the way in which the strategic intermediary provided the contextwithin which the particular politics and values of multiple social interests were negotiated andtranslated into a collective view of the role of the city in technological transitions.

Although a vision of progressive urban governance acknowledged the importance of London’sposition as a world city in a ‘globalised’economy, its emphasis was largely on the politics of urbangovernance ‘within’ London – or on developing a politics of progressive urban governance, of‘inclusivity’ and ‘partnership’, within a context of globalisation. In the case of the hydrogen econ-omy, this was underpinned by a strategic intermediary that attempted to create a context withinwhich various social interests from London civil society could develop dialogue and a positionaround translating the hydrogen economy from aspiration into a material reality. In respect ofthe LHP, this meant bringing together representatives of London’s political institutions, regu-latory interests as well as those of public services and academia. It also meant engaging withrepresentatives of multinational capital to develop a progressive urban politics primarily from‘within’ London.

Following the setting-up of the LHP there were a small number of material manifestationsof hydrogen demonstration projects (for example, a hydrogen generator powering the Christmastree lights in Trafalgar Square in 2004) but also a number of cultural events (such as a publiclecture by the hydrogen economy ‘guru’, Jeremy Rifkin). Yet in many ways attempts to affecta move from a vision to ‘delivering’ on the agenda of progressive urban governance was seenas problematic. This was largely due to a ‘limited engagement’ by multinational capital, in theview of a GLA official closely involved in the development of the GLA or the over ‘inclusivity’of the GLA according to a representative of multinational capital who sat on the LHP. The GLAofficial told us that the private sector ‘see the public sector putting the majority of the funding inand they know when to come into make things happen. And in a sense the wrong people havebeen in the room for that’. One view from the Multinational Corporation (MNC) representativewas to claim, pejoratively, that the LHP was a ‘talking shop’. This source blamed the ‘inclusivity’of an array of social interests in developing a future London hydrogen economy and a ‘lack offinancial resources’ allocated to the initiative and suggested that the hydrogen economy was a‘big boys’ game’. The strong inference being one of the desirability and indeed necessity of anarrowly instrumental view of a London hydrogen economy as the domain of multinational capitalrather than of engaging with the ‘inclusivity’ of a politics of progressive urban governance. Thishighlights the difficulties faced by a strategic intermediary, such as the LHP, which seeks to ‘holdtogether’a wide variety of social interests with multifarious sets of values and expectations withina context where, given the relative limitations on resources of the mayor, initiatives need to beattractive to multinational capital.

In contrast to a politics of progressive urban governance, it is helpful to see the public–privatepartnership of the CUTE project as a strategic intermediary which largely, though not exclusively,produced a vision of a future London hydrogen economy from the ‘outside’or external to London.The public–private partnership around CUTE brought together a small number of supranationalpolitical and multinational capital social interests. The significance of this is that their interestswere by and large not deeply embedded in institutions in London. London was seen as a showcase,a test-bed to test-out technologies.

The notion of what we would characterise as a test-bed is interesting in that it also appealsto the competition among ‘world’ and ‘European’ cities in attracting such demonstrations. In

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this respect, according to a DG TREN official: ‘[Daimler-Chrysler] invited all the [participating]cities to explain to them what they intended to do’. There was, furthermore, a view of cities as‘laboratories’ where there is what ‘we call an assessment framework for the project which islike in a laboratory. You don’t start messing around with elements and liquids and things in thelaboratory’ without defining ‘how you are going to measure all the reactions that are going tohappen in this place that you are doing the experiment and how you are going to monitor all that’.

This view of cities as laboratories resonates with the notion of cities as ‘containers’ (Amin andThrift 2002) and largely ignores the circulatory flows and multi-level processes through whichcities are constituted. The reference to reactions informs a view that the hydrogen economy wouldbe done to cities. Cities in this view of the hydrogen economy were seen as colonies of corporatecapital and sites for the ‘dropping in’of technologies. The point being that cities were competing tobe colonised by corporate interests; competing to render the politics of the city subject to a degreeof abdication to corporate interests who viewed cities as ‘laboratories’ within which ‘reactions’could be ‘measured’, extracted and utilised to inform a next generation of technological artefacts.This view of the city fails to acknowledge possibilities of local agency.

