Work on regions and technologically informed innovation has often focused on high-tech regions as exemplars of apparent success in economic development. This paper, by contrast, focuses on understanding how regions transform themselves in respect of pervasive pressures, in relation to old industrial regions. In particular, the possible tensions between pressures for transformation and the potential obduracy of social, cultural, and institutional interrelationships are highlighted by reflection on the broad body of work termed the 'new regionalism'. Four issues are raised and then are integrated to develop an approach to researching the tensions between pressures for transformation and the obduracy of old industrial regions. The paper examines a case study of the early stages of a particular technologically informed innovation—a hydrogen economy development—in an old industrial 'region': Teesside in northeast England. After consideration of this case study I highlight four important issues in the conclusion that are raised during exploration of tensions of obduracy and transformation in an old industrial region.
1. Introduction -- 2. Low carbon Britain as spaces of experimentation -- 3. Re-engineering state low carbon architecture -- 4. Exclusive capabilities and low carbon strategies -- 5. Scotland : the low carbon 'Saudi Arabia'? -- 6. Wales : knitting, prioritising and bounding the low carbon region -- 7. Northeast England : the low carbon industrial phoenix? -- 8. Greater London : the race for the low carbon capital -- 9. Greater Manchester : low carbon economic boosterism -- 10. Conclusion : what kind of low carbon Britain?
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In this paper, we take the concept of 'new urban spaces' as our jumping off point to engage with the efforts of Alphabet/Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs to cultivate a new integrated digital and infrastructural urban space on the Toronto waterfront. We interrogate the process and politics of imagining this new, digital urban space as an urban socio-technical imaginary. The paper critically examines the central role of 'big tech' in producing the urban socio-technical imaginary not as a snapshot but, rather, as a 'process of becoming'. This processual focus on the role of big tech allows us to develop three interrelated analytical contributions. First, we generate in-depth understanding of the proxy politics of urban socio-technical imaginaries in constituting new digital urban spaces. Second, we argue that an urban socio-technical imaginary was used as a Trojan horse to promote private experimentation with urban governance. Third, we demonstrate attempts to imagine a global beachhead via 'the global model' of a new digital urban space predicated on the digital control of integrated urban infrastructure systems.
From SAGE Publishing via Jisc Publications Router ; History: epub 2021-03-16 ; Publication status: Published ; Funder: Economic and Social Research Council; FundRef: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000269; Grant(s): ES/T015055/1 ; In this paper, we take the concept of 'new urban spaces' as our jumping off point to engage with the efforts of Alphabet/Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs to cultivate a new integrated digital and infrastructural urban space on the Toronto waterfront. We interrogate the process and politics of imagining this new, digital urban space as an urban socio-technical imaginary. The paper critically examines the central role of 'big tech' in producing the urban socio-technical imaginary not as a snapshot but, rather, as a 'process of becoming'. This processual focus on the role of big tech allows us to develop three interrelated analytical contributions. First, we generate in-depth understanding of the proxy politics of urban socio-technical imaginaries in constituting new digital urban spaces. Second, we argue that an urban socio-technical imaginary was used as a Trojan horse to promote private experimentation with urban governance. Third, we demonstrate attempts to imagine a global beachhead via 'the global model' of a new digital urban space predicated on the digital control of integrated urban infrastructure systems.
In this article, we focus on the mutually interrelated processes of constructing urban retrofit and the city-region as a scale for action. Urban retrofitting – the systematic reconfiguration of socio-technologies of energy in the existing built environment and infrastructure – is critical to the achievement of ambitious carbon reduction targets. To realise the ecological and economic benefits of retrofit cities are continually searching for a 'fix' that allows them to upscale retrofit from a largely ad hoc and piecemeal activity of repair and maintenance into strategic and systemic retrofit programmes that transform existing cities. This article is primarily concerned with understanding the politics and purpose of such experimentation and analyses efforts to integrate retrofit and governing in Greater Manchester. To do this, the article draws on a programme of interviews with national, city-regional, local authority and neighbourhood scale actors, documentary analysis and observations. We address on who is constructing retrofit responses in Greater Manchester and also why they are being constructed: Is it to transform the city-region and, if so, in what ways? And ask, in what ways are governance frameworks mediating and interpreting wider sets of global pressures at city-regional scale and which of these – economic, ecological, governing, social justice, etc. – pressures are more and less prioritised? We set out dominant city-regional responses (ON), alternative responses (IN) and assess the possibilities for integrated responses (WITH).
