Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Low-carbon Transitions and the Reconfiguration of Urban Infrastructure

Bulkeley, Harriet; Castán Broto, Vanesa; Maassen, Anne

Low-carbon Transitions and the Reconfiguration of Urban Infrastructure Thumbnail


Authors

Vanesa Castán Broto

Anne Maassen



Abstract

Over the past decade, a growing body of research has examined the role of cities in addressing climate change and the institutional and political challenges which they encounter. For the most part, in these accounts, the infrastructure networks, their material fabric, everyday practices and political economies, have remained unexamined. In this paper, it is argued that this is a critical omission and an approach is developed for understanding how urban responses to climate change both configure and are configured by infrastructure networks. Central to any such analysis is the conception of how and why (urban) infrastructure networks undergo change. Focusing on urban energy networks and on the case of London, the paper argues for an analysis of the ‘urban infrastructure regimes’ and ‘experiments’ through which climate change is governed. It is found that climate change experiments serve as a means through which dominant actors articulate and test new ‘low-carbon’ logics for urban infrastructure development. It is argued that experiments work by establishing new circuits, configuring actors in new sets of relations and through these means realising the potential for addressing climate change in the city. At the same time, experiments become sites of conflict, a means through which new forms of urban circulation can be confined and marginalised, leaving dominant energy regimes (relatively) intact.

Citation

Bulkeley, H., Castán Broto, V., & Maassen, A. (2014). Low-carbon Transitions and the Reconfiguration of Urban Infrastructure. Urban Studies, 51(7), 1471-1486. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013500089

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date May 1, 2014
Deposit Date Jun 10, 2014
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Urban Studies
Print ISSN 0042-0980
Electronic ISSN 1360-063X
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 51
Issue 7
Pages 1471-1486
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013500089
Keywords Climate change, Energy, Experiment, Infrastructure, Socio-technical system, Urban governance.

Files





You might also like



Downloadable Citations