ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes to an emerging but increasingly vibrant debate about the role of cities in infrastructure transitions to low carbon futures. It focuses on the intersection of two sets of issues. The first is the changing nature of relationships between city and networked infrastructures in a period of conflicting economic, ecological and political pressures and the search for a low carbon future. The second is the social interests, institutions and actors, who seek to shape such relationships and the ways in which they are organized to act in doing so. The chapter reviews the literature on urban socio-technical transitions and locates the role of visions in shaping transition. It uses documentary analysis of national policy documents to identify how national priorities around energy and climate change created the context for shaping early low carbon visions in Greater Manchester. The chapter summarizes how the shifting visions were produced by 'local' amenability to UK national priorities.
