Exploring the energy use drivers of 10 cities at microscale level

Cities are responsible for the predominant share of anthropogenic environmental pressures. Recently, consistent methodologies to measure the metabolism of cities have been developed in order to enhance comparability between case studies and enable cross-city comparisons at the macro-scale. This comparison illustrated potential factors and drivers explaining macro-scale differences between cities. However, such studies rely on very few data points and look at cities as homogenous entities omitting their complex functioning. When looking at the relationships between urban characteristics and metabolic flows at smaller spatial scales, drivers appear to be different than in macroscopic analyses, pointing towards the importance of taking microscale urban heterogeneity into account. The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of these effects by analyzing the relationship between energy use and various urban indicators at a microscale level for ten cities (Brussels, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Chicago, Glasgow, London, Los Angeles, Milan, New York City and San Francisco).