Circular Cities

A Revolution in Urban Sustainability

Jo Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781138591141
• eBook ISBN: 9780429955426
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Sustainability in Architecture

With cities striving to meet sustainable development goals, circular urban systems are gaining momentum, especially in Europe.

This research-based book defines the circular city and circular development. It explains the shift in focus from a purely economic concept, which promotes circular business models in cities, to one that explores a new approach to urban development. This approach offers huge opportunities and addresses important sustainability issues: resource consumption and waste; climate change; the health of urban populations; social inequalities and the creation of sustainable urban economies. It examines the different approaches to circular development, drawing on research conducted in four European cities: Amsterdam, London, Paris and Stockholm. It explores different development pathways and levers for a circular urban transformation. It highlights the benefits of adopting a circular approach to development in cities, but acknowledges that these benefits are not shared equally across society. Finally, it focuses on the challenges to implementing circular development faced by urban actors.

This ground-breaking book will be essential reading to scholars, students, practitioners and policymakers interested in the circular economy, urban sustainability, urban ecology, urban planning, urban regeneration, urban resilience, adaptive cities and regenerative cities.

PART I
Conceptualising circular cities

1
The ecological crisis

The context

In a world facing resource scarcity, climate change, waste mountains and environmental degradation, it is time to rethink our role as custodians of the environment and resources. As centres of population (and often global affluence) cities consume the majority of the world’s resources and produce the majority of its “waste”. They are key contributors to the emission of greenhouse gases and climate change. Cities are also detrimentally affected by resource scarcity (and resource security issues) and the impacts of climate change.

Urban environments are fragile and often degraded by urban activities (e.g. motorised travel, shopping, manufacturing, construction, generation of energy). The degradation of ecosystem services in cities reduces the ability of the urban ecosystem to regenerate. This can result in air, land and water pollution; flooding or drought; urban heating and loss of productive soil and biodiversity. It creates unhealthy living environments, which are risky places to invest in and in the long-term are unsustainable. The regeneration of failing urban communities and ageing infrastructure is also integral to the health of the urban ecosystem. Attention to the natural and human aspects of the urban ecosystem is essential if the city is to be successful.

Cities are also in a constant state of flux. International demographic, climatic, technological, economic and cultural changes place different requirements on cities. The ageing population, mass migration, pandemics, climate change, the emergence of big data, globalisation, industrial restructuring and individualism have all had substantive impacts on our cities, not least on urban form and infrastructure. For example, globalisation has produced shrinking cities (in Europe and the USA), with dwindling populations and under-utilised infrastructure and land. The culture of individualism has boosted demand for private transport and accommodation for one-person households. Climate change requires the adaptation of cities to reduce problems of heating, flooding and drought (e.g. sponge cities in China). In all instances the adaptive capacity of the urban ecosystem (communities, infrastructure and urban form) to adjust to accommodate these changes is key to a city’s longevity.

Resource crisis, waste and security

Currently cities consume 60–80% of natural resources globally. They produce 50% of global waste and 75% of green-house gas emissions (Camaren and Swilling, 2012). Large cities will account for 81% of total consumption and 91% of consumption growth between 2015 and 2030 (McKinsey, 2016). There is an imperative for cities to transition to increasingly circular economies to reduce the absolute magnitudes of global waste streams and emissions (Liang and Zhang, 2011). The UN estimates that 66% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050 (United Nations, 2014) while the global urban footprint will triple over the years to 2030 (Seto et al., 2012). There are three key drivers for this: increasing size of urban population, increasing affluence and greater distances over which goods (and materials) and waste travel. There are substantial accumulations of natural resources in buildings, infrastructure, products and waste deposits.

At a time when resources are becoming increasingly scarce, these technospheric resource reservoirs might offer an opportunity for more sustainable development, or at least provide a local alternative to imported, virgin materials and recycling of waste (Krook et al., 2012).

