Cities and Industrial Symbiosis: Some Historical Perspectives and Policy Implications

Summary The exchange of wastes, by‐products, and energy among closely situated firms in the Danish city of Kalundborg has become the impetus to and main template for the movement to plan ecoindustrial parks. In recent years, however, similar by‐product exchange patterns have been observed in other regions of Europe and North America. Evidence also indicates that cities have historically played an important role in facilitating the creation of recycling linkages between different industries. If Kalundborg and other newly documented cases of localized interfirm recycling linkages are but contemporary manifestations of much older processes, then what are the policy implications for current attempts to plan eco‐industrial parks? This article explores this issue by looking at the economic incentives that have always led to the formation of cities and interfirm recycling linkages at both the local and interregional levels. A critique of current interpretations and policy prescriptions based on the Kalundborg case is then offered. I argue that current attempts to foster the development of eco‐industrial parks and eco‐industrial networks are too narrow in their geographical scope, that public planning is unlikely to prove more efficient than private initiatives, and that perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from Kalundborg is thevalue of a flexible regulatory framework.