MAMMUT - managing the metabolism of urbanization: testing theory through a pilot study of the Stockholm Underground

The research project MAMMUT explores synergies between the processes of urbanization and sustainable development. In a pilot study, we tested the assumption that the concept of situations of opportunity can define the project's unit of analysis. We applied MAMMUT's conceptual framework to the Stockholm Underground, identified that situation's formative moment (1941, when main decisions were taken) and analysed its prehistory and factual outcome. To illustrate its field of options, a counterfactual highway and roads scenario was developed. For outcome and scenario, we outlined the resulting urban structure, the institutions of development and operation and the households' ways of life, and assessed environmental impacts. The situation concept was found to be useful for identifying and analysing synergies between urbanization and sustainable development. It needs to be further developed to study the relationships between its four disciplinary aspects. Applying it to futurological studies calls for methodological development including scenario techniques and backcasting. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

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