Until recently much of the municipal waste produced in European cities has been landfilled or exported to Asia (predominantly China and India) to be recycled (European Union, 2014). This has created waste dumps in Asia with serious environmental and health implications (particularly from e-waste). However, the introduction of more stringent regulations in some Asian countries (e.g. “operation green fence” in China, 2013) has improved practices. Unfortunately, it has also resulted in low grade municipal waste being exported elsewhere (e.g. Vietnam, Malaysia). More challenging markets, especially paper and plastics, have reduced Chinese interest in recycling, which creates a disposal problem for European cities. Meanwhile companies in Europe looking to recycle materials are starved of a supply (Laville and Taylor, 2017).

Urban resource security issues are increasingly a problem, particularly for water, food and energy. Currently, half of the world’s cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants are situated in areas experiencing water scarcity (Richter et al., 2013) and the number of water-stressed cities is growing rapidly. The loss of agriculturally productive land surrounding cities is another key concern. Asian and African cities are experiencing food security issues (Brinkley et al., 2013). Rising land values caused by urban expansion has put pressure on farmers to either sell or convert to high-value activities. This reduces the hinterland’s capacity to support urban demand for food. Meanwhile, cities have become increasingly reliant on global food producers, dramatically enlarging cities’ resource hinterlands and exacerbating food security issues.

Cities consume 60% of global energy and are largely reliant on fossil fuels, which makes them particularly vulnerable to hikes in fuel price and energy embargoes (IEA, 2008). The generation of clean energy is severely hampered in cities by urban morphology (e.g. a lack of space, canyoning, overshadowing) and public opposition to energy generating plants. Renewable installations can often be found in the periphery, but urban demand is so high that it can be hard to supply all the energy requirement without reverting to fossil fuels (often imported) and nuclear power. Climate change exacerbates resource security problems by increasing the likelihood of more frequent natural disasters which affect provision.

Land and property speculation in hedge cities (e.g. London, Melbourne, Tokyo) has also resulted in vacant properties and sites (Cashmore, 2015; Sassen, 2015; United Nations, 2017). Global capital has been invested in land and housing as a commodity, as security for financial instruments that are traded on global markets and as a means of accumulating wealth. This financialisation of land and housing disconnects them from their social and environmental functions. Scarcity increases the value of land and properties. Thus, vacancies remain in markets where there would otherwise be oversupply (Cashmore, 2015). Vacancies in properties prevent reuse and result in the under-utilisation of the resource.

The degradation of the urban ecosystem

Ecosystem services¹ are integral for the long-term sustenance and renewal of the urban ecosystem, environmental regulation, as well as the health of the population (Demuzere et al., 2014; Gómez-Baggethun and Barton, 2013). The loss of these services is becoming increasingly important in stressed urban environments suffering from flooding, heating, pollution, declining biodiversity and soil degradation. These problems are also exacerbated by climate change.

This has implications for those living in cities. For example, large-scale floods displaced at least 100,000 people in over 1,800 cities in 40 countries (mostly in the developing world) from 2003 to 2008 (Kocornik-Mina et al., 2020), whilst 97% of cities in low- and middle-income countries (with more than 100,000 inhabitants) do not meet World Health Organisation’s air quality guidelines (World Health Organisation, 2018). These problems are interdependent. For example, urban flooding, heating, pollution and declining biodiversity result in soil degradation. Urban flooding is exacerbated by soil compaction and sealing. Urban heating increases the effect of air pollution and reduces biodiversity. The degradation of urban ecosystem services has direct resource implications for energy, water and land. For example, urban heat islands increase the consumption of energy for air-conditioning in cities.

Increasing land values has resulted in urban densification and the loss of green and blue infrastructure providing ecosystem services (Bolund and Hunhammar, 1999; Gómez-Baggethun and Barton, 2013). This is particularly the case in hedge cities where in order to release maximum land value investors have applied to build high-value activities on the land (luxury residential or commercial space). Thus, land has been lost for lower value activities, for example, industrial activities and green space (Ferm and Jones, 2016). These activities are essential for the local production of resources; recycling and reuse of wasted resources; and regeneration of urban ecosystem services.

