An  Ethos  of  Sustainability    Curitiba’s  Model  For  Multi-­‐Dimensional  City  Planning  Policy  Aiden  Irish  

April  2,  2013  

The  University  of  Portland    

ABSTRACT  

Curitiba  has  become  an  international  model  for  sustainable  development  and  social  regeneration.  Its  success  has  been  despite  a  diminutive  budget  and  rather  has  depended  on  creative,  multi-­‐dimensional  solutions  that  solve  multiple  problems  simultaneously.  This  paper  begins  by  describing  a  vision  of  holistic  sustainability  before  outlining  the  socioeconomic  background  of  Curitiba,  and  investigating  the  success  of  Curitiba  in  light  of  how  its  policies  promote  or  develop  a  holistically  sustainable  society  by  creating  a  culture  of  sustainability.  The  purpose  of  this  article  is  to  highlight  the  manner  by  which  Curitiba  has  created  an  ethos  of  sustainability  so  that  other  cities  might  learn  to  emulate  this  model,  while  recognizing  how  many  of  these  policies  are  specific  to  the  place  where  they  are  implemented.  

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Table  of  Contents  

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................3  

SUSTAINABILITY:  PARAMETERS  FOR  PROGRESS .....................................................................................4  

CULTURAL  SUSTAINABILITY....................................................................................................................................................6  

SOCIAL  SUSTAINABILITY ..........................................................................................................................................................9  

ENVIRONMENTAL  SUSTAINABILITY.................................................................................................................................... 15  

THE  POLITICS  OF  CURITIBA .......................................................................................................................... 16  

CURITIBA’S  SOCIO-­‐POLITICAL  BACKGROUND................................................................................................................... 17  

THE  POLICIES  OF  CURITIBA  IN  RELATION  TO  SUSTAINABILITY.................................................................................... 23  

THE  LERNER  PLAN:  MULTI-­‐DIMENSIONAL  SOLUTIONS................................................................................................. 23  

CONCLUSIONS..................................................................................................................................................... 31  

KEY  LESSONS  FROM  CURITIBA ............................................................................................................................................ 32  

OBSTACLES  TO  INTERNATIONAL  IMPLEMENTATION....................................................................................................... 35  

SUMMATION ............................................................................................................................................................................ 38  

BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................................................. 39  

 

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Introduction    “The city of the future – the quality city – will be about the reconciliation

of people with nature. It will replenish itself, respect its history, its human scale, its part of nature.”1

~ Jaime Lerner

ccording to the United Nations 2011 World Urbanization Prospects report, between 2011

and 2050, the global population is expected to grow by 2.3 billion people, from seven

billion to 9.3 billion. Simultaneously, global urban populations will grow from 3.6 billion to 6.2

billion, an increase of 2.6 billion people. This means that over the next four decades, on the

present trajectory, the world’s already overburdened cities will not only absorb all of the global

population growth, but will also take in 0.3 billion of the rural population and constitute 67

percent of the global population.2 Even at their current level, 80 percent of the world’s pollution

originates in urban centers, and this percentage will increase with increased urbanization. An

initial look at these growing problems appears gloomy, but it also offers a global opportunity for

change if handled correctly. The three-time mayor of Curitiba, Jaime Lerner has repeatedly

pointed this out, saying, “Cities aren’t the problem, they’re the solution.”3 Cities have long been

the focal points of change in history, a result of the “clash of ideas” made possible by higher

density living. From the development of democracy in Athens, the Renaissance in Florence, and

countless civil rights, suffrage, and antiwar movements throughout the world, cities have proven

themselves to be the centers of global, societal change. In an age of growing societal and

ecological crisis, the historical trend of cities provides great hope for the future.

                                                                                                               1  Chris  Zelov,  "Jaimer  Lerner:  Toward  a  Rechargeable  City,"  Whole  Earth  Review  85  (1995):  60.  2  United  Nations  Department  of  Economic  and  Social  Arrairs,  World  Urbanization  Prospects:  The  2011  Revision,  Highlights,  Population  Division,  United  Nations  (New  York:  United  Nations,  2012),  1.    3  Jaime  Lerner,  "Jaime  Lerner  Sings  of  the  City,"  TED:  Ideas  Worth  Spreading  (Monterey,  CA,  2005).  

A

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Urbanization offers a chance to encourage communities to grow around a sustainable

ethos and to transform cities from take-make-waste beasts of burden, into ecologically

appropriate mega-organisms. While the role of technology in this transformation, through

renewable energy sources and new forms of transportation, is undoubtedly important, its further

advancement is not critical to immediate change. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate

how city public policy can be used to move entire societies towards an ethos of sustainability that

deals with sustainability in all issues rather than treating “sustainability” as a carefully contained,

clearly delineated problem to be solved by a group of “experts.” The first step in this process is

to clearly outline an appropriate understanding of the word, sustainability; a word often used,

but, arguably, little understood. After establishing a basis from which to judge progress towards

sustainability, this paper will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the policies Curitiba,

Brazil in their effectiveness in encouraging greater sustainability. To be fair, none of this is to

say that this city epitomizes an idealized organization such as that described in Ernest

Callenbach’s Ecotopia. However, Curitiba represents an example of significant positive progress

and potential models for other cities.

Sustainability:  Parameters  for  Progress   Sustainability is an oft used word with a little understood meaning. Since the first Earth

Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, sustainability has become a central talking point, if not a point

of action, on the global stage. Yet despite its ubiquitous presence in political and environmental

conversations, the term itself lacks specificity. “Sustainable,” according to the Oxford English

Dictionary, simply describes something that can be “maintained at a certain rate or level.” What,

though, is being maintained when the term is employed in the political lexicon? In the broadest

sense, the conversation around sustainability concerns maintaining the survival of the human

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species at a standard of living that permits, at the very least, a safe and healthy existence.

