Increasing urbanisation, mainly expected to be dominant in Asia and Africa, places immense strain on cities in the developing world to match the growing resource requirements. Likewise, the rapid growth of urban informal... [ view full abstract ]
Increasing urbanisation, mainly expected to be dominant in Asia and Africa, places immense strain on cities in the developing world to match the growing resource requirements. Likewise, the rapid growth of urban informal settlements or slums, poses a particular challenge for balancing developmental and environmental goals. Urban metabolism provides a conceptual framework for understanding and measuring the technical, socio-economic, and socio-ecological processes occurring in cities that result in the growth, production and consumption of resources and waste. Effective policy and infrastructure planning for sustainable and equitable cities require a holistic approach to urban metabolism and thereby entail understanding the variations of resource consumption within the city. However, despite the persistence of the slum phenomenon (known as data-scarce areas), very few studies provide an in-depth understanding of the metabolic processes that link these spaces, and informal economies, to the broader urban environment and economy.
This paper aims at filling this gap by providing a metabolic analysis of an urban informal settlement in South Africa. The study utilised a multi-scale integrated assessment of the societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM) approach to examine the metabolism of the Enkanini settlement in terms of human activity, land use and energy consumption. The results of the time use study, and geographic mapping of human activities in Enkanini, highlight a number of interconnected issues to be addressed through spatial, developmental, and local economic policy, whilst documenting the informal economic activities used to sustain livelihoods. The time use results also show that Enkanini is a net provider of labour to the surrounding area, indicating its connection to the broader service economy. Results from the geographic mapping point to Enkanini having a small, but vibrant, informal economy, whilst being grossly underserviced in terms of energy, water, waste, and sanitation infrastructure.
Key policy interventions are suggested that relate to improved public transport; access to affordable and reliable energy; improved waste and sanitation facilities; and support for informal economic activities and livelihood strategies. The paper contributes to enabling transformative climate action in cities by suggesting a new approach to urban metabolism studies that include urban informal settlements in its assessment of urban sustainability, and by providing bottom-up, empirical data on the metabolism of an urban informal settlement. The MuSIASEM approach offers an innovative methodological framing for studying urban informal settlements in relation to the broader urban environment and therefore may contribute to future planning for cities that are both sustainable and equitable.
Keywords: Urban slum; informal settlement; urban metabolism; societal metabolism; MuSIASEM
6b. Urban and rural development
