Re-Politicizing Urban Metabolism through Mapping: A Methodological Exploration through the Lens of Urban Political Ecology

The concept of Urban Metabolism (UM) has become increasingly prominent in urban planning and design studies and practices as an approach to reframe those places that have exhausted their lifecycle (Zhang, Yang, Yu, 2013). This reframing is critical in addressing urban decay and environmental degradation, particularly in territories that have experienced intense deindustrialization, which has led to high concentrations of contamination and abandoned infrastructure. Abandoned, polluted, and contaminated soils require regeneration strategies based on circular economy, sustainable development, and new forms of balance between urban centers and peri-urban areas. However, this approach has been criticized for focusing on functional and technological aspects, centering on flows of matter and energy while struggling to include UM impacts on communities, especially the most vulnerable. This is a central aspect in the definition of metabolism according to Urban Political Ecology (UPE). Using mapping as a tool, this study investigates the political dimension of UM by examining and comparing several international case studies and research projects. Mapping, in this context, serves not only as a tool for spatial representation but also as a mechanism for unearthing the power structures that influence urban development and access to resources. The aim is to identify and systematize the political implications of mapping within urban planning, especially in vulnerable areas. The proposed methodology lays its foundation on the UPE methodological interventions outlined by Kaika, Keil, Mandler and Tzaninis (2023) declined as follows: (1) the manifestation of intangible metabolic lifecycles; (2) the interaction between cycles of economic investment and crisis and cycles of socio-ecological transformation and destruction; (3) the reconstruction of the metabolic lifecycles palimpsest; and (4) the evaluation of socio-environmental wins and losses in Urban Transitions and Transformations (UTT). The UPE critical apparatus is addressed in this study by mapping UM, moving forward from the focus on metabolic flows to spatializing and monitoring metabolic lifecycles. The shift from flows to lifecycles is fundamental to pursuing a UM qualitative analysis and reflecting on the impact of linear UM on vulnerable territories, communities and ecologies, resulting in marginalization and dysfunctional lifecycles. Mapping becomes a tool for deconstructing dominant narratives based on exclusion, extractivism and accumulation dynamics, and for imagining alternative, more equitable UTT pathways towards environmental justice and sustainability, together with local communities, potentially giving voice to the most vulnerable actors in UTT processes. This study is part of the RETURN research project, Task 5.4.4 "Towards a circular metabolism for urban and metropolitan settlements", whose focus is research on circular UM concerning multi-risk conditions , and Task 5.5.2 “City-scale exercise for risk scenarios evaluation”, aimed at constructing the ULL methodology.