Mar
19
2010
An Urban Model For Us All – Curitiba
Author: JesseThis post will be quite long, but I hope you can take the 10 minutes to read through it…you will be glad you did!
There is a psychological theory, biophilia hypothesis, which states an innate need for contact with nature. Deprive people of this and they suffer a miserable decline in their well-being. We also find “asphalt complex” which speaks of the damage to health caused by car pollution. Jaime Lerner, the former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, created a trifecta by adding government to this by stating, “Credit cards give us goods quickly, the fax machines give us the message quickly – the only thing left in our Stone Age is governments.”
I have become fervently motivated to understand (and hopefully help fix) the puzzling separation of industrial capitalism and natural capitalism as well as the frustrating misconception between an educated, participatory democracy and the limited, two-party duopoly currently in place. In preparation for this trip, graduate school, and the next step in my professional life, I have read a slew of books, blogs, and articles but stopped in my tracks when I came across a chapter titled “Human Capitalism” (from the fitting book Natural Capitalism, pp. 288-308, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins).
The chapter begins by listing off a few problems most city officials face from homelessness to illiteracy to smog and follows each with their short-term, quick-fix solutions: building shelters, tougher standards, and regulating emissions, respectively. It continues with Operation Cat Drop into Borneo in the 1950s by the World Health Organization (”WHO”). In this case, there was a malaria outbreak which WHO tried to address with an under-tested dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (“DDT”). Ultimately, people’s houses began collapsing because the DDT also killed wasps which ate the thatch-eating caterpillars. The DDT-infected insects were then eaten by geckos which were then eaten by cats. As a result, the rats multiplied and so spread typhus and the sylvatic plague. In came the cats, parachute and all.
No city is perfect or alike, and no fix overnight without some adjustment. In America we have issues, party lines, and half-term presidential effectiveness (at most). There is also no doubting the fact that many emerging economies have corruption, some extreme poverty, et cetera. However, here in Curitiba all it took was for the governor to hire someone “politically nonthreatening” (or, if I may say, nonpolitical). This man was Jaime Lerner, a student of humanities, engineering, and urban planning as well as a former president of the Curitiba Research and Urban Planning Institute.
From the minute I stepped foot in Curitiba, I didn’t pass a single square block that didn’t possess some greenery. I’m not just talking about trees, flowers and shrubs either. The city protects and boasts 259 pocket gardens, 282 plazas, two Environmentally Protected areas totaling five square miles along rivers, a Botanical Garden, nine forests, and seven square miles of parks (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 297). Some of these parks were built to battle a major flooding problem the area had been dealing with. As such, the surrounding rivers were turned into parks with dams, canals, and, ultimately, new lakes. This natural design costs much less than traditional methods while eliminating the flooding and inviting social activity.
In the 25 years that Curitiba’s population grew 240%, to 1.6 million, public green space expanded from 5 to 581 square feet per person – four times as much as New Yorkers enjoy (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 297). Walking through the city’s parks and plazas, I remember a comparable feeling in Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park and Union Square (both in NYC) – but here it fits into the mold of the whole city.
Jaime Lerner’s legend and Curitiba’s rejuvenation began on a Friday evening in 1972 after the courts closed for the weekend. Lerner ordered the historic Rua Quinze de Novembro (aka Rua das Flores now) to be “pedestrianized”. Cars were banned, thousands of flowers planted, and cobblestone laid. By Monday morning one of the world’s first pedestrian malls was ready. Nearby businesses threatened to protest, but by midday they (and other businesses around town) were calling for more pedestrian spaces. Citizens began to take flowers from their beds to memorialize the day. Workers simply replaced them with new ones.
The best known innovation is that of Curitiba’s transportation system. Instead of demolishing buildings for freeways and organizing the layout of the city around cars (which was almost done before Rua das Flores succeeded), three parallel avenues were simply modified. The middle one had three lanes: one in the middle for express buses (capacity 270 passengers) heading in both directions and the other two lanes carrying local traffic each way. The two flanking avenues carried one way traffic, but they all succeeded in moving people in and out of the city. Construction was completed in 4 years and all 200 loading tubes (or platforms) cost $4.5 million – 200 times less than Rio’s new subway with 400% more passengers (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 294). The rest of the bus system is color-coded for length and destination (suburbs, short distance, express distance, hospital, etc). In all the system carries 1.9 million passengers per weekday (more than NYC) with 89% user satisfaction, covers 500 route miles, and reduces idle pollution, noise, fuel (7 million gallons), and buses by 69% (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 295). The city built the streets, stations, and lights (operated to expedite buses with priority) and private companies operate them and earn $0.45 per passenger regardless of distance – this pays back 1% investment costs per month and provides them a profit (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 294). With this flat rate scheme, shorter trips subsidize longer ones This helps poorer citizens outside the city center enjoy a stronger purchasing power, by 200%, versus elsewhere in Brazil (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 295). Also, it forces bus companies to compete on number of miles covered instead of passengers carried.
