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Circular Cities (pre-print)

- This article is a pre-print of the chapter on Circular Cities, part of a Palgrave Encyclopedia -

Circular city is a concept inspired by biological metabolic systems that seeks to apply the principles and strategies of the circular economy at the different scales of urban functioning. By doing so, a circular city is meant to reduce the intake of primary resources and energy and resulting environmental impacts, such as waste and emissions. Its functioning is (re)defined by efforts aiming to close, narrow and/or slow material and energy flows. A circular city is a normative concept, implying thus there is an ambition to switch the current – linear – consumption-production system into one that works and develops circularly, in closed loops. It is also normative as it proposes the urban scale as the main spatial level of implementing circularity. As cities in the 21st century deal with their historical ecological impacts, circular cities also embrace ecological regeneration and adaptation measures to maintain their development within the carrying capacity of Earth.
This definition is a compendium of the perspectives contained in this chapter. Thus, although not exhaustively, this definition seeks to provide a common frame of reference for the study of circular cities.

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