A cradle-to-grave account of how human settlements transform and affect their environment, this important work addresses the need to develop quantitative methods to determine how human settlements fare environmentally.

In our current era, where human activity is the main cause of planetary change, there's growing concern about how our cities and towns function. Think of a city as having a "metabolism"--it consumes resources to be built and to operate.

This book presents a new way to analyze a city's environmental impact. It introduces a method to track the complete lifecycle of all the materials and energy a city uses. This process follows them from the very beginning, where resources like water, energy, and raw materials are first taken from the environment; through their use, as they are transformed to construct and run the city; and all the way to the very end, to see what happens to them after buildings are demolished and systems are no longer in use.

By creating this full "cradle-to-grave" picture, designers and planners can identify key problems--like hidden energy consumption and carbon emissions--and develop innovative solutions to create more efficient and environmentally friendly cities.