Urban metabolism

"[2] With the growing concern of climate change and atmospheric degradation, the use of the urban metabolism model has become a key element in determining and maintaining levels of sustainability and health in cities around the world.

With deep roots in sociology, Karl Marx and fellow researcher Friedrich Engels may have been the first to raise concerns around issues which we would now call urban metabolism.

They also used metabolism to describe the material and energy exchange between nature and society in as a critique of industrialization (1883) which created an interdependent set of societal needs brought into play through the concrete organization of human labour.

Later, in reaction against industrialization and coal use, Sir Patrick Geddes, a Scottish biologist, undertook an ecological critique of urbanization in 1885, making him the first scientist to attempt an empirical description of societal metabolism on a macroeconomic scale.

[2] In this study Wolman developed a model which allowed him to determine the inflow and outflow rates of a hypothetical American City with a population of 1 million people.

[6] Wolman's study highlighted the fact that there are physical limitations to the natural resources we use on a day-to-day basis and with frequent use, the compilation of waste can and will create problems.

Odum's study took this into count and he coined the term "emergy" to track and account for the metabolic flows by measuring the solar energy used directly or indirectly to make a product or deliver a service.

The urban metabolism model records and analyzes environmental conditions and trends which are easily understood for policy makers and consequently comparable over time[6] making it easier to find unhealthy patterns and develop a plan of action to better the level of sustainability.

Staying in line with the notion of sustainability, urban metabolism is also a helpful tool for tracking greenhouse gas emissions on a city or regional level.

The model provides quantifiable parameters which allow officials to mark unhealthy levels of GHG emissions and again, develop a plan of action to lower them.