IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v39y2010i4p477-485.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can cities shape socio-technical transitions and how would we know if they were?

Author

Listed:
  • Hodson, Mike
  • Marvin, Simon

Abstract

This paper asks two - relatively simple - questions: can cities shape socio-technical transitions? And how would we know if they were? There are three key objectives. The first of these is to set out emerging, and in our view, convincing evidence, that large world cities have political aspirations to develop purposive and managed change in the socio-technical organisation of infrastructure networks that can be characterised as 'systemic' transitions. The second objective is conceptual in orientation and seeks to address how we understand transitions at the scale of the city, the role of 'the city' in undertaking transitions, and review both the strengths and shortcomings of the multi-level perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions in addressing this. The third objective is to identify what an urban transition would look like, and then constructs a new framework to conceptualise and research urban transitions. The paper then summarises the key aspects and implications of our argument.

Suggested Citation

  • Hodson, Mike & Marvin, Simon, 2010. "Can cities shape socio-technical transitions and how would we know if they were?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 477-485, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:39:y:2010:i:4:p:477-485
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048-7333(10)00034-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Smith, Adrian & Stirling, Andy & Berkhout, Frans, 2005. "The governance of sustainable socio-technical transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1491-1510, December.
    2. Brenner, Neil, 2004. "New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270064.
    3. Verbong, Geert & Geels, Frank, 2007. "The ongoing energy transition: Lessons from a socio-technical, multi-level analysis of the Dutch electricity system (1960-2004)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 1025-1037, February.
    4. Rutger Brugge & Jan Rotmans, 2007. "Towards transition management of European water resources," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 21(1), pages 249-267, January.
    5. Mike Hodson & Simon Marvin, 2009. "‘Urban Ecological Security’: A New Urban Paradigm?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1), pages 193-215, March.
    6. Geels, Frank W., 2002. "Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(8-9), pages 1257-1274, December.
    7. Geels, Frank W., 2004. "From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6-7), pages 897-920, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Geels, Frank W., 2012. "A socio-technical analysis of low-carbon transitions: introducing the multi-level perspective into transport studies," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 471-482.
    2. Markard, Jochen & Truffer, Bernhard, 2008. "Technological innovation systems and the multi-level perspective: Towards an integrated framework," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 596-615, May.
    3. Canitez, Fatih, 2019. "Pathways to sustainable urban mobility in developing megacities: A socio-technical transition perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 319-329.
    4. Katherine Daniell & Jean-Daniel Rinaudo & Noel Wai Wah Chan & Céline Nauges & Quentin Grafton, 2015. "Understanding and Managing Urban Water in Transition," Post-Print hal-01290502, HAL.
    5. Jano-Ito, Marco A. & Crawford-Brown, Douglas, 2016. "Socio-technical analysis of the electricity sector of Mexico: Its historical evolution and implications for a transition towards low-carbon development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 567-590.
    6. Svensson, Oscar & Nikoleris, Alexandra, 2018. "Structure reconsidered: Towards new foundations of explanatory transitions theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 462-473.
    7. Coenen, Lars & Benneworth, Paul & Truffer, Bernhard, 2012. "Toward a spatial perspective on sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 968-979.
    8. Genus, Audley & Coles, Anne-Marie, 2008. "Rethinking the multi-level perspective of technological transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1436-1445, October.
    9. Sorrell, Steve, 2018. "Explaining sociotechnical transitions: A critical realist perspective," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(7), pages 1267-1282.
    10. Katherine A. Daniell & Jean-Daniel Rinaudo & Noel Chan & Céline Nauges & Quentin Grafton, 2015. "Understanding and Managing Urban Water in Transition," Post-Print hal-01183846, HAL.
    11. Safarzyńska, Karolina & Frenken, Koen & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2012. "Evolutionary theorizing and modeling of sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1011-1024.
    12. Fuenfschilling, Lea & Truffer, Bernhard, 2014. "The structuration of socio-technical regimes—Conceptual foundations from institutional theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 772-791.
    13. Blal Adem Esmail & Lina Suleiman, 2020. "Analyzing Evidence of Sustainable Urban Water Management Systems: A Review through the Lenses of Sociotechnical Transitions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-45, June.
    14. Zhu, Bing & Nguyen, Mai & Sarm Siri, Nang & Malik, Ashish, 2022. "Towards a transformative model of circular economy for SMEs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 545-555.
    15. Pradeep Racherla & Munir Mandviwalla, 2013. "Moving from Access to Use of the Information Infrastructure: A Multilevel Sociotechnical Framework," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 709-730, September.
    16. Barbanente, Angela & Grassini, Laura, 2022. "Fostering transitions in landscape policies: A multi-level perspective," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    17. Alessandro Grimaldi & Antonio Lopolito & Massimo Monteleone & Piergiuseppe Morone & Maurizio Prosperi, 2009. "Wp 6: Modelling Stakeholder Interplay And Policy Scenarios For Biorefinery And Biodiesel Production," Quaderni DSEMS 02-2009, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Matematiche e Statistiche, Universita' di Foggia.
    18. Vincent-Paul Sanon & Raymond Ouedraogo & Patrice Toé & Hamid El Bilali & Erwin Lautsch & Stefan Vogel & Andreas H. Melcher, 2021. "Socio-Economic Perspectives of Transition in Inland Fisheries and Fish Farming in a Least Developed Country," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-34, March.
    19. Geels, Frank W., 2006. "The hygienic transition from cesspools to sewer systems (1840-1930): The dynamics of regime transformation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 1069-1082, September.
    20. Anthony McLean & Harriet Bulkeley & Mike Crang, 2016. "Negotiating the urban smart grid: Socio-technical experimentation in the city of Austin," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(15), pages 3246-3263, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:39:y:2010:i:4:p:477-485. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.