Mapping a Socio-Technical Transition
understanding how we got here
Mapping a Multi-Level Perspective
Introducing the MLP and Socio-Technical Transitions
Frank Geels and Johan Schott explain what it means to take a “multi-level perspective” when analyzing socio-technical transitions. This perspective recognizes three different levels at which actions occur, each with their own time scale, fixity, and actors.
- The landscape operates across the society and change is visible across centuries.
- The socio-technical regime is composed of interdependent institutions, such as government, industry, religion, non-profits, universities, etc.—the powers that be— and change occurs across decades.
- The niche level is composed of disparate actors who are unburdened (and unsupported) by entrenched institutions and often the source of new innovations and approaches. Changes here occurs from year to year.
By charting events across this multi-level perspective, causation can be understood, and a typology of transition pathways defined and applied.
Mapping How Pittsburgh’s Air Quality “Got Wicked”
Since Pittsburgh’s inception in the mid-1700s, many different sources have developed and contributed to the city’s poor air quality. Mapping this progression, from the discovery of a coal seam to world-renowned steel mills to two attempts at switching to natural gas to the federalization of air quality, demonstrates the variety of actors and factors that have led to the current state of air quality in Pittsburgh. Each era and its conflicts and remedies have led to new infrastructure and technology but also cemented new mindsets about air quality and why, who, how, and what should be involved in addressing it.
Most of the following blue notes point to events specifically apart of the conversation in Pittsburgh around air quality.
However, such a limited view does not paint a broader picture of the complexity of the socio-technical regime that has locked-in poor air quality, in Pittsburgh and nationally. By adding events related to the invention and growth of alternative fuel sources, as well as accessible air quality sensing technology, it is possible to see that the quality of Pittsburgh’s air is not independent from national and international activities and trends.
The interdependence of different sectors, actors, and spaces on this wicked problem makes it hard to draw a boundary of relevance and to feel that such an investigation is exhaustive. While this exercise was based on secondary research, discussion with stakeholders who are familiar with the problem and knowledgeable of its past would offer guidance on both points.
Tracing Transition Pathways
Geels and Schott developed a “typology of transition pathways”, identifying four pathways by which socio-technical transitions occur. These are transformation, de-alignment and re-alignment, technological substitution, and reconfiguration. When analyzing socio-technical transitions related to the wicked problem of poor air quality in Pittsburgh, some of these pathways were clearly followed while in other cases there are notable exceptions.
It is important to note, as Geels and Schott observe, that such transitions only become clear in hindsight. While the past may seem unequivocal in retrospect, at the time it was not so definite. It is also difficult to fully capture the many factors that influence a transition, particularly when research is confined to secondary sources. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify major shifts in perception, action, and status quo, which will allow us to begin tracing the transitions in air quality in Pittsburgh.
A. Formation of Pittsburgh Manufacturing Regime
Prior to 1753 when the original site of Pittsburgh was chosen by George Washington, the land where the city now bustles was untouched. After a settlement began and the land population soared, an economy naturally started. Once a coal seam was discovered on “Coal Hill”, now Mt. Washington, industry was accelerated with mines established on the hill around 1766–1772 leading to small industries in manufacturing and coal consumption in the early 1800s. While the earliest coal consumption in Pittsburgh was small domestic sources, soon the great productivity of coal as fuel for mechanical power became the driver of the excavation of coal from Coal Hill and the subsequent use and therefore pollution of this budding city’s air.
Thus, Pittsburgh’s Manufacturing Regime was born and entrenched. In the case of this regime, and others, the local instance just began yet it was in many ways informed by or modeled after regimes elsewhere. The relationship between similar regimes will grow stronger over the ensuing centuries, as they together become interdependent and locked-in, to the point that it is hard, even impossible, to draw a boundary between the regimes as they become one across the nation, even across the globe.
B. Transformation Pathway: Passing the 1941 Clean Coal Act
As coal consumption in Pittsburgh grew, so did air pollution, with public discontent joining soon after. What began as criticism from tourists and complaints from constituents, bubbled up into minor policy initiatives, such as Pittsburgh’s first air pollution ordinance in 1868. However, such initiatives were very narrow and lacked the enforcement necessary for them to make a change.
Over time, frustration grew. Coalitions formed, often driven by women, to protest and address poor air quality. Discussions around health became more prevalent in scientific, social, and political discourse and the deleterious effects of industry couldn’t quite hide anymore. Further changing mindsets, in 1940, the city of St. Louis passed regulations regarding the composition of different types of fuel sources, most notably shifting coal consumed to clean coal.
The first lasting policy initiative Pittsburgh came in 1941, just one year later, largely replicating St. Louis’ policy measure.