Failing communities and ageing infrastructure also threaten the health of the urban ecosystem. For example, in shrinking cities (e.g. Detroit, Leipzig) properties and land lie vacant. Between 2000 and 2016 there were 55 cities with declining populations, usually as a result of global economic or national demographic trends (United Nations, 2016). Population decline will occur in 17% of large cities in developed regions and 8% of cities globally from 2015 to 2025 (Woetzel et al., 2016). This will result in the under-utilisation of ageing infrastructure in cities, including water, sewage, transport, education and health systems, leading to wastage of resources (Rink et al., 2012). Thus, scale appropriate systems will be needed to support smaller populations. Vacant land can provide opportunities for urban transformation (Németh and Langhorst, 2014). It may be possible to encourage the integration of new industrial uses (enabling industrial symbiosis) and blue and green infrastructure (to protect ecosystem services) as part of the regeneration process.

Adaptive capacity and resilience to long-term change

Cities must maintain an optimal “fit” with their dynamic environment (Rauws and de Roo, 2016) if they are to avoid the wastage of resources, preserve the urban ecosystem and remain viable. For example, cities will need to adapt to climate change, to ameliorate problems caused by flooding, heating, pollution, drought and so on. Shrinking cities will need to tackle the under-utilisation of infrastructure and wasted land. This resilience to change is built through adaptive capacity of both the urban community and infrastructure (the socio-technical system). However, the coevolution of the socio-technical system may be limited by current social practices and lifestyles of those living in a city; its physical form, infrastructural systems and local environment; institutional inertia to change; regulation and economic cost.

The adaptive capacity of a city is underpinned by the potential for the urban community to self-organise and learn and for the socio-technical systems to co-evolve. Self-organisation is a key property through which systems self-innovate and self-stabilise in response to changing circumstances (Rauws and de Roo, 2016). Informal and formal networks for learning are also essential for systemic transformation. Designing infrastructural, spatial and institutional frameworks which allow greater flexibility and incremental change is essential for building adaptive capacity (Teisman and Gerrits, 2014). However, those living in cities may lack the knowledge, skills, social networks or financial resources to enable them to easily self-organise and adapt to change. This is particularly problematic for low-income, poorly educated groups. Thus, building adaptive capacity in cities should be supported by government.

So what is needed?

To begin to address the challenges facing cities in the twenty-first century we need to ensure they are resource efficient, ecologically regenerative and resilient. This will enable cities to address directly three key sustainability challenges often overlooked: futurity, inter-generational equity and environmental protection. Indirectly adopting such an approach should also help to address the health and well-being of those living in cities and the creation of sustainable urban economies. In theory, taking a circular approach to development will enable the resource-efficient, waste-free, ecologically regenerative and continual renewal of the city.

Note

1. 1 Eco-system services support nutrient cycling, soil production and flood control. They can produce resources (e.g. energy and food) and regulate urban systems (e.g. carbon sequestration, climate regulation, and air and water purification).

2
Moving from a circular economy to a circular city

Circularity derives from an ecological conceptualisation of the world. The focus shifts from linear systems, which consume an infinite supply of new resources (inputs) and produce “waste” (outputs), towards circular systems, in which resources are reused, recycled or recovered. The principle of circularity has been applied to industrial systems (industrial symbiosis), production processes (cradle-to-cradle) and economic systems (circular economy).

Industrialists developed the idea of industrial metabolism in the nineteenth century. Industries metabolised resources, producing outputs – often classified as waste – which could be used by other industries (Simmonds, 1862). By 1930, industrial symbiosis had appeared in the literature (Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl, 1998; Parkins, 1930). Industries formed symbiotic relationships with each other enabling by-products (water, e...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Prologue
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Conceptualising circular cities
• Part II Circular cities: European case studies
• Part III Lessons learnt for circular cities and development
• Bibliography
• Index