Living between New York and Johannesburg, Paul developed a significant obsession with cities. Paul received his Bachelors of Science in Evolutionary Biology at Stony Brook University, New York. He completed his MPhil in Sustainable Development at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, estimating resource consumption profiles of 120 African cities. His academic disciplinary pairing alongside his fascination with the dynamism of urban systems has led Paul to the urban Modelling and Metabolism Assessment Research Team (uMAMA) at Stellenbosch University to delve into resource flows, resource efficiency and resource equity in African cities.

Paul's current research involves comparing top-down and bottom-up approaches to collecting data on resource consumption in cities. The first output was a baseline of Cape Town’s resource consumption profile. Current steps involve understanding how household-level consumption patterns contribute to overall urban consumption. Understanding different resource consumption patterns and their drivers throughout the city is useful for identifying new infrastructure development options.

Recent Publications:

Currie, P.K., Musango, J.K., May, N.D., 2017. Urban metabolism: A review with reference to Cape Town. Cities 70, 91–110. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2017.06.005
Currie, P.K., Musango, J.K., 2016. African Urbanization: Assimilating Urban Metabolism into Sustainability Discourse and Practice: African Urbanization. J. Ind. Ecol. 21, 1262–1276. doi:10.1111/jiec.12517

urban metabolism
urban inequality
sustainable development
system dynamics modelling