An integrated macroeconomic model for assessing urban sustainability

A macrolevel approach for integrating regional economic models with urban metabolism models is developed. Challenges with consistency and aggregation persist in the integration of urban models between socioeconomic and environmental systems, and between the micro and macro scale. Using an econometric model as a foundation offers a flexible structure, with low data requirements, that might potentially be integrated with microlevel process models. Such an econometric model is developed and verified for the economy of the Toronto region. The economic model is integrated with a greenhouse gas emission model that simulates emissions from the residential, transportation, and solid waste sectors. Emissions are simulated to 2010 for optimistic and pessimistic exogenous economic climates. In the absence of technological change, emissions will increase in the order of 30%, largely as a result of population growth (22%-23%), which is relatively insensitive to economic growth. The potential to decrease emissions through changing land-use development and increased recycling of solid waste is examined.