Developing a Resource-

based Typology of Cities: A review + pitch

Zak Accuardi

Prof. John Fernández

Urban Metabolism Group

19 November 2013

Sustainable Cities RCN | MIT

Agenda

Typologies

Motivations

Past work

History/trends

“Quantitative” work

“Qualitative” work

Present work

Global urban resource typology

Chinese buildings ‘sub-typology’

Future work

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Typologies

What do we mean by this?

Different classifications of cities, on the basis

of distinguishing characteristics

Many possibilities for which characteristics

Want to understand broad patterns, as

much as generalization is possible

To add detail, types may later be divided into

‘sub-types’

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Typologies | examples

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Atchley, R. C. (1967). A size-function typology of cities. Demography, 4(2), 721–733.

Jones, K. J., & Jones, W. C. (1970). Toward a typology of American cities. Journal of Regional Science, 10(2), 217–224.

Motivations

How to measure sustainability performance?

And against what benchmark?

Which cities are peer cities?

UNEP City-decoupling report

KPMG “City Typology as Basis for Policy” report

Case study discovery mechanism

Understanding transition dynamics between

types?

Curiosity: what is the “nature” of cities?

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Past Work | history

Began at least as far back as 1937 (Ogburn)

Flurry of activity in economic classification

during late 60s, early 70s

Some interesting findings, e.g. Bettencourt

population scaling work anticipated in 1965

(Hadden and Borgatta)

Renewed interest in past decade or so

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Past Work | trends

Notion of ‘typology’ most prominent in

urban design & architecture literature

Urban form

Past research concentrated in highly

developed countries, e.g. “global cities”

Primarily economic foundations

Not much focus on urban resource use

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Past Work | “quantitative”

Economic Atchley 1967 (sector employment + population)

Jones & Jones 1970 (various US census data)

Beaverstock et al. 1999 (world cities, service sector)

Taylor 2005 (global cities defined by firm networks)

Furdell & Wolman 2006 (weak market subtypology)

Strumsky et al. 2013 (innovation networks)

Resource-based

National scale work, e.g. Krausmann et al. 2008

Saldivar-Sali 2010; Khamis 2012 (resource clusters)

Chavez & Ramaswami 2013 (import/export balance)

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Past Work | “qualitative”

Urban Form Benevolo 1980 (historical distinctions)

Ducruet 2007 (port cities subtypology)

Gil et al. 2012 (clustering on geographic features)

Frenchman & Zegras 2012 (eras of urban form)

Social characteristics Florida 2004 (cities defined by demographic appeal)

Evolutionary ‘typology’ Bai & Imura 2000 (generalized development stages)

Methods Materials Flow Analysis

Statistics

GIS

Expertise / observation / thinking a lot

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Present Work | MIT

Global urban resource typology

Chinese building sector sub-typology

Materials flow analytical framework

Statistics

Cluster to identify non-obvious patterns

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Global Resource Typology

Global Resource Typology | results

Fairly intuitive Per person consumption lowest in

least-developed cities

Distinct cluster of Japanese cities

Significant North/South difference

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Case study: Chinese Buildings

Chinese Buildings | question

How does the resource intensity of the construction industry

vary spatially and temporally in Chinese provinces, and can

we see evidence of ‘types’ in this variation?

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Cluster on Chinese statistical yearbook data from

31 provinces since ~1978:

Electricity production

Steel production

Cement production

GDP per capita

Service sector GDP

Cluster by unique province-year combinations

Time variance: less ‘types’, more ‘states’

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Chinese Buildings | clustering results

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Chinese Buildings | clustering results

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Chinese Buildings | clustering results

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Chinese Buildings | results

Preliminary evidence of state

progression

First step towards defining states

These are still clusters -- *not* states

Statistics: as much “art” as science

Trans-boundary flows evident

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Future Work | data gathering

Database of

urban resource

consumption

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Grubler, A. et al. (2012). Urban Energy Systems. In J. Sathaye (Ed.), Global Energy Assessment (pp. 1307–1400). International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. The World Bank. (2011). Cities and Climate Change: Responding to an Urgent Agenda. (D. Hoornweg, M. Freire, M. J. Lee, P. Bhada-Tata, & B. Yuen, Eds.). Washington, DC.