Assuming this broad goal of perpetuating quality human life on earth, what other factors need to

be made sustainable in order to make that goal a reality? While an exhaustive list of such needs

would be endless, three meta-categories routinely appear as necessary components of healthy,

maintainable living: culture, society, and environment. These components are best envisioned as

concentric spheres, culture on the inside surrounded by the society in which the culture exists

and both surrounded by the environment in which they occur. Each progressively larger circle

impacts those within it and at the center of all these circles of influence is the health and

wellbeing of the individual.

Holistic sustainability is best pursued when sustainability within each of these categories

is incorporated into the very framework of policymaking and implementation rather than “bolted

on” as a side note in a separate department or division. Chris Laszlo and Nadya Zhexembayeva

describe this strategy for businesses as “embedded sustainability,” a conception of sustainability

where “the goal is not green or social responsibility for its own sake,” but rather an incorporated

ethos of sustainable practices.4

                                                                                                               4  Chris  Laszlo  and  Nadya  Zhexembayeva,  Embedded  Sustainability:  The  Next  Big  Competitive  Advantage  (Stanford,  CA:  Stanford  University  Press,  2011),  100.    

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Cultural  Sustainability     As a relational species, both to other people and to their living environment, humans have

developed myriad unique customs, traditions and beliefs that distinguish one group of people

from any other. These unique attributes constitute a culture and dictate to a large degree how

humans react to their surroundings. Many cultural customs are direct responses to the

environments in which they developed; food is possibly the best example of these adaptations.

For instance, Iñupiaq tribes of northern Alaska rely on a traditional, cultural diet heavy in animal

fats, particularly whale and seal while the Nahuat (Aztecs) relied on a largely vegetarian diet

grown from chiapa style farming in the lake around Tenochtitlan. These widely varying diets are

immediate responses to environmental factors, means of best utilizing available resources for

continued living. Additionally, the development of cultural customs around unique

environmental conditions reduced undue burdens on the environment, contributing to

environmental sustainability, the importance of which will be discussed shortly. To return to an

example from a Native American culture, many Pacific Northwest tribes traditionally depend on

Environmental  Sustainability  

Social  Sustainability    

Cultural  Sustainability    

• The  ability  of  a  system  to  endure  over  time  

• Inter-­‐generational    • Intra-­‐generational    

• Personal  Identity  • Source  of  geographically  appropriate  wisdom  

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salmon as a primary food source. In these tribes, the salmon is valued as the sustenance of life.

During the salmon season, tradition among many tribes was to appoint a salmon chief, whose

responsibility it was to ensure that the salmon were not harvested in excess. This tradition both

ensured salmon for upstream tribes and the perpetuation of a strong salmon run in the future by

allowing enough strong salmon to return to their spawning grounds to continue the cycle.

Moreover, culture provides a sense of individual and community identity that is critical to the

continued health of both.

In the face of modern technology and growing globalization, many cultures are losing the

traditions and values that inform their regionally sustainable lifestyles and provide community

identity. Languages serve as a usefully quantifiable measure of culture, as they often embody the

values of the cultures that employ them. As evidence of the immense threat that the world’s

languages and their cultures face, it is estimated that by 2100, 90 percent of the world’s

languages will be extinct. Current estimates suggest that 94 percent of the world’s languages are

spoken by less than six percent of the global population and 133 languages have fewer than 10

fluent speakers.5 Whatever the benefits of increased globalization, and there are many, the effect

on locally distinct cultures has been catastrophic. In the face of this evidence, a reasonable

observer might question why maintaining cultural diversity is important to the larger goal of a

sustainable human society. Two significant reasons for maintaining cultural diversity stand out.

William Iggiagruk Hensley, a foundational leader behind the passing of the Alaska

Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which gave Alaska Natives representation separate

from other groups in Alaska, made an observation about his people, the Iñupiaq, after returning

home from years of fighting for political representation;

                                                                                                               5  Tom  Colls,  The  Death  of  Language?,  October  19,  2009,  www.bbc.co.uk  (accessed  January  15,  2013).  

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One of the key problems was that we were longer identifying ourselves as a people… we had no

overriding way to perceive and understand them [western institutions and ideologies] in relation

to who we were – the Iñupiaq people. In the face of the great changes that were engulfing us, it

was essential that we become unified again. We needed to recover our sense of commonality.6

Mr. Hensley’s comment points to a foundational need of human societies for a sense of

communal belonging. Human psychological health relies heavily on a sense of identity. The

degradation of cultural identity erodes the foundations of an individual’s identity impacting their

spiritual and psychological health. Secondly, each culture that is lost to the annals of time takes

with it the accumulated knowledge of a community of people that had learned to live, often

successfully, within the limitations of their environment. In the global pursuit of a sustainable

human existence, the loss of cultural diversity is analogous to the loss of possible cures for

cancer as world rainforests are destroyed. Thus maintaining cultural diversity, or making culture

sustainable, stands to benefit not only the well-being of individuals in those threatened cultures,

but also the continued survival of humanity through the sharing of information. An important

factor to recognize is that cultures are not static, nor should they be. Slavery, oppression of

minority groups, and the subjugation of women have been characteristics of many cultures

throughout history. Making those cultural traits less prevalent is a great benefit of globalization

as exposure to different values and perspectives prompts internal reflection and change.

However, change within a culture, even one that is profoundly oppressive in certain ways, is not

analogous to the abandonment or destruction of that culture. Globalization, that great conqueror

of cultures that is spurred on largely by western values, must not make the mistake of thinking

than an affront its liberal western values constitutes grounds for dismissing the validity of a

                                                                                                               6  William  Iggiagruk  Hensley,  Fifty  Miles  From  Tomorrow:  A  Memoir  of  Alaska  and  the  Real  People  (New  York:  Sarah  Crichton  Books,  2009),  218-­‐219.  