AbstractThe term 'ecological security' is usually used in relation to attempts to safeguard flows of ecological resources, infrastructure and services at the national scale. But increasing concerns over 'urban ecological security' (UES) are now giving rise to strategies to reconfigure cities and their infrastructures in ways that help to secure their ecological and material reproduction. Yet cities have differing capacities and capabilities for developing strategic responses to the opportunities and constraints of key UES concerns. These include resource constraints and climate change, and consequently these newly emerging strategies may selectively privilege particular urban areas and particular social interests over others. In this article, we focus on world cities and outline the challenges posed by the growing concern for UES. We review the emerging responses that may increasingly form a new dominant 'logic' of infrastructure provision, which we characterize as Secure Urbanism and Resilient Infrastructure (SURI). We conclude by addressing the extent to which this new dominant 'logic' underpins a new strategy of accumulation or more 'progressive' politics by outlining alternatives to SURI, possibilities for shaping SURI more 'progressively' and developing an agenda for future research.Résumé L'expression 'sécuritéécologique' s'applique généralement à des efforts visant à préserver les flux de ressources écologiques, infrastructures et services à l'échelon national. Toutefois, la multiplication des préoccupations en matière de 'sécuritéécologique urbaine' (SEU) donne lieu désormais à des stratégies de reconfiguration des villes et de leurs infrastructures dans le but d'assurer leur reproduction écologique et matérielle. Cependant, les villes ont des capacités et des moyens différents d'élaborer des réponses stratégiques aux opportunités et contraintes liées aux grandes questions de SEU. Celles‐ci englobant les pénuries de ressources et le changement climatique, les stratégies émergentes peuvent choisir de privilégier telles ou telles zones urbaines et tels ou tels intérêts sociaux. En s'intéressant aux villes mondiales, l'article présente les enjeux que suscite l'attention croissante pour la SEU. Sont étudiées les premières réponses apportées, susceptibles de constituer progressivement une nouvelle 'logique' dominante dans la fourniture d'infrastructures : ce que nous appelons la SURI (sécurité de l'urbanisme et résistance des infrastructures). La conclusion s'interroge sur la mesure dans laquelle cette nouvelle 'logique' dominante sous‐tend une nouvelle stratégie d'accumulation ou bien des politiques plus 'progressistes' en exposant des alternatives à la SURI, des possibilités de conformer la SURI de manière plus 'progressiste' et de concevoir un programme de recherches.
ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the tensions between economic and environmental priorities through attempts to reconfigure urban governance arrangements in a world city. We examine these tensions through the development of the hydrogen energy economy in London and through attempts to cultivate new techniques of governance in realizing this vision. Through case study material, we develop two representations of the negotiation of new forms of governance. First, we outline the representation of 'London as world leader in progressive urban governance'. Second, we develop a characterization of 'the politics of the world city in CO2reduction'. The article moves on to address the scalar making up of these representations, in relation to and through analysing multiple interpretations of London as a 'national exemplar'. The active positioning and representation of London as the exemplar by the national state and the specificities of London governance, we claim, enables the mayor to actively negotiate between the two sets of apparently conflicting logics of hydrogen development. London's energy strategy is therefore to a large extent 'nationalized' while at the same time national energy policy is also regionalized around London. Consequently, London is differentially and positively positioned in comparison to other city‐regions of the UK. The need to develop a sustainability fix that can allow London, and the greater South East of England, to continue to grow economically and within the apparent constraints of environmental limits requires a specific governance fix around the national exemplar and new socio‐technical energy networks, which we characterize as 'strategic glurbanization'.RésuméCet article s'intéresse aux tensions entre priorités économiques et environnementales dans les tentatives de reconfiguration de la gouvernance urbaine d'une ville mondiale. Ces tensions sont étudiées dans le cadre de l'économie de l'hydrogène développée à Londres et de projets de nouvelles techniques de gouvernance visant à concrétiser cette vision. À partir d'éléments d'étude de cas, deux représentations de la négociation de formes innovantes de gouvernance sont élaborées. D'abord, sont exposées la représentation de 'Londres, chef de file mondial d'une gouvernance urbaine novatrice', puis une description des 'politiques de réduction en CO2de la ville mondiale'. L'article aborde ensuite l'échelle de création de ces représentations, en fonction et au travers de l'analyse d'interprétations de Londres comme 'exemple national'. Le positionnement et la représentation dynamiques de Londres en tant qu'exemple d'après l'État national, ainsi que les particularités de la gouvernance londonienne, permettent au maire, selon nous, de négocier véritablement entre les deux logiques apparemment contradictoires du développement de l'hydrogène. La stratégie énergétique de Londres est donc 'nationalisée' dans une large mesure tandis que, parallèlement, la politique énergétique nationale est régionalisée autour de la métropole. C'est ainsi que la ville se place de manière différente et positive par rapport à d'autres régions métropolitaines du Royaume‐Uni. Le besoin d'élaborer une solution durable qui permette à Londres, et à la région sud‐est de l'Angleterre, de poursuivre leur essor économique moyennant les contraintes manifestes des limites environnementales exige une gouvernance spécifique définie autour de l'exemple national et de nouveaux réseaux énergétiques socio‐techniques que nous qualifions de 'glurbanisation stratégique'.
Digital mobility platforms have become increasingly pervasive over the last decade or so in a wide variety of urban contexts. Much digital mobility platform activity has focused on city centres and urban cores, where returns on investment are often seen to be greatest, where existing transport infrastructure can be thick and where there are concentrated circulations of people. The global spread of coronavirus from early 2020 resulted in widespread policies of social distancing and lockdowns. Though there was a geographical unevenness to such policies, COVID-19 saw dramatic reductions in urban public transport provision and use, and new forms of experimentation with urban infrastructures, including with digital mobility platforms. How digital mobility platforms have responded to COVID-19 is not clearly understood and requires systematic research engagement. To address this we ask: how have digital mobility platforms responded to COVID-19 and what are the implications of this for 'the urban'? We develop a stylised understanding of six digital platform responses to COVID-19. The status of these six responses is that they are synthetic and propositional and need to be systematically tested in a variety of actually existing urban contexts.
Re-shaping infrastructure systems and social practices within urban contexts has been promoted as a critical way to address a range of contemporary economic, environmental and social challenges. Though there are many attempts to re-imagine more sustainable urban contexts the challenge remains how to achieve such change. In this context, urban experiments have emerged as a way to stage purposive infrastructure interventions and learn what works in practice. The paper integrates literatures on urban governance and urban socio-technical experiments to extend analytical understanding of urban experimentation. Through a case study of 'sustainable transport' experimentation in Greater Manchester, we argue that place-based priorities that inform action on sustainable urban futures are conditioned by non-place-based, particularly national, interests. Our paper makes two key contributions. First, we illustrate how the (narrow) national conditioning of place-based priorities translates in to experimentation in episodic ways that are highly contextual. We detail how national priorities, stipulations and funding are mediated and translated at the urban scale where they set conditions for the range of interventions that are feasible in a particular context. The interventions that follow are then materially embedded in place through experimentation with processes of governing and constituting capacity. Second, we argue that the learning generated through these processes of experimentation is only weakly communicated back to conditioning institutions. The result is that there is strong conditioning of experimentation but weak experimentation with conditions. The paper illustrates how the potential of experimentation is conditioned and thus it brings to the fore the need to understand experimentation politically.