Of course there is considerable overlap between these distinctive visions of a future Londonhydrogen economy. This overlap is now being – and has previously been – made explic-itly in proclamations from within London, so that the logic of progressive urban governanceand of London as a showcase are continually being re-negotiated. This is encapsulated in aninitiative where:

The mayor of London aims to introduce 70 new hydrogen vehicles to London by 2010 and is askingthe transport industry to get ready to deliver the necessary vehicles and refuelling technology . . ..Work has already started to achieve this: Transport for London has begun the procurement processfor 10 new hydrogen fuelled buses. The mayor is working with the Metropolitan Police Authority andLondon Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, as well as Transport for London, to deliver and runthe other sixty hydrogen vehicles. (LHP 2006)

Where the LHP also sees its emerging role as being one of collaborating with other urban cen-tres and bridging the gap between its vision of progressive urban governance and London as ashowcase to:

move London to a position of leadership on this issue around Europe and around the world, andsend[ing] a strong signal to industry that London is the place to come to deliver hydrogen vehicles.The LHP is looking to join up with other cities and regions in the world to speed up development ofthis technology. (LHP 2006)

The significant issue is the extent to which different social interests that constitute the city from‘within’ are able to envision and enact their collective view of the future of the city, the extent towhich those ‘external’ to the city are able to shape visions and actions in respect of the future ofthe city, and/or the extent to which these two positions are negotiated.

Critically, hitherto, there has been strictly limited overlap and coupling between these twointermediaries which crucially perform different intermediary roles, where (1) in the case of theLHP social interests within the city actively mediate between technological possibility and thecity to try and re-shape London’s energy infrastructure from within and (2) the CUTE public–private partnership intermediary largely acts as a conduit for social interests ‘outside’ of the cityto re-shape London’s transport infrastructure and views the city as a recipient of socio-technicalchange. Where there have been overlaps it has not been through formal collaboration betweenthe two intermediaries but through less formalised links between social interests from each of

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the intermediary contexts. This has included, for example, the mayor’s highly public support forthe CUTE initiative in London, representatives from BP and BOC sitting on the Steering Groupof the LHP and through London Buses – who are responsible for achieving the environmentaltargets and standards for the bus fleet as required by the Mayor’s Air Quality Strategy – workingwith the bus operator First London and BP on the CUTE project in London.

5. Conclusions

This paper has examined whether cities can shape technological transitions and, if so, to whatextent can these be regarded as strategic or systemic in orientation. In addressing this question wehave acknowledged the strengths but also identified a number of shortcomings of technologicaltransitions approaches, particularly in terms of the treatment of cities and regions which are oftenthe places where transitions take place and are often actively shaped by territorial priorities. Thefocus on exploring the possibilities of cities and regions shaping technological transitions wehave suggested is particularly important in view of the contemporary ‘re-emergence’ of citiesand regions as scales of political activity in a period when we are seeing a degree of ‘hollowingout’ of nation-states and a re-articulation of relationships between the national and other scalesof political activities.

The paper has developed a synthesis between transitions literatures with those of multi-levelgovernance. This enabled us to highlight the continuous pressure on cities and regions constantlyto re-think their economic futures strategically. Pushing this further, we detailed the emerging roleof strategic intermediaries as a fruitful focus for researching the ways in which cities and regionsnot only seek to re-think their futures strategically but to do so in relation to visions of systemictechnological transitions. There are five key conclusions.

First, we have undertaken a detailed case study of London that systematically and criticallyexamines the complex relations between technological possibilities and urban context, that areembodied in visions, and the types of interrelationships and the different forms of knowledgewhich strategic intermediary organisations selectively ‘bundle together’. Central to these activ-ities and practices is the formation of relationships both inside and outside London across arange of different scales of governance from the neighbourhood, to city-region, national state andsupranational as well as with multi-national capital.