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culture and the diversity to which it contributes. The continued engagement of cultures in a

globalized world, a scenario that is aptly described by what John Stuart Mill referred to as the

“clash of ideas,” serves to benefit all through the sharing of generations of accumulated

knowledge. Preserving and protecting cultural diversity in the world is, thus, not simply a matter

of moral concern, but also one of self-preservation. For illustration it is helpful to look at a

similar, but more widely known situation.

A common argument for the preservation of rainforests around the world is that, besides

their metaphysical importance, ascribed to them by many cultures, they are vast resources for

modern medicine. Every acre of forest that is destroyed also eliminates the potential of finding

cures for cancer and other diseases that may exist in the plants and animals inhabiting that acre.

Similarly, every culture that is destroyed by global homogenization, taking with it its traditions

and accumulated knowledge, eliminates the potential wisdom that can be learned from that

culture. Modern archeologists, having finally decoded Mesoamerican writing, are beginning to

find a wealth of knowledge about numbers and astronomy. How much richer would the global

encyclopedia of knowledge be if those cultures had not been decimated and their writings

burned? The Spanish conquerors could not know the wealth of knowledge they were destroying,

but their mistake was in simply assuming that the world would experience no loss from the

destruction. The challenge to modernity is to recognize the importance of the wisdom within

each culture and the benefits of protecting them. Making culture sustainable therefore, while

morally important and essential to individual health, is also critical to the preservation and

accumulation of knowledge that contributes to the betterment of all societies and cultures.

Social  Sustainability     In societies composed of a single cultural group, the issues of cultural sustainability and

social sustainability are, essentially, the same. Society, though, more broadly refers to the

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aggregate of people living together in a relatively ordered society regardless of shared values,

norms or traditions. In a globalized world, most societies contain multiple cultural groups. As

pictured by the image of concentric circles, society impacts the health of the cultures that operate

within it. The great challenge of maintaining society is fostering healthy interactions between

cultures and ideological groups as well as between individuals. Economists, political theorists

and philosophers have long debated the nature of the forces that encourage social coordination.

In the simple society composed of a single cultural group, such as Native American societies

before the intrusion of Europeans, shared social ideologies and values, sometimes developed into

laws and social norms, supported behavior that beneficially coordinated society. In a globalized

society, economic values, government policies and laws try to foster a similar kind of

coordination. When a balanced relationship between cultural groups falls apart, or, perhaps more

to the point, fails to ever develop in the first place, one cultural group comes to dominate the

society, forcing others to the margins and setting off a cycle of poverty that is ultimately

destructive to the whole society.

It is no accident that in almost every city in the world, the poorest neighborhoods are set

aside, explicitly or by the processes of “market efficiency,” for the poor and “minority” groups

of that society. Areas of concentrated poverty in New York City, for instance, disproportionately

impact black and Latino communities. Six of the seven concentrated poverty districts in New

York City, characterized by over 50 percent of the population living at or below the federal

poverty line, are predominantly black or Latino. One-third of all poor residents of extreme

poverty neighborhoods (33.0 percent) are black, and nearly half (49.9 percent) are Latino.7

                                                                                                               7  Citizens'  Committee  for  Children  of  New  York  Inc.,  Concentrated  Poverty  in  New  York  City:  An  Analysis  of  the  Changing  Geographic  Patterns  of  Poverty,  City  Data  (New  York:  CCC  Inc.  ,  2012).  

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Furthermore, despite economic and political arguments that “poverty is a choice,” poverty is

more accurately, a self perpetuating cycle from which it is extremely difficult to break away,

such as for children who find themselves born into poverty stricken societies. In the South Bronx

of New York City, 43.0 percent of children live in poverty, rising to even higher levels in Hunt’s

Point (54.1 percent) and East Tremont (58.6 percent).8 Poverty concentration, and its

disproportionate impact on minority groups, is perpetuated through the educational system.

The disparity in the U.S. educational system serves as an unfortunate microcosm of the

perpetuation of poverty in society. In Oregon, 80 percent of African Americans live in the

Portland Metro Area and 23 percent of all Oregonian African Americans live in North Portland.

Between 1997 and 2008, the disparity between the percentage of white students and African

American students meeting the Oregon state benchmarks in math has widened steadily.9

Additionally, reading scores of African American students in Oregon trail whites by over 20

points; a “large gap” according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).10

Similarly, on reading and math in grades four and eight, Latino’s trail white students by between

21 and 26 points on the NAEP scale.11 Because public school funding relies mostly on property

taxes, the trend towards poverty concentration in urban environments only furthers the

educational gap in those communities.

In New York City, 56 percent of third grade students from low-income households, a

disproportionate percentage of which are minority households, read below grade standards and

                                                                                                               8  Ibid.    9  Urban  League  of  Portland,  The  State  of  Black  Oregon,  Census  Analysis  (Portland:  Urban  League  of  Portland,  2009),  34.    10  Ibid.,  33.    11  National  Assessment  of  Educational  Progress,  Achievement  Gaps:  How  Hispanic  and  White  Students  ni  Public  Schools  Perform  in  Mathematics  and  Reading  on  the  National  Assessment  of  Educational  Progress,  Executive  Summary  (Washington  D.C.:  Institute  of  Education  Sciences,  2009),  1.    

