Urban Metabolism Case Study

The Urban Metabolism of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)

Kate Lam

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This report is entirely my own and appropriately references sources of information.

Kate Lam

Table of Contents

1. The Greater Toronto Area’s Urban Metabolism

1.1. Introduction

1.2. Visualization

2. Improving the GTA’s Urban Metabolism Through Infrastructure

2.1. Bicycle Lanes

2.2. Traffic and Idling Reduction

3. Urban Metabolism as a Metaphor

Appendix

1. The Greater Toronto Area’s Urban Metabolism

1.1. Introduction

An urban metabolism is utilized as a model to analyze the energy-matter flows within a city. This report examines the Greater Toronto Area’s urban metabolism and the metaphor as an entirety, focusing with a GTA urban metabolism case study completed in 2003, which also demonstrated the input and waste variances from 1987 and 1999.

The Greater Toronto Area covers 7124 square kilometers, encompassing 25 municipalities divided into the five total regions of the city of Toronto, Durham, York, Peel, and Halton. [1] As of 2011, the GTA’s population hit 6.054 million people, giving a population density of 849 people per square km. [2] The GTA lies in southern Ontario in Canada. South of the GTA is Lake Ontario, north is the Simcoe region, east is Northumberland, and west is

This refers to the population expanding into low-density areas, typically car-dependent. In the GTA, there are high-density, central urban areas like downtown Toronto, but the population is growing into large areas used for detached housing that require the usage of cars for transportation, like Richmond Hill. Such an urban sprawl would only naturally lead to an increase in cars, going from an estimated 2 million registered automobiles in 1987, to 2.75 million in 1999. In turn, from 1987 to 1999, this contributed to a 27% increase in gasoline input and 27% in carbon dioxide emissions.