Abstract
Cities are places of human convergence, where people live, work, and play. But beneath the bustle of any city are systems that make these hubs of humanity function. Cities are akin to living things that take in energy, metabolize material, and spit out waste. They consume and grow, using digestive, respiratory, and circulatory systems. And, like living things, cities can, with a nudge from citizens and their leaders, evolve in directions that increase their prospects for survival.
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Notes
- 1.
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), “Urban Energy Systems,” Chapter 18 in Global Energy Assessment: Toward a Sustainable Future (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2012); population share from United Nations (UN) Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “World Urbanization Prospects,” electronic database, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/CD-ROM/. Direct final energy is the energy supplied to the consumer for heating, cooling, and lighting, not including energy embedded in the imports of manufactured goods. Urban shares of energy sources from International Energy Agency (IEA), World Energy Outlook 2008 (Paris: 2008). The discussion here is based on two sources with the best city-level global coverage: the Global Energy Assessment and the World Energy Outlook 2008, both cited in this note.
- 2.
Table 3–1 from the following sources: gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is a Worldwatch calculation based on regional groupings from IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems” and on national GDP data from World Bank, “World Development Indicators,” electronic database (Washington, DC: December 2015); urban share of population is a Worldwatch compilation based on regional groupings from IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems” and on national urban shares from UN, “Urban Population at Mid-Year by Major Area, Region and Country, 1950–2050,” World Urbanization Prospects: 2014 Revision (New York: 2014); urban energy per person is a Worldwatch calculation based on data from IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems” and from UN, “Urban Population at Mid-Year by Major Area, Region and Country, 1950–2050”; urban share of total final energy use from IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems.”
- 3.
Percentages are Worldwatch calculations based on regional groupings from IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems” and on national GDP data from World Bank, “World Development Indicators”; urban energy per person is a Worldwatch calculation based on data from IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems” and from UN, “Urban Population at Mid-Year by Major Area, Region and Country, 1950–2050.”
- 4.
UN-Habitat, “Energy Consumption in Cities,” in State of the World’s Cities, 2008-09 (Nairobi: 2008). Figure 3–1 from U.S. Department of Energy, International Energy Outlook 2013 (Washington, DC: 2013).
- 5.
Alexander Ochs and Shakuntala Makhijani, Sustainable Energy Roadmaps: Guiding the Global Shift to Domestic Renewables, Worldwatch Report 187 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, 2012); IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems.”
- 6.
IEA, Transition to Sustainable Buildings: Strategies and Opportunities to 2050 (Paris: 2013); Ochs and Makhijani, Sustainable Energy Roadmaps.
- 7.
IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems.”
- 8.
Ibid.; Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, “Cogeneration/ Combined Heat and Power (CHP),” fact sheet (Arlington, VA: March 2011).
- 9.
IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems.”
- 10.
Felix Creutzig et al., “Global Typology of Urban Energy Use and Potentials for an Urbanization Mitigation Wedge,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 20 (2015): 6,283–88; IIASA, “Urban Energy Systems.”
- 11.
Share of 75 percent from Mark Swilling et al., City-Level Decoupling: Urban Resource Flows and the Governance of Infrastructure Transitions, A Report of the Working Group on Cities of the International Resource Panel (Paris: UN Environment Programme (UNEP), 2013). Table 3–2 from Stefan Giljum et al., “Global Patterns of Material Flows and Their Socio-Economic and Environmental Implications: A MFA Study on All Countries World-Wide from 1980 to 2009,” Resources 3, no. 1 (2014): 319–39. Data here refer to the most common measure of materials consumption, Domestic Material Consumption (DMC), which is calculated as Domestic Extraction Used (DEU) plus net direct imports.
- 12.
Giljum et al., “Global Patterns of Material Flows and Their Socio-Economic and Environmental Implications”; Ulrich Kral et al., “The Copper Balance of Cities: Exploratory Insights into a European and an Asian City,” Journal of Industrial Ecology 18, no. 3 (2014): 432–44.
- 13.
Luis M. A. Bettencourt et al., “Growth, Innovation, Scaling, and the Pace of Life in Cities,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no. 17 (2007): 7,301–06.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Luis Bettencourt and Geoffrey West, “A Unified Theory of Urban Living,” Nature 467 (October 21, 2010): 912–13.
- 17.
Bettencourt et al., “Growth, Innovation, Scaling, and the Pace of Life in Cities.”
- 18.
Table 3–3 from Daniel Hoornweg and Perinaz Bhada-Tata, What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012).
- 19.
Ibid.; Daniel Hoornweg, Perinaz Bhada-Tata, and Christopher Kennedy, “Peak Waste: When Is It Likely to Occur?” Journal of Industrial Ecology 19, no. 1 (2015): 117–28.
- 20.
Christopher A. Kennedy et al., “Energy and Material Flows of Megacities,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 19 (2015): 5,985–90.
- 21.
Thomas Graedel et al., Recycling Rates of Metals: A Status Report (Paris: UNEP and International Resource Panel, 2011); UNEP and International Environmental Technology Centre, “Policy Brief on E-waste: What, Why and How” (Osaka, Japan: May 13, 2013).