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26 percent of those will not graduate on time or at all.12 Low education reduces business

investment and job opportunities resulting in higher unemployment. The unemployment rate in

the Bronx, New York City hit 14.1 percent in early 2012 while the rest of the city was at 10.2

percent and the rest of the state was at 9.2 percent.13 The industries that do move to regions in the

poorer neighborhoods tends to be those that are unwanted in more affluent neighborhoods, such

as waste disposal and management, chemical processing, and emissions-heavy processing

facilities. The proximity of these industries results in disproportionately high rates of asthma and

other environment related illnesses. These trends are, once again, strongly linked to the

concentration of minority groups and poverty; an African American in the U.S. is twice as likely

as a white person to live in a neighborhood where industrial pollution will negatively impact his

or her health.14 To add further insult to injury, low income neighborhoods are often passed over

for infrastructural improvements, such as green spaces and pedestrian throughways, which

reduces activity in the neighborhoods and increases rates of obesity and heart disease, as in the

Bronx, once again, where the obesity rate is 27 percent.15 Hostile health environments that deter,

or at the very least do not encourage outside activity, also encourage rates of violence. As Jane

Jacobs observed in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, streets with “fewer eyes on the

street” can be correlated with high crime rates,16 and a cursory overview of crime rates in urban

poverty districts such as the Bronx in New York, North Portland, East Los Angeles, and Rainier

Avenue in Seattle all testify to this trend and it is not hard to understand why. In discussing

                                                                                                               12  Citizen's  Committee  for  Children,  2012  Infographic:  Keeping  Track  of  New  York  City's  Children,  Statistical  Summary  (New  York:  Citizen's  Committee  for  Children,  2012).  13  Jeanmarie  Evelly,  "Bronx  Unemployment  Rate  Hits  Highest  in  Decades,"  Norwood  News,  April  19,  2012.  14  Majora  Carter,  "Greening  the  Ghetto"  (TED  Talks,  June  2006).  15  Ibid.    16  Jane  Jacobs,  The  Death  and  Life  of  Great  American  Cities,  ed.  50th  Anniversary  Edition  (New  York:  Modern  Library,  2011),  45.    

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causes of violence, Howard Zinn turned to a study by the Anthropologist Colin Turnbull who

had concluded, after living with tribes in Africa, that tendencies towards violence were responses

to environmental conditions of hardship.17 Environments within western societies are no

different. The cycle of cultural marginalization begets a vicious cycle of structural racism and

repression that can cause a community to spiral into a harmful cycle very quickly.

All of the common conditions of urban poverty described to this point epitomize a

socially unsustainable environment where various groups in society are pushed to the margins

via policy, market forces, racism and other means. So why are questions of social justice being

included in a discussion of sustainability? John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice, propositioned that

the success or failure of each individual, while partly a result of their personal attributes, is more

importantly the result of their influences in society. By Rawls’s argument, each individual’s

success must be greatly attributed to the beneficial attributes of their environment and their

society. Rawls was essentially describing some of the characteristics of a sustainable society, one

that attempts to minimize socioeconomic marginalization and thereby promote a virtuous cycle

of social activity. Analyzing the attributes that promote or deter such a society necessitates

investigating the nature of the economic system.

At the most fundamental level, putting aside the financial system and theories governing

market activity, economics is nothing more, nor less, than the system of values, norms and social

and cultural mores that govern how individuals and communities interact with each other and

their surrounding environments. It is critical to point out here that economics, in this sense, is not

a distinct subject area of sustainability. Rather, economics is the term for the operating norms of

the social system, the proverbial “rules of the game.” Currently the value norms outlined by

                                                                                                               17  Howard  Zinn,  Passionate  Declarations:  Essays  on  War  and  Justice  (New  York,  NY:  Harper  Perennial,  2003),  39.    

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economics value “growth” and “efficiency” as the primary goals of society. These values

encourage high consumption and waste over values such as thrift and sufficiency. Rather than

encouraging high throughput of resources, a sustainable economic values would “distinguish

between needs and mere wants, and it would grant a firm precedence to needs.”18 Such economic

values would have a critical role in shaping how society interacts internally and with its

surrounding environment. As the political philosopher Debra Satz argues in discussing economic

markets, “when we think of markets only in terms of the distribution of goods and not in terms of

the relationships of the people who produce and exchange those goods, crucial evaluative

questions are also excluded from our decision frame.”19 The excluded questions that Satz refers

to are those concerning what is to be valued, inquiries that neoclassical economists, who try to

treat economics as a universally applicable and objective science rather than a less sure human

science, are not comfortable discussing. Classical economists, most notably Adam Smith, were

very aware of the role of economic markets in shaping society and were not opposed to the need

for intervention in the name of preserving equity. The policies of cities can play a significant role

in shaping the operating norms of the economic system toward towards such sustainable values

of thrift and sufficiency, as will be demonstrated. On a final note, because cultures exist within

the framework of society and its economic values, sustainable economic values and a resulting

sustainable society are critical components of an environment in which cultures can be

maintained.

                                                                                                               18  Wendell  Berry,  "Money  Versus  Goods,"  in  What  Matters?  Economics  for  a  Renewed  Commonwealth,  3-­‐30  (Berkeley,  CA:  Counterpoint,  2010).    19  Debra  Satz,  Why  Some  Things  Should  Not  Be  For  Sale:  The  Moral  Limits  of  Markets  (New  York,  NY:  Oxford  University  Press,  2010),  11.    

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Environmental  Sustainability     Contemporary concerns over global warming, rising environmental toxicity and species

extinction, among myriad other concerns, have brought environmental sustainability to the

forefront. As the largest circle of influence, both social and cultural sustainability, exist within

the context of the environment and its influence. The industrial revolution and the harnessing of

fossil fuel energy sources have provided the illusion that humans operate outside the constraints

of the ecological environment. Such an argument ignores the complex interrelationships between

society and the natural world and the degree of dependency on the natural world by humans. As

Nancy Marry, a social worker, aptly noted, “the world of human behavior and the environment is

complex and interconnected.”20 Appreciating the degree of complexity requires less of a

scientific understanding than a degree of humility in the face of the incomprehensible

complexity. From a purely scientific perspective, environmental sustainability is the ability of a

biological system to endure over time. This is an ability for which natural ecological systems are

well adapted and need not, nor arguably can they be entirely understood by science in order to

foster environmental sustainability. Rather, permitting environmental sustainability to occur

relies on aligning human activities with those natural processes in such a way that they do not

draw from the environment faster than ecological cycles can renew or replenish those resources.

