Urban planning has focused on identifying many important questions about the formation and functioning of our cities. However, there is a lack of understanding about the spatial patterns related to material and energy use in cities. This work attempts to address this knowledge gap. — urbmet.org
urbmet.org is a web-map that illustrates data on material and energy use in cities. The goal is to provide an intuitive way of understanding this complex problem using an interactive interface. We have analyzed 42 cities and estimated material and energy intensities.
To make this work as useful as possible, we are interested in examining whether this information is presented in such a way that it builds intuition about the functioning of cities.
4 Comments
This is actually a very fun little toy. I'm questioning the results though. Quick comparison reveals that Manhattan residents have the same per person energy usage as residents of suburban Houston. That just can't be right.
may be right if this is measuring the energy usage of a total given area divided by the residents of that area (rather than individual energy usage).
Isn't that the same thing? I would expect that people living on top of each other in tiny boxes would not use as much energy as those living in sprawling suburbs. In case of NYC you have a lot of commercial activity mixed around residential, so that may be throwing off the numbers.
yeah. if all of the commercial and infrastructure in the given area is divided among the residents it would probably be correct. Kinda makes more sense to measure it like that since those things are the reason why such a high density can exist in the first place. Can't really have high density residential withoutall the commercial and a big public infrastructure like the subway.
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