- 22.
Steve Jennings, Food in an Urbanized World: The Role of City Region Food Systems in Resilience and Sustainable Development (London: International Sustainability Unit, April 2015); grapes share is a Worldwatch calculation based on production and export data from IndexMundi, “Agricultural Production, Supply, and Distribution,” www.indexmundi.com/agriculture.
- 23.
Sustainable Cities Institute, Bringing Nutritious, Affordable Food to Underserved Communities: A Snapshot of Healthy Corner Store Initiatives in the United States (Washington, DC: National League of Cities, February 2014).
- 24.
Thomas Reardon et al., Urbanization, Diet Change, and Transformation of Food Supply Chains in Asia (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, Global Center for Food Systems Innovation, May 2014).
- 25.
Urban expansion from Eugenie Birch with Alexander Keating, Feeding Cities: Food Security in a Rapidly Urbanizing World, conference report, Penn Institute for Urban Research, University of Pennsylvania, March 13–15, 2013; World Health Organization (WHO), “Obesity,” fact sheet no. 311 (Geneva: August 2014); food environment from T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, “Globalization,” www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/globalization-and-obesity/.
- 26.
Table 3–4 from Jennings, Food in an Urbanized World.
- 27.
Navin Ramamkutty et al., “Farming the Planet: 1. Geographic Distribution of Global Agricultural Lands in the Year 2000,” Global Biogeochemical Cycles 22, no. 1 (2008); 19–29 percent from Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, “Food Emissions: Supply Chain Emissions,” Big Facts series, https://ccafs.cgiar.org /bigfacts/#theme=food-emissions&subtheme=supply-chain.
- 28.
WHO, Diet, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Chronic Disease: Report of a Joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation (Geneva: 2002); Mario Herrero et al., “Biomass Use, Production, Feed Efficiencies, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Global Livestock Systems,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 52 (2013): 20,888–93; Low Carbon Oxford, Foodprinting Oxford: How to Feed a City, study commissioned by the Oxford City Council (Oxford, U.K.: 2013).
- 29.
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “Boosting Food Security in Cities Through Better Markets, Reduced Food Waste,” press release (Rome: May 28, 2015); Aarayman Arjun Singhal and Adam Lipinski, “How Food Waste Costs Our Cities Millions,” World Resources Institute blog, April 16, 2015.
- 30.
FAO, Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources, Summary Report (Rome: 2013).
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
Rich Pirog et al., Food, Fuel, and Freeways: An Iowa Perspective on How Far Food Travels, Fuel Usage, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Ames, IA: Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, 2001).
- 33.
Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews, “Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States,” Environmental Science and Technology 42, no. 10 (2008): 3,508–13; Zambia from Jennings, Food in an Urbanized World.
- 34.
Julie C. Padowski and Steven M. Gorelick, “Global Analysis of Urban Surface Water Supply Vulnerability,” Environmental Research Letters 9, no. 10 (2014); UN World Water Assessment Programme, Water for a Sustainable World, The United Nations World Water Development Report 2015 (Paris: UNESCO, 2015).
- 35.
UN World Water Assessment Programme, Water for a Sustainable World.
- 36.
Janet G. Hering et al., “A Changing Framework for Urban Water Systems,” Environmental Science and Technology 47, no. 19 (2013): 10,721–26.
- 37.
Ibid.; Glen T. Daigger, “Sustainable Urban Water and Resource Management,” The Bridge: Linking Engineering and Society (National Academy of Engineering), Spring 2011.
- 38.
NRW from Alexander Danilenko et al., The IBNET Water Sanitation and Supply Blue Book, 2014 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014); Asit K. Biswas and Cecilia Tortajada, “Water Supply of Phnom Penh: An Example of Good Governance,” International Journal of Water Resources Development 26, no. 2 (2010): 157–72.
- 39.
David Sedlak, Water 4.0: The Past, Present, and Future of the World’s Most Vital Resource (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014).
- 40.
Share of 75 percent and Table 3–5 from Toshio Sato et al., “Global, Regional, and Country Level Need for Data on Wastewater Generation, Treatment, and Use,” Agricultural Water Management 130 (December 2013): 1–13; National Research Council, Water Reuse: Potential for Expanding the Nation’s Water Supply Through Reuse of Municipal Wastewater (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2012).
- 41.
Sedlak, Water 4.0; household level from National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, Using Graywater and Stormwater to Enhance Local Water Supplies: An Assessment of Risks, Costs, and Benefits, prepublication version (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, December 16, 2015).
- 42.
Florida from Sedlak, Water 4.0; Namibia from J. Lahnsteiner and G. Lempert, “Water Management in Windhoek, Namibia,” Water Science & Technology 55, no. 1–2 (2007): 441–48; Orange County from Sarah Yang, “Time Is Now for a New Revolution in Urban Water Systems,” Berkeley News, February 14, 2014.
- 43.
Sedlak, Water 4.0.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
Daigger, “Sustainable Urban Water and Resource Management.”
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Gardner, G. (2016). The City: A System of Systems. In: State of the World. State of the World. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-756-8_3
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