The current dilemma involving atmospheric carbon is a prime example. Consumption of fossil

fuels in its current form is not sustainable because human use of these materials outpaces the

ability of the natural cycles to renew or absorb its effect.

However, while carbon output and energy are notable examples, environmental

sustainability is not, nor should it be, a single issue topic. As the encompassing sphere in which

                                                                                                               20  Nancy  L.  Mary,  Social  Work  in  a  Sustainable  World  (Chicago,  IL:  Lyceum  Books,  Inc.  ,  2008),  13.    

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society and culture exist, environmental sustainability is pursued in order to provide a

“sufficiency,” in the words of Wendell Berry, of resources necessary to a healthy existence.

Making “sufficiency” of resources the goal of sustainability differentiates that movement from

stereotypical “environmentalist” movements. Sufficiency does not ascribe a greater value to the

natural environment than to humans, nor vice-a-versa. The goal is to ensure that environmental

conditions are sufficient to ensure the wellbeing of both society and the environment on which it

depends.

The  Politics  of  Curitiba  s one of the best examples of sustainable transformation, Curitiba, the capital of the

southern Brazilian state of Paraná, offers a glimpse of the factors behind sustainable

city planning. In just over thirty years, Curitiba pulled itself up from among the

poorest, most polluted cities in the world, to the position of a global example of sustainability

and social justice. The first step is to understand the socio-political background and historical

underpinnings of Curitiba’s transformation. Exploring the sociopolitical underpinnings of

Curitiba’s transformation is critical to this discussion because such background strongly

influenced the transformation process. Understanding this background is thus important to

understanding how lessons from Curitiba might be applied to cities around the world and how

cultural differences have created entirely unique situations. Of particular interest to this paper is

the method, and extent to which the policies and plans of Curitiba’s master plan created a

citywide ethos of sustainability by intentionally or unintentionally dealing with the three

components of a sustainable society. This analysis is central to following Curitiba down the path

of turning the global problems of population growth and urban pollution into global social and

environmental solutions.

A

  17  

Curitiba’s  Socio-­‐Political  Background  uch emphasis has been put on the local politics of Curitiba that preceded and

contributed to its transformation and the policies that were a result of those

conditions.21 Obviously the local conditions and policies are critical, but the long term city and

national level histories play a crucial role in setting the stage for Curitiba’s change as well. Even

before Jaime Lerner was appointed to the office of mayor in 1972, events, both political and

social, were in progress that set the stage for the Curitiba Master Plan that would be formally

adopted upon Lerner’s taking office.

On a national stage, the lead-up to Curitiba’s Master Plan starts early, with the shaping of

Brazil’s political climate from a largely agrarian society, under Portuguese rule, to an industrial

one. Under Portuguese control, Brazil developed primarily as an agricultural society and the

region around Curitiba especially, with its temperate climate and rich resources, attracted many

immigrants from Germany, Poland, and Italy who developed the agricultural system and

corresponding societal structure.22 The societal effect of this structure was a system that

resembled antebellum U.S. South with a strong hierarchical class structure and legal biases

toward the wealthier classes. The hierarchical agrarian social structure prompted a populist

backlash that overthrew the status quo and moved Brazil into the industrial age. The Tenentista,

a semi-authoritarian group of nationalists made up of young military lieutenants instigated the

social change, but without throwing out the paternalistic class structure.23 Under the vision of the

Tenentista, the Estado Novo was established with a view for technocratic and anti-political rule

                                                                                                               21  Jonas  Rabinovitch  and  Josef  Leitman,  "Urban  Planning  in  Curitiba:  A  Brazilian  City  Challenges  Conventional  Wisdom  and  Relies  on  Low  Technology  to  Improve  the  Quality  of  Urban  Life,"  Scientific  American,  March  1996:  46-­‐53.  22  Steven  A.  Moore,  Alternative  Routes  to  the  Sustainable  City:  Austin,  Curitiba,  and  Frankfurt  (New  York,  NY:  Lexington  Books,  2007),  75.  23  Ibid.,  77.    

M

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and an autocratic ruling elite.24 Because the Tenentista overthrew the less popular agrarian ruling

elite, the Estado Novo system put in place of the agrarian one was accepted and relatively

popular, even though the structure it proposed was authoritarian and thus distasteful to many

developed western societies. This system of technocratic rule and centralized control remains a

characteristic of Brazilian politics, including in Curitiba. The preservation of this national

political culture has attracted the ire of many scholars, including Fernando Flórez González, who

has criticized Curitiba’s status as a model for political structure and city planning for the rest of

Latin America and the world because, “what we find in the academic information shows the truth

of the case of Curitiba, expressed in the distinct categories that represent the traditional political

vices of Latin American citizens.”25 Furthermore, González criticizes the lack of direct public

voice in many of the planning decisions that took place.26 While the Lerner plan emphasized a

degree of transparency that is uncommon in many political systems, and invited public

participation in certain design aspects, such as the design of the many parks, direct voting on the

plan as a whole or components of the plan were not opened for public critique. Famously, the

decision to make the Rue do Flores a pedestrian only zone in 1972 was so unpopular at first that

many motorists and private business owners threatened to ignore the closure and use the street

anyways. In response, the Lerner administration sponsored a day of painting for children on the

newly closed street, a tradition that continues to this day.27 While most, if not all of these

unilateral policies are popular decisions and features in Curitiba now, many were only

successfully implemented by making decisions without public comment. However, as will be

                                                                                                               24  Ibid.    25  Fernando  Flórez  González,  "Curitiba:  ¿Una  Ciudad  Modelo  Para  las  Ciudades  Latinoamericanas?,"  Entreartes:  Revista  de  Arte,  Cultura  y  Sociedad  de  la  Facultad  de  Artes  Integradas  de  la  Universidad  de  Valle  7  (August  2008):  149.  26  Ibid.,  145.    27  Rabinovitch  and  Leitman,  "Urban  Planning  in  Curitiba,”  49.  