Second, we have clearly demonstrated the simultaneous co-existence of different visions ofurban futures in relation to the ‘same’ set of energy technologies. This highlights the key role ofparticular and political social interests, their views of the city and its future transition throughparticular technologies and the organisational forms of strategic intermediaries in creating thecontext through which these social interests and their visions can be ‘held together’. Strategicintermediaries seek to hold together these visions, which are at times in tension with each other,in order effectively to manage internal and external expectations and political networks.

Third, the large world cities such as London, with well-established governance structures, inour view, seek to position themselves (and are positioned by national governments) as transitionmanagers rather than as managers of a bundle of niche experiments. While cities may organisea series of local niche experiments, we argue that world cities also seek to engage with andput pressure on regimes to create more conducive and supportive environments for their urbantransition and also actively seek to influence landscape pressures. For instance, London has activerelationships with national government positioning itself as a national and international exemplarof the hydrogen economy (Hodson and Marvin 2007). London is actively positioning itself asthe national exemplar and is also positioned by national government as a national exemplar that

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actively shapes national and regional energy policies and priorities. Through the coalitions builtwith other world cities and multinational capital the hydrogen bus initiatives could be significantlyextended if current plans are successful.

Finally, having highlighted a central role for strategic intermediaries and the work they performin producing visions of urban socio-technical futures, a future research agenda should engage withthese issues through comparative work with world cities such as London but also explore whatthe role of strategic intermediaries is in envisioning futures of medium-sized and smaller cities.However, comparative work could usefully examine these issues.

There are a number of potential areas and questions that would be worthy of future research.First, analysing the differential capacity of city and regions and their intermediaries to shapeand manage technological transitions. Although world cities may have the resources, governancecapacity and networks to act as transition managers what about ‘ordinary cities’, old indus-trial cities and mega cities of the developing world? We recognise that other cities may wellhave constrained adaptability in their capacity to develop strategic intermediaries to act as transi-tion managers (Hodson 2008). Do these cities ‘passively receive or consume’ rather than ‘activelyshape’ the development of systematic transitions? Second, there would be value in further explor-ing the interrelationships between global cities, networks of global cities, national governmentand corporate capital. Are these cities being actively positioned by states and corporate capitalas key sites for shaping and developing transitions? Do cities even replace national research pro-grammes and national corporate interests as the national exemplars and promoters of technologicaltransitions?

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of both the UK Sustainable Hydrogen Energy Consortium, funded through the UKEPSRC, and the CREATE Acceptance project, funded through the European Commission’s Sixth Framework Programme,in undertaking this work. We also offer our thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their critically constructive engagementwith the arguments developed in the paper.

Notes on contributors

Mike Hodson’s research interests focus on sub-national transitions to low-carbon economies, the ways in which this mayor may not happen and understandings of the lessons to be learned from such processes. He has published widely on thisagenda and in particular has addressed the relationships between sub-national territories and the reconfiguration of theirkey socio-technical infrastructures in a period of globalisation, neoliberalisation and in a context of the challenges posedby climate change and resource constraint.

Simon Marvin is an international expert on the co-development of cities and their socio-technical networks. More recentlyhis work has focused on understanding how new styles of urbanism are being developed in response to climate changeand resource constraint which it is claimed can build ecological security for the world largest cities. Simon has publishedextensively on these issues and themes in and has been co-author on several influential and significant books on cities andsocio-technical systems including (with Steve Graham) Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, TechnologicalMobilities and the Urban Condition.

Notes

1. Research took place in two phases. First between January 2004 and January 2005 and then inAugust 2006, and included18 interviews with leading officials in the Greater London Authority, and in national government departments, at localand supranational scales and also included interviews with industrialists and consultants. Additionally, we drew on arich body of policy and organisational documentation – both in terms of those in the public sphere and some internalorganisational/departmental documents made available to us on the basis that content and names were not directly

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drawn upon – and of a number of web sites. We undertook further observational work and a series of informaldiscussions at a series of ‘relevant’ workshops.

2. Ken Livingstone was replaced as mayor by Boris Johnson in May 2008.3. All quotes have been anonymised as agreed, in negotiations to undertake interviews, with interviewees.4. Also see http://www.lhp.org.uk/article_flat.fcm?subsite=1676&articleid=170 (accessed 28 August 2006).

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cities mediating technological transitions: understanding visions, intermediation and consequences

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