Future Work | collaboration

International collaboration on urban

typology + transition/transformation

dynamics

Geographic + climatically dispersed team

Representation from global north and south

Engage international stakeholder “client”

Multi-year program and funding

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Contact us

Looking forward to your feedback on past,

present, and future work alike:

Zak Accuardi, accuardi@mit.edu

Karen Noiva, knoiva@mit.edu

John Fernández, fernande@mit.edu

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References

Atchley, R. C. (1967). A size-function typology of cities. Demography, 4(2), 721–733.

Bai, X., & Imura, H. (2000). A comparative study of urban environment in East Asia: a stage

model of urban environmental evolution. International Review of Environmental

Strategy, 1(1), 135–158.

Beaverstock, J., Smith, R., & Taylor, P. (1999). A roster of world cities. Cities, 16(6), 445–

458. doi:10.1016/S0264-2751(99)00042-6

Chavez, A., & Ramaswami, A. (2013). Articulating a trans-boundary infrastructure supply

chain greenhouse gas emission footprint for cities: Mathematical relationships and

policy relevance. Energy Policy, 54, 376–384. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2012.10.037

Ducruet, C. (2007). A metageography of port-city relationships, 157–172.

Florida, R. (2004). Cities and the Creative Class. Routledge.

Frenchman, D., & Zegras, C. (2012). Making the Clean Energy City in China: Year 2 Report.

Furdell, K., & Wolman, H. (2006). Toward understanding urban pathology: Creating a

typology of “weak market” cities. Washington, DC.

Gil, J., Beirão, J. N., Montenegro, N., & Duarte, J. P. (2012). On the discovery of urban

typologies: data mining the many dimensions of urban form. Urban Morphology, 16(1),

27–40.

Grubler, A. et al. (2012). Urban Energy Systems. In J. Sathaye (Ed.), Global Energy

Assessment (pp. 1307–1400). International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

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References (cont’d)

Hadden, J. K., & Borgatta, E. F. (1965). American Cities. New York: Rand McNally and Co.

Jones, K. J., & Jones, W. C. (1970). Toward a typology of American cities. Journal of Regional

Science, 10(2), 217–224.

Khamis, A. (2012). Developing a Typology of Urban Resource Consumption. In 1st Civil and

Environmental Engineering Student Conference. London: Imperial College London.

KPMG Advisory. (2010). City typology as the basis for policy. Amstelveen, The Netherlands.

Ogburn, W. F. (1937). Social Characteristics of Cities. Chicago, IL, USA: International City

Managers Association.

Saldivar-Sali, A. N. (2010). A Global Typology of Cities: Classification Tree Analysis of Urban

Resource Consumption. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved from

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/61558

Strumsky, Deborah and Jean C. Thill. 2013. “Profiling U.S. Metropolitan Regions by Their

Social Research Networks and Regional Economic Performance,” Journal of Regional

Science, DOI: 10.1111/jors.12048.

Taylor, P. (2005). Leading world cities: Empirical evaluations of urban nodes in multiple

networks. Urban Studies, 42(9), 1593–1608. doi:10.1080/00420980500185504

The World Bank. (2011). Cities and Climate Change: Responding to an Urgent Agenda. (D.

Hoornweg, M. Freire, M. J. Lee, P. Bhada-Tata, & B. Yuen, Eds.). Washington, DC.

Sustainability Transitions

Economic

Social

Political

Natural

Technological

trigger transition Physical

(material and energy)

Resource Flows feedback to systems

Recognizing transition states/types may

allow for improved diagnosis, prescription

for [urban] transition “managers”

[Sustainability Outcomes] [Governing systems]

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Urban Growth Dynamics

Fernández 2007

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Avg completed building area per capita

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1980s 1990s 2000s