These events typify the “transformation pathway” outlined by Geels and Schott:
Transformation pathway: If there is moderate landscape pressure (‘disruptive change’) at a moment when niche-innovations have not yet been sufficiently developed, then regime actors will respond by modifying the direction of development paths and innovation activities. ~Geels and Schott
In the 1870s, coal cleaning for industrial purposes was in development at the niche level but had little to no effect on the regime. Over the next three-quarters of a decade, as mentioned before, shifts at the landscape level in terms of attitudes around public health and the role of government in protecting it created pressure that forced the regime to change. The passing of the 1940 measure by nearby St. Louis could be said to have brought the landscape pressure to a head, by modeling how to enact change within the regime and proving that policy could do it. Thus, the city government passed the 1941 measure, bringing clean coal into the limelight: into the regime.
Geels and Schott’s typology does not specifically address the influence different regimes at different scales may have on the regime in focus. Under their current model, such forces would likely be placed at the niche or landscape levels. However, events that operate outside of or above a regime, such as an innovation in a neighboring regime or a policy initiative passed in a superior regime that the regime of focus is governed by, may most usefully be understood in relation to the current regime through new spatial relationships that the MLP currently fails to articulate.
C. Technological Substitution: From Coal to Natural Gas
Natural gas took hold twice as a major source of fuel for industries and private residencies. The first time, it was the discovery of natural gas in Pittsburgh that led to a shift away from coal:
Perhaps the single most important event which called attention to the smoke problem was the discovery of natural gas in the Pittsburgh area. The first major natural gas well in the region was drilled in Murraysville in 1874. Within a few years, natural gas had begun to replace coal in a number of industries and private residences, primarily for economic reasons.
By the 1880's, there was a noticeable difference in the atmosphere above Pittsburgh. Approximately three million tons of coal were consumed in the city in 1884. A short time later, when natural gas had become widespread, annual coal consumption decreased to one million tons. For a few years the use of natural gas was responsible for air which was "comparatively free from smoke." However, although cheaper than coal for a short while, problems of availability of the gas caused a decline in its use. Coal consumption began to increase in 1890. By the mid 1890's, coal was once again the principal fuel of the city.
Cliff Davidson’s account of the way the use of natural gas surged and then receded demonstrates a temporary, failed technological substitution.
Technological substitution: If there is much landscape pressure (‘specific shock’, ‘avalanche change’, ‘disruptive change’) at a moment when niche-innovations have developed sufficiently, the latter will break through and replace the existing regime.
In this example of a technological substitution, natural gas replaces coal, primarily because it is cheaper. A pleasant side effect was a noticeable improvement in air quality in that it was “comparatively free from smoke”. As Davidson also notes, “urban populations respond more to perceptible changes in air pollution than to relatively constant high levels”. Unfortunately, the air pollution levels changed again as natural gas became available, leading it to become unpopular, ceding the throne back to coal and the air back to smoke.
The second shift to natural gas occurred as a side effect of World War II and the United States’ efforts to maintain a fuel source for northern industrial cities despite the destruction of Gulf coast oil tankers:
What really dealt effectively with the city’s smoke problem was an unexpected development — the German submarine fleet! During World War II, Uboats were sinking oil tankers off the Gulf coast just about as quickly as they could leave their ports, and the United States was faced with the problem of getting oil up to northern industrial areas like Pittsburgh. So it built two large pipelines: Big Inch and Little Inch. At the end of the war, these pipelines were bought by private interests and converted for transporting natural gas, which had heretofore been flared off uselessly in the oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma. At the same time as the smoke control act was being implemented, clean and inexpensive natural gas was flowing into the Pittsburgh area, as well as into other cities. And it provoked a rapid changeover: between 1945 and 1950, more than half of Pittsburgh’s households switched from coal to natural gas. The clean air legislation wasn’t irrelevant, however, and the strong smoke control law helped hasten the changeover.
In this second episode, the necessity of getting oil to northern cities due to the destruction and impetus of the Second World War created landscape pressure that established infrastructure. This pressure rippled even after the war, repurposing this infrastructure to transport natural gas from deeper sources. This time the shift from coal to natural gas was spurred by the 1941 clean coal act Pittsburgh passed, which it started implementing during the postwar period. The shift persisted because, unlike the first episode, natural gas remained available.
D. Subsequent Shifts Away from Coal
The post-WW2 era consisted of a number of shifts away from coal. While the 1941 smoke control law had some impact, its combination with the switch to natural gas created greater momentum towards better air quality. In the 1950s, the national railroad switched from coal to diesel-electric, which also improved air quality. Ultimately during the 1970s–80s, the steel industry in Pittsburgh diminished then collapsed, greatly reducing the consumption of coal, and thus air pollution.
The shift to clean coal,
the shift to natural gas,
the shift to diesel-electric, and
the shift of steel mills elsewhere.