As for zoning and land use, developers are given larger ratios of floor space to land used the closer they are to the main transport arteries. Further, they receive tax breaks for adding green space and are permitted even higher zoning if it goes to lower-income housing. The city’s goal with its zoning rules was to limit real estate speculation and transportation needs. It helped achieve this by making all land use plans publicly available while democratizing amenities like schools, clinics, day cares, food distribution centers, parks, and government satellite offices into the suburbs.
At these government access branches they held public hotlines for citizens to report anything from vandalism to tree cutting without a permit (one must also plant two for every one taken down, regardless of property ownership). Citizens can also pay property taxes here (the main source of revenue for the city) and simultaneously vote on all social projects as well as propose new improvement ideas. Each citizen holds one vote regardless of class or affiliation and a $156 per capita budget allocation, 1/8th of Detroit (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 298).
Curitiba has traditionally been an agricultural city that lies between the capitals of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay – a market of 200 million (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 297). During implementation of its Master Plan, the city recruited 500 non-polluting industries, but encouraged all firms to reduce, reuse, and recycle by requiring them to dispose their waste on their own land. This is something America could do well to learn from instead of using taxpayer money for cleanup (see GE and its impact on the Hudson River for an example). Moreover, with the transportation system’s efficiency, companies claim to save 20 commuting hours per week, or nine years per lifetime (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 294).
The last major aspect endemic within this community is the relationship between education, health, and jobs and an overall sense of community pride. Education begins in primary schooling during which children learn their fundamentals. Included here is a ten-volume text, Liçoes Curitibanas, on Curitiba’s history, culture, civics, and environment. These volumes can also be found at the cities “Lighthouse Libraries” or obtained by poor children in exchange for recycling garbage. These lighthouses also serve as nighttime watch towers for policemen and offer public internet terminals.
This multi-use characteristic is apparent throughout the Curitiban community as everything is recycled. A garbage dump became the botanical gardens, a derelict quarry the Free University for the Environment (which provides courses for every profession on how their work relates to and affects the environment), a glue plant into a handicraft Creativity Learning Center for children, old buses into mobile training and public service centers, and another quarry into the Amare Opera House. This method of recycling absolutely everything teaches not only an act (and follows words with actions) but also does it at a low cost to the public to provide services like health care (general, preventative, pre/post-natal), free drug distribution, day care, bulk food and supplies for the poor, and, most importantly, education.
Furthermore, the city’s recycling and cleanup initiatives provide jobs to the homeless, disabled, and recovering alcoholics/addicts. Poorer citizens can also exchange trash or recyclables for food, bus tokens, school supplies, etc. An added bonus is that some of the food comes from farmers surplus crops that would have otherwise spoiled. As a result, 70 % of Curitiba recycles its waste (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 301).
It is not uncommon to see pristine water canals with attractive street art because street kids were hired to plant flowers and trees and decorate the otherwise neglected area with their talents. One can also witness “licensed recycling carts” rushing to snatch up a piece of trash that a pedestrian may have unconsciously dropped because of the value (regulated, widely-known prices) it fetches to help feed one’s family.
Those that stay in school are given scholarships as well as internships, training, and access to sports, culture, and computer skills. The jobs provided are often environmental but prepare the students for their future. With 27% of its budget going into education, Curitiba can proudly claim a 94% literacy rate (Hawken, A. Lovins, & L. Lovins 302-303).
From the poor to the young to the elderly, initiatives are put into place with incentives that teach, provide monetary reward, and promote social and environmental interaction. It is because of this that taxpayers do not complain on how wealth is spread. They have helped choose and implement these projects, and everyone experiences a higher quality of living (relatively speaking across classes) as a result.
Here in Curitiba I see a habitat, a place that values living as well as human and natural capital. This is almost the exact opposite of the sprawl endemic to so many segregated, unhealthy, and road-dominated suburbs around the world. Here design works with nature, society heals, and government flourishes as a support beam. To all the cynics: it exists; therefore, it is possible. After all, what other city in the world use a flock of sheep (in place of oily, noisy lawn mowers) to trim and fertilize a park’s grass all while promoting the first form of recycling – their fur?
(there are a few more pictures that I didn’t include in this post on the photos page, like my eco-wine and visit to Brazil’s first organic market)
Thank you for reading!! I hope you see the same green light that I do 