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seen in the structure of the plan, public participation was promoted in many ways within the

scope of the design process. Nonetheless, rather than eliminate the structure of a centralized

government established by Brazilian political history that González argues is a vice, Curitiba

capitalized on it in order to expedite the process of reform and to ultimately make the whole

process possible.

The system reform wrought by the Tenentista also had another cultural effect that would

critically influence the political culture and Curitiba in particular. Lawyers, who traditionally

occupy positions of political power, lost power and prestige as untrustworthy and corrupt due to

their association with maintaining the political power of the former landowning class. The

discrediting of lawyers left a political vacancy in a society that was seeking a new ruling elite.

Given the populist influence of the new government and the resulting view towards national

planning encouraged by the autocratic motivation of the Tenentista, it is not entirely surprising

that architects stepped into the role of political leadership formerly occupied by lawyers.28 Thus

city architects such as Juscelino Kubitschek, the former mayor and architect of Bello Horizonte

and the president of Brazil elected in 1955, and Ney Braga, the mayor and original planner of

Curitiba and later the president of the state of Paraná, rose to positions of great influence.29 The

combination of cultural familiarity with paternalistic, autocratic rule and a political tradition of

planners and builders as political leaders set the stage for the social, political, and economic

atmospheres in Curitiba that facilitated Jaime Lerner’s influence on the city.

Firstly, the cultural and economic atmosphere in Curitiba contributed to the future

acceptance of Jaime Lerner’s new city plan. Curitiba, like the rest of Brazil, began as an agrarian

town in the early 19th century. Unlike other cities in Brazil however, the cultural climate of

                                                                                                               28  Moore,  Alternative  Routes  to  the  Sustainable  City,  78.    29  Ibid.,  79.    

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Curitiba is much more reminiscent of the more reserved cultures of Eastern Europe and Japan,

two areas which contributed heavily to the immigrant population of the city, than to the more

gregarious culture associated with Rio de Janeiro.30 The increased influence of Eastern European

and Japanese Immigrants which occurred during the latter half of the 20th century, greatly added

to the rate of growth in Curitiba, something which is of central importance to the adoption of

Lerner’s city plan. Curitiba consistently maintained the position of the fastest growing city in

Brazil at an average rate of 5.36 percent per year from the 1950’s through the 1970’s.31 On top of

Curitiba’s growing industrial nature and shift away from agriculture, a result of the Tenentista,

this rapid growth can be attributed to Curitiba’s temperate climate, which was attractive to many

Eastern Europeans and Japanese fleeing postwar depressions and strife. The rapid growth of the

city contributed to its increasingly desperate need for an effective city plan, a plan that would

address the overcrowded streets and the favelas that were springing up around the city.

Simultaneously however, the immigration also provided part of the solution in the form of the

more reserved culture and a greater trust in government brought along by the vast number of

immigrants who were largely accustomed to more autocratic forms of political rule. The cultural

comfort with autocracy is partly responsible for Jaime Lerner’s success as mayor in substituting

democratic, public participation in city planning policy, so valued in western political society,

with political “transparency” in the process.32 In many Western political cultures, sacrificing the

opportunity to be involved in politics, even if not fully utilized, cannot be replaced with simply

being able to see what’s happening. For Jaime Lerner however, the ability to act unilaterally in

                                                                                                               30  Jeff  Brugmann,  "Designing  the  Ecosystem:  A  New  City  Rises  on  the  Serra  do  Mar  Plateau,"  in  Welcome  to  the  New  Urban  Revolution:  How  Cities  Are  Changing  the  World,  214-­‐228  (New  York,  NY:  Bloomsbury  Press,  2009),  218.  31  Clara  Irazábal,  City  Making  and  Urban  Governance  in  the  Americas:  Curitiba  and  Portland  (Burlington,  VT:  Ashgate  Publishing  Company,  2005),  88.  32  Brugmann,  ""Designing  the  Ecosystem”,  220.    

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creating the city policy was central to the success of the plan because it allowed him to maintain

a public momentum during the construction process without getting bogged down in political

squabbles.33 Famously, the opera house in Curitiba was built in just two months and many other

projects were similarly rapid.34 Thus the social and economic conditions, namely massive

immigration, not only caused the need for a new city plan, but also, in part, brought the solution

inherent in those immigrating cultures. Nonetheless, the scene was also primed by political

actions taken by Jaime Lerner’s predecessors, which greatly simplified the new city plan

implementation process.

Secondly, the political scene in Curitiba was shaped by two important political figures.

The first of these individuals was Ney Braga. As previously mentioned, Braga was an architect

by trade and can be credited with kicking off the urban planning revolution in Curitiba. Under

Braga’s mayoral administration from 1954 to 1958, Curitiba’s first mass transit system was

implemented in response to the growing population.35 While this system would prove to be

highly deficient and would in fact become the central aspect of reform under Lerner, it was

nonetheless the public transit starting point for Curitiba that set off the city trend towards greater

mass transit use. Additionally, Braga created the Urban Planning and Research Institute of

Curitiba (IPPUC) that would be of central importance to the implementation of future policy in

Curitiba as it provided the “strategic” overseeing institution necessary to accomplish Lerner’s

massive restructuring of the city plan.36 Most importantly though, Braga became the direct

conduit by which Lerner would come into power in Curitiba. Braga placed Lerner as the head of

the IPPUC during Braga’s term as mayor and would later arrange for Lerner to be appointed as

                                                                                                               33  Lerner,  “Jaime  Lerner  Sings  of  the  City,”  TED.  34  Ibid.    35  Irazábal,  City  Making,  87.    36  Moore,  Alternative  Routes,  77.  And  Brugmann,  “Designing  the  Ecosystem,”  226.    

