es1 t1 session 6 - vcb urban metabolism

8/2/2019 ES1 T1 Session 6 - VCB Urban Metabolism

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Development Planning Unit

MSc in Environment and Sustainable Development

City, Environment, Transformation

Vanesa Castan Broto21 November 2011


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What are the main environmental challenges in the city

today?


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What are the main environmental challenges in the city

today? Limited land and

resources

Renewable

Non-renewable

Environmentalpollution

Vulnerability and risk Climate change

Conservation


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Urbanisation

and ruralurban flows


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City of flows

From the static tothe dynamic city

What are flows?

Movement in a stream To move in continual change with the

constituent particles, e.g. water

Circulation

Deriving from a source, flowing from

somewhere Continuity

Maintaining connections within itselements

Hanging loose and freely

Direction is not controlled Rising and abundance: river flows, land

flows with resources

Immersion in an activity, with continuousadjustments and feedback (from

psychology)


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Defining urban metabolism (I)

Metabolism is the chemical processes that occur within a living

organism to maintain life

What is then urban metabolism?

Metaphorical approach Assimilating the city to a living organism which maintains life

Direct adoption of the term

Metabolism as a general process of maintaining organisation of livingand non-living things

Central concern of transformation

Spatial change/circulation (flow)

Profound transformations observable at the meta-scale


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Defining urban metabolism (II)

Transformation of resources (material) and energy

Established patterns prefigured in the DNA

Two types of processes in basic metabolism pathways

Breaking down of resources into energy (catabolic metabolism)and

bringing in energy to assemble new structures (anabolicmetabolism)

Metabolism determines adaptive capacity toenvironments/contingent situations

Metabolism processes are determined by thermodynamics laws-higher levels of organisation are possible by the exchange ofenergy and matter with their environment


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Metabolic rate / transformation

The key aspect of metabolism is its transformation

The metabolic rate should provide an estimation of transformation

The question is what is transformed and into what?

Is transformedResources

EnergyLabourTime

CreativityIdeasStatusPolicy

Government

Results from transformationExchange value

Economic growth/ ProfitEmployment

Services

OrderQuality of lifeWell-beingKnowledge

Art


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Three perspectives on Urban Metabolism

Functional analogy

Focus on the flows of materialin and out the city

Morphological analogy Focus on the structures that

facilitate the flows, the internalcomponents of the city

Political economy

Focus on the materialcomponent of socialorganisation and distribution


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Perspective 1: Functional analogy

The city is black-boxed as a single entity (organism or cell)

Focus on maintaining functionality of the city and its relations

Mapping flows

Input-output tracking of material and energy flows

Key aspect is circulation and waste reduction and reuse

Re-materialising the economy

Recognising the material basis of economic transactions

Energy and nutritional flows


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Urban metabolism of Paris Region (Sabine Barles)


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Ecological footprint

Appropriate carrying capacity

The ecological footprint (EF) provides an

aggregated indicator of natural resourceconsumption (energy and materials) inmuch the same way that economicindicators (such as Gross Domestic

Product or the Retail Prices Index) havebeen adopted as a way of representingdimensions of the financial economy

(Barret, Cherret and Birch)

Standardised area unit equivalent to a

world average productivehectare(abbreviated to global hectares or gha)

Crude measure but good communicationtool

It can help to comparing cities


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Comparing cities

Calcott and Bull, 2007,WWF


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Perspective 2: Morphological analogy

Critique of the city black-boxing: Moving from the elephant tothe mice

Moving from top-down to bottom-up analysis

What is the DNA of the city, is fundamental organisingprinciple?

Looking into the morphological structure of the city and therelationship between their components

Questions of allometry and relationships between size and shape,zoning, internal structures

City modelling

Additions of individuals- city aggregates

Relational approach?


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Studying cities morphology through modelling

Batty, 1999

D l Pl i U i


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Fractal cities: morphology and energy consumption

Batty 2009

D l t Pl i U it


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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGwrPMm4yFs

D l t Pl i U it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGwrPMm4yFshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGwrPMm4yFshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGwrPMm4yFshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGwrPMm4yFs


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Perspective 3: The Political Economy of the City

The city is produced through circulation and transformation

INFRASTRUCTURES as assemblages of material and culturalelements are key mediators of infrastructure

Our metabolic rate is dictated by the global [capitalist] economywhich determines the relations of production and consumption

The second contradiction of capitalism requires the transformationof nature (in addition to the transformation of labour) (OConnor)

Different metabolic rates, however, signal different forms of

organisation

Metabolism is closely related to distribution

Overall, metabolism depends on the situated production ofknowledge and thus, questions of knowledge uncertainty and

social justice should permeate the debate

D l t Pl i U it


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The political economy of urban metabolism in the global

South

Context of unprecedented rates of urbanisation

How is urbanisation linked with questions of environmental andsocial justice?

How is this urbanisation happening? What are the morphological patterns and metabolic rates and how

spatial and temporal differences relate to social and environmentaljustice issues

Technocratic -inspired views on the environment fail to

acknowledge the diversity of processes which shape the city

Splintering and differentiation

Islands of wealth in oceans of poverty

D l t Pl i U it


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Thank you!

es1 t1 session 6 - vcb urban metabolism

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