Each took their own transition pathway away from coal consumption,
towards cleaner, clearer, better-to-breathe air. At first I diagnosed these four shifts as fitting the form of the reconfiguration pathway. However, upon further consideration, Geels and Schott emphasize in the reconfiguration pathway that new innovations are symbiotic with the existing regime and thus do not threaten, only slowly reconfigure, the regime. This is another situation in which the typology Geels and Schott provide does not quite ‘have words for’ overlapping transitions in overlapping and adjacent regimes. Either way, by the end of the 1980s, coal was no longer king.
E. Establishment of Federal Air Quality Regulation and Enforcement
Air is always in motion, meaning that air pollution can be found hundreds of miles away from its source; in another city, even in another state. Because sources of pollution in one location can be out of its local or state jurisdiction and because in the mid-1900s many jurisdictions were not able to clean their air, air quality regulation and enforcement became federalized. Although there were earlier attempts, such as the 1963 Clean Air Act, to do so, it was the 1970 Clean Air Act and Nixon’s establishment of the United States Environmental Protection Agency that gave government the power necessary to improve air quality. The Act and the EPA significantly changed how institutions at all scales think and act in relation to air quality.
The Clean Air Act has numerous mechanisms for addressing air pollution by various sources at various scopes. The Act and the EPA have set in motion the concept of “permits”, “emissions markets”, “criteria pollutants”, and more. These interventions (and subsequent amendments to the Clean Air Act) largely drive how local, regional, and state governments regulate and enforce emissions standards and even how automobile manufacturers make cars and trucks. The EPA and these jurisdictions are also responsible for setting National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and maintaining air quality sensors to measure their compliances with these standards.
F. Transformation/Reconfiguration Pathway? Predicting Ubiquitous Citizen Sensing
Over the past few years, low-tech low-cost air quality sensors have been invented, become mass consumer products, become regulated, been connected to the internet, and been the source of great speculation. I predict a future in which many people have air quality sensors, either on their houses, cars, or elsewhere, whose data, when accumulated with others in the region, will provide the ability for hyperlocal measurements of criteria pollutants. A prime example is CMU CREATE Lab’s Speck.
The development of low-tech, low-cost, internet-connected, personal air quality sensors can be seen as driven by a number of landscape level such as the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and citizen science/sensing to more fundamental infrastructural (regime) breakthroughs such as Wi-Fi and 4G mobile data networks. These shifts have laid the mental and physical groundwork for “air quality sensors for all”. This development is in many ways representative of the early buds of a transformation pathway given the shifts at the landscape level and the incorporation of the niche level innovations more quickly into the work of the regime.
The Pursuit of Alternative Fuels
Alternative fuels, from clean energy, such as wind, hydro, or solar power, to nuclear, hydrogen, or ethanol, have been around in many cases just as long as primary fuel sources such as coal or gasoline. However, coal and gasoline are productive in a way that the others are not (but they’re also much dirtier). Many of these alternative fuel sources have been developed in the niche until a hopeful regime actor, such as a President, chamber of Congress, or agency sees them as a suitable alternative to gasoline and gives them a leg up through tax breaks or research and development. Many of these alternative fuel sources can boast examples of a first, even sometimes a second, major installation, whether that’s a wind farm, a solar park, or a nuclear reactor, yet it has been tough for them to become incorporated into the regime. Over time, shifts at the landscape level, such as “climate change” or “global warming” or surpassing “peak oil”, have amplified the pursuit of alternative fuel sources. With the current trajectory, it seems as if another similarly seismic shift may have to occur to catapult alternative fuels into viable roles within the regime.
Reflecting on the Process
I enjoyed this exercise because it taught me to think about time in relationship to wicked problems in a new way. When I have worked on wicked problems in the past it has been more like the “Mapping Wicked Problems” exercise, or even just a singular problem frame. On the contrary, this exercise demonstrates that wicked problems are always in motion, they have been and they will be, and thus they can only be properly addressed with a similar consideration of the types, timings, and trajectories of intervening events and forces.
Traditional design exercises, such as social innovation projects, sometimes don’t even take the time to peer into the past, and when they do, all historical events are considered within a singular level, probably just the regime. However, what makes the transition pathways that Geels and Schott have outlined interesting is their recognition of the incubating niche level, the “behind-the-scenes”, and the pervasive, churning, “hard-to-see-at-once” landscape level, where changes allow society to move forward, albeit slowly. Board games with multiple people often derive their excitement from the social dynamics between players, whether that’s deceit, secrecy, inquiry, or competition. The MLP is more effective way of exploring history, aka. socio-technical transitions, because it creates three levels between which status-quo-shifting dynamics can be identified, and, within the frame of transition design, learned from and reborn to influence present day change.