  22  

the mayor Curitiba in 1972 and reinstated again before ever coming up for election.37 Once

again, by Western standards such paternalistic, autocratic decision making in politics would be

completely unacceptable, but it gave Lerner the opportunity to act quickly upon coming into

office and without regard to public perception, which found his first decision to turn Flower

Street into a pedestrian only zone highly unpopular. Through the creation of institutions and

promoting Lerner as a city leader, Ney Braga had a direct hand in influencing the future success

of Curitiba’s sustainable city planning.

The Second political actor to have a significant influence on shaping the stage for

Curitiba’s development was the mayor directly prior to Lerner, Ivo Arzua. Arzua can be credited

with priming the pump for public debate of the need for a new city plan when he put forward a

competition for the development of a city plan. This competition was won by Jorge Wilhelm in

1963 and was based on an earlier model proposed by a French designer Alfred Agache.38 To be

sure, both plans severely underestimated the future rate of growth of the city and were

prohibitively expensive to implement given the city’s tight financial situation. The central

importance of these plans was not their implementation, but the role they played in creating

public discussion and awareness surrounding the issue of growth. Ultimately Arzua considered

several other options, the last of which during his term was the possibility of creating more

private vehicle infrastructure, a decision that would be completely reversed by Lerner. To some,

Arzua’s period in office may appear a failure with respect to implementing a growth plan for the

city, but the unintentional positive consequence of his actions was ongoing public discussion.

Thus, when Lerner came to power by military appointment, the awareness among the population,

the business community, and city bureaucrats of the importance of a new city development plan

                                                                                                               37  Ibid.  38  Ibid.,  78.    

  23  

was already well instilled. This removed yet another political hurdle that Lerner would have to

face upon the commencement of his restructuring of the city.

The  Policies  of  Curitiba  In  Relation  to  Sustainability    ne criticism of Curitiba’s policies is that, while it is touted as an ecologically sustainable

city today, it’s policies are not specifically environmental in nature. González raises the

point that environmental sustainability was never a central goal of the policies of the Lerner

administration, but rather was simply a convenient offshoot that has been trumpeted

internationally to boost ecotourism and attract business and that the improvements do not benefit

the majority of citizens.39 González has a valid point that environmental sustainability was not

the central purpose of the Lerner plan, but fails to recognize the interconnectedness of the

cultural, social, and environmental, issues at play in Curitiba, and in every city around the world.

In contrast to an explicit policy of sustainability, Curitiba exemplifies a city that has

taken the values of sustainability in the three categories described above and “embedded” them

within every policy. Laszlo and Zhexembayeva describe “embedded sustainability,” a far more

effective model in their view, as “largely invisible but capable of aligning and motivating

everyone.”40 What they are describing is the creation of an ethos of sustainability that reaches

beyond policy and into the very character of the populace. Nonetheless, the policies have a

critical role to play in shaping and spreading that ethos. Many of the policies also have effects

within multiple components of sustainability.

The  Lerner  Plan:  Multi-­‐Dimensional  Solutions    apitalizing on the socio-political foundations that have been discussed, the Lerner

administration made use of the traditional high degree of centralization in Brazilian

                                                                                                               39  González,  "Curitiba:  ¿Una  Ciudad  Modelo  Para  las  Ciudades  Latinoamericanas?,"  148.    40  Laszlo  and  Zhexembayeva,  Embedded  Sustainability,  105.  

O

C

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politics to coordinate the plan through the use of strategic institutions such as Curitiba Research

and Urban Planning Institute, the central planning board that coordinated the entire city planning

project.41 This centralization made possible the high degree of coordination needed for fast paced

development towards a clearly articulated goal that is lost in a completely decentralized system.42

Like the vision of the Tenentista, these institutions relied upon politically appointed bureaucrats

to organize the plan’s implementation. However, as is often pointed out, this system suffered

from the usual corruption problems characteristic of a highly centralized system of government.

Access of political appointees to prior development information gave people in such positions

opportunities to buy cheap land that then became more valuable as the plan’s development

continued.43 The response of the Lerner administration was greater public transparency within

these institutions, from political appointments and connections to the source and final use of all

financial resources. While political and financial transparency don’t completely solve corruption

issues, it gives the public and media a vantage point from which to hold public institutions

accountable for their actions. Jaime Lerner’s decision to make the city government more

transparent was key to offsetting the high degree of centralization that was needed for policy

reform.44 One of the strategic institutions was responsible for the coordination of the 112 private

bus companies that operated without coordination in the city, making public transport use nearly

impossible.

The backbone of the Lerner plan was reworking the public transportation system. To this

day, the transportation network remains a model for cities around the world not only because of

its effectiveness, but also because of the manner of its implementation. At the beginning of the

                                                                                                               41  Brugmann,  "Designing  the  Ecosystem,"  227.  42  Irazábal,  City  Making  and  Urban  Governance  in  the  Americas,  85.  43  Macedo,  "City  Profile:  Curitiba,"  541.  44  Sandra  Makinson,  "EU  Environmental  Policy,"  comp.  Aiden  Irish  (Freiburg,  2011).  

  25  

reform process, public transport in the city was a mess of 112 private bus companies, all with

contracts in specific districts of the city, but with no coordination between districts, no transfer

fares, and no universal schedules. In reworking this system, Curitiba Urbanization (URBS), the

agency responsible for organizing public transportation, used the expiration of contracts with

each bus company as political leverage. Each company was given a choice; choose to operate the

new bus system under city regulation and receive a fixed profit for each kilometer traveled, or

watch as the city offered the contract to the next bus company in line. Over the course of several

years, this negotiation process reduced the number of bus companies to just over a dozen, all of

which operate under city regulation requirements. Financially, the result of this structure was a

completely unsubsidized public transport system, freeing up financial resources to be used in

infrastructure development and other public policies and providing a 13 percent annual profit.45

The next feature was the physical structure of the system. In the face of the rapid

population growth, Curitiba was in need of a unified, efficient metro system, such as an

underground rail network, but could not afford one. Furthermore, because of the state of growth

that Curitiba was experiencing, the city needed a public transportation that could be easily

expanded to accommodate future growth. The response was the implementation of dedicated

bus-only lanes oriented along central axes of the city that operate much like a subway system,

with innovative tube boarding stations that allow for greater efficiency while loading passengers

onto the double articulated buses. The result was a system that can transport 23,000 passengers

per hour along the central bus lines, a capacity and efficiency that competes with the best

                                                                                                               45  Marta  E.  Frausto,  "Planning  Theories  and  Concepts,  Implementation  Strategies,  and  Integrated  Transportation  Network  Elements  in  Curitiba,"  Transportation  Quarterly  (Eno  Transportation  Foundation)  53,  no.  1  (1999):  45.  

