Case Studies of Urban Metabolism: What Should be Addressed Next?

This paper analyzes case studies of Urban Metabolism (UM), an interdisciplinary field that studies the flow of materials and energy in cities. It focuses on global cases to help researchers identify research gaps. I have categorized the studies based on location, scale, and urban system. Two finding...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inUrban affairs review (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) Vol. 59; no. 3; pp. 949 - 968
Main Author Wang, Hsi-Chuan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.05.2023
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Case studies
Geographic distribution
Geographical distribution
Information sharing
Interdisciplinary aspects
Knowledge management
Metabolism
Neighborhoods
Urban areas
Urban metabolism
global comparison
urban metabolism
urban system
case study
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Summary:This paper analyzes case studies of Urban Metabolism (UM), an interdisciplinary field that studies the flow of materials and energy in cities. It focuses on global cases to help researchers identify research gaps. I have categorized the studies based on location, scale, and urban system. Two findings need to be specified: first, the geographic distribution of UM case studies is uneven. Only limited studies have been developed for emerging African cities despite expected large future populations. Second, neighborhood-scale cases do not use an appropriate local scale, primarily due to the lack of reliable data sources. Upon noticing concerns over (1) the evaluation of optimized metabolisms, (2) the effectiveness of knowledge transfer, and (3) the awareness of timeframe in delivering practical policy, researchers may now focus on developing more applicable planning and design guidelines while paying attention to the early communication of UM assessment results between scientists and practitioners.
ISSN:1078-0874
1552-8332
DOI:10.1177/10780874221080145