"Urban metabolism and resources" shall apply the metabolism approach to the urban development context, meaning that space and time will have to be introduced to the modelling. Therefore it will be most important to advance the metabolism concept from a flow model to an integrated stocks-and-flows-concept. It is still necessary to observe the flows of material and energy being used to feed the urban metabolism, but it is not sufficient.
In the long-term perspective for rebuilding urban structures it is also essential to look at different qualities of stocks and their change over time. These can be
- the urban form/spatial structures and
- the material and energetic qualities of the built structures.
Changing and modernising the stocks in spatial and technological terms will from an urban development perspective be the way to a future reduction of resource use.
From an urban metabolism perspective it will be also important to analyse whether the resource use for rebuilding and restructuring our cities will be efficient in terms of the total resource balance. It might well be that, using the logic of an cost-benefit-approach, the effort of fast rebuilding is so high that it surpasses the later saving of resources. From this perspective of long-run estimation of effects on resource use, a typology of urban metabolic profiles can be developed, which reflects different models of rebuilding and reshaping cities and neighbourhoods.
Further tasks:
