Considering the city as a peculiar kind of ecosystem, this paper explores the potential of a metabolic approach to urban development interpretation, proposing an enhanced metabolic urban model. This new metabolic model strongly focuses on the influence that institutional activities have on urban sustainability. Such activities – like planning and other decisional processes - are considered as an important feedback of urban dynamics. This last updating aims at connecting the conceptual modelling to urban governance. 1 Introduction: Urban settlements have recently become the most popular choice of life for human kind. More than 50% of the world population already lives in cities [6] and this figure rises to 80% if referred to the European continent [2]. In environmental terms,...

(Book section of the book: "The Sustainable City III")