Abstract
If you have been seeking references for long-term environmental planning strategies, this book can be a rare-to-find treasure for you. Written by chemists, this book provides new perspectives on several important issues of planning, such as the linkages between hinterland and urban centers; the value of participatory and transdisciplinary approaches in planning; the evolution of city form and its function; and the cultural, economic, historical, and technological influences on urbanization and globalization.
Specifically, this book demonstrates how a system analysis of the anthropogenic flows of energy and materials (or Metabolism of the Anthroposphere) can serve as an “early warning system” (p. 296) in emerging and critical environmental cases, such as transportation mobility, waste management, material, and food supply. It includes engaging and entertaining discussions of the evolving characteristics of material stocks and flows over time, at various geographic scales, and in different cultures. The discussions and illustrations go beyond material stocks and flows, which is the primary focus of the first edition of the book. This second edition focuses on how to influence design by identifying the key processes and priorities of urban and regional systems. That is exactly why this book can be relevant and valuable to planners.
While the book has a particular focus on urban regions, it could be easily overlooked by urban planners due to its “exotic” title, which the authors believe carries on the “corporate identity” established from the widely cited first edition. Readers in social sciences may also be deterred at first glance by the large amount of flowcharts, technical language, and long chapters that are unusual in planning books.
From a technical standpoint, this book undoubtedly represents one of the pioneer books in the field of urban metabolism studies, especially given its elaborations of step-by-step implementation and comprehensive data references from field studies, interviews, previous literature, published statistics, and authors’ estimates. Some details may be controversial to both natural and social scientists. At the same time, the potential controversies exactly demonstrate the great challenges of conducting metabolic “analysis, evaluation, design,” as reflected in the book title.
For example, the classification system of four activities (or processes) that the authors have developed to evaluate the metabolism of anthroposphere (to nourish, to clean, to reside and work, and to transport and communicate) does not match the existing system analysis in either engineering (e.g., life cycle stages) or planning (e.g., economic sectors, or North American Industry Classification System). Such a mismatch presents critical challenges to the consistency and quality of data inputs when applying the framework in different regions. Moreover, ecosystems, products, and nutrients all have multiple functions. It is even difficult to record them inclusively at the first place, without overlapping categories.
In addition, the assiduously prepared simulation for the “model region” of METALAND was largely based on data references from one or a few regions (and mostly Europe oriented), which makes it difficult to justify for a broader scope of conclusions. Given the universal challenge of data constraints in metabolic studies, however, the order of magnitude of various stocks and flows (if not the absolute values) presented in this book can be of significant value to both researchers and practitioners of system design.
The authors indeed acknowledge the limitation of the metabolic approach in policy making, due to the uncertainties in long-term data and technological, socioeconomic, and political development (p. 360). While the strength of the book lies in the metabolic research techniques and data references, economic policy programs and political agenda for future actions receive little discussion. In other words, the authors’ projections and conclusions from data analysis are largely based on the assumption of continuing the current paradigm of practice. With the valuable references from the technological and scientific perspectives in the book, planners and policy makers should be able to derive strategic approaches beyond technological solutions, such as economic incentives and politically enabling environments for the sustainable design of urban systems.
In summary, this book demonstrates the highly multidisciplinary nature of metabolic studies as well as the critical challenges of long-term planning. Although not specifically written for city planning, it provides important and new insights for planners, especially in environmental planning, land use, and regional science.