Cities mediating technological transitions: understanding visions, intermediation and consequences

Approaches to technological transitions and their management have generated considerable interest in academic and policy circles in recent years. The development of this body of work 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 and consumption; problems which are seen as systemic and entwined or embedded in a series of social, economic, political, cultural and technological relationships. For all the light that transitions approaches shine on such processes they say little explicitly about the role of places. In this paper we address this through looking at the way in which London is currently beginning to shape a systemic transition in its energy infrastructure.We outline and discuss key aspects of the roles of strategic intermediary organisations, which have been strategically set up to intervene between technological possibilities and the territorial context of London.We drawon the case of London to highlight an emblematic example of a city’s attempt to systemically re-shape its energy infrastructure and the lessons to be drawn from this.We also outline the particularity of London in this respect, the limitations of the transferability of experiences in London and highlight directions for future research in this area.