Industrial ecology (IE) includes approaches and tools aimed to an efficient management of resources and a reduction of the environmental impacts associated to limited spatial contexts. They are also recognized as "place-based" (PB) and are focused both on the analysis of these contexts and on the definition of improvement actions in a perspective of sustainability. These actions, inspired by biological systems, often exploit the potential associated with the differences among the various entities that compose the system. Within IE,"life-cycle-based" (LCB) approaches have also been developed to assess the environmental, economic and social impacts of products, processes and organizations throughout the various stages of their life cycle. Recent studies on IE show a great interest in the analysis of urban contexts, considered to be very promising for the achievement of the economic, environmental and social sustainability at local level. Urban Metabolism (UM) is recognized as a PB approach focused on these contexts; however, their study in an eco-industrial perspective shows, at present, some limitations: i) urban contexts are complex systems and are constantly changing; ii) urban contexts primarily include consumption activities (and this implies a limited variety); iii) PB approaches are still lacking as regards the measurement of the effects, especially environmental, of the proposed scenarios. In addition, scholars from economic geography and urban planning, recognize the need of an expanded view of the "urban contexts", to include different forms of estates, with which the residential areas strictly interact, by means of physical, energy, services and human flows (s.c. Urban Economies or Urban Systems). In an IE perspective, expanding urban contexts (e.g. to include neighboring industrialand rural areas) allows them to be analyzed in synergy with other approaches, such as those inspired by Industrial Symbiosis/Metabolism. The broadening of the scope would also enable an easier integration with the LCB approaches in the measurement of symbiotic scenarios. This is especially true in the case of local economies that grow up showing a strong integration among the urban, industrial and rural dimensions (e.g. in the districtual models). This article, after a comparative analysis of PB approaches deemed suitable for urban contexts, offers an integrated analytical framework in which the main flows and synergies among urban, rural and industrial systems are depicted. It also shows an analysis of the critical issues (functional unit, etc.) and suggests trajectories for the development of LCB tools for the measurement of potential eco-industrial scenarios. As a result of an integrated view of these multiple dimensions, the typical urban flows (e.g. products, energy, food, water) can be identified and efficiently managed beyond their use and consumption, and improvement actions (leveraged by the greater heterogeneity and by the proximity) can be better defined, together with more effective policies for a sustainable local development.
5e Circular economy, industrial ecology (resouce management and sustainable regional econo