  26  

underground metro systems in the world.46 Moreover, this effectiveness was gained at a fraction

of the cost. A traditional underground metro system would have cost anywhere in the range of

$60 to $70 million per kilometer, whereas the Curitiba system cost only $200,000 per kilometer,

including the loading stations and buses.47 As a final benefit, the bus system could, and has,

grown easily over the years to accommodate the growth of the city, from its principle single

main bus line, to multiple high-speed lines that link easily with smaller lines. Such

developmental growth of the system also allowed for a smaller up-front investment for the

development of the system as it could be constantly improved over time.

The results of the public transit system plan have been striking. The system has grown

from transporting 25,000 riders per day before the plan’s implementation, to over two million

riders per day currently.48 The improved system has grown with the city to include 1,550 buses,

37 miles of dedicated bus lanes, 221 tube stations, and 435 miles of public transit out of a total of

682 miles of roads for the region. The true measure of the transit system’s success however is its

ridership. Despite the highest automobile ownership of any city in Brazil, one car for every 2.4

people, 72 percent of commuter travel is still done by bus and fuel use in the city is 2.5 percent

less than any other Brazilian city.49 Additionally, the system maintains an 89 percent approval

rating among the city’s population.50 Though the transportation system constitutes the linchpin of

Curitiba’s transformation, it was by no means simply a response to a singular problem, but rather

was a component in a more holistic solution to the city’s problems, sociological to ecological.

                                                                                                               46  Fred  Pearce,  "Brazil's  Sustainable  City,"  New  Scientist  134,  no.  1825  (June  1992):  52.  47  Rabinovitch  and  Leitman,  "Urban  Planning  in  Curitiba,"  49.  48  Frausto,  "Planning  Theories  and  Concepts,  Implementation  Strategies,"  45.  49  Ibid.,  and  Lucien  Kroll,  "Creative  Curitiba,"  The  Architectural  Review  205,  no.  1227  (May  1999):  95.  50  Jeff  Brugmann,  ""Designing  the  Ecosystem:  A  New  City  Rises  on  the  Serra  do  Mar  Plateau,"  in  Welcome  to  the  New  Urban  Revolution:  How  Cities  Are  Changing  the  World,  214-­‐228  (New  York,  NY:  Bloomsbury  Press,  2009),  220.  

  27  

Public transportation development in Curitiba falls into two categories of sustainability

defined above, social and environmental. When rebuilding a public transit system, a large degree

of the effectiveness of the new system is how well it is promoted. The ingenuity of the plan was

to link two problems, promoting the fledgling transport system and cleaning up trash in the

favelas, under the same solution process. To meet the needs of both problems, free bus passes

were offered for every regulation size bag of trash that was collected and brought in off the

streets, thus cleaning the favelas and introducing possibly skeptical citizens to the newly

improved transport system. This policy had the additional benefit of providing greater mobility

to favela residents improving their access to jobs and other necessities. Low-income Curitibanos

spend only about 10 percent of their income on transportation, a much lower percentage than the

rest of Brazil.51 Today, despite becoming one of the wealthiest cities in Brazil with the highest

rate of car ownership, a majority of trips are done with public transportation, the city has one of

the lowest levels of ambient air pollution in Brazil, and 70 percent of waste is recycled or

reused.52 Linking problems under single solutions not only reduced costs, but also expanded the

social and environmental benefits of each solved problem. On one side, social justice and

equality were benefited by the creation of a low cost transit system for all citizens by reducing

the primacy of private automobiles as the means to access prosperity. This same de-emphasis of

cars assisted environmental improvement by improving air quality. On the other side of the

solution was the recovery and recycling of waste with obvious environmental benefits of

reducing the presence of toxics and plastics in the environment. Moreover, cleanup of those

environmentally harmful products, a process that would have been extremely costly for the city

government, became a means of reversing vicious poverty cycles by providing an accessible

                                                                                                               51  Leitman,  “Urban  Planning  in  Curitiba,”  49.  52    Frausto,  "Planning  Theories  and  Concepts,  Implementation  Strategies,"  43.    

  28  

source of economic improvement. Additionally, as new buses were purchased for the improved

system, old buses that were still in working condition were set up with teachers and nurses and

supplies and sent into the favelas as mobile classrooms and health centers.53 This program,

feeding off the waste of the new public transit system, improved access to these resources in

historically deprived districts, contributing once again to the reversal of social inequality, and

salvaged otherwise useless materials, an extremely sound environmental practice. Such practices

are repeated throughout city planning programs; old railroad beds become bike paths, telegraph

poles are used for building new public structures, and a quarry has been turned into a concert

venue.54 The reuse of materials and equipment that would otherwise be wasted saves money on

disposal and buying materials for the projects and creates infrastructure that benefits the city’s

residents.

What truly differentiates Curitiba from other centrally organized city planning programs

is that, by involving its citizens in the process, the policy not only saved money, but extended

ownership of the city from government bureaucrats to all Curitibanos, particularly those who had

previously felt most ignored and the least amount of ownership in the economic system. Social

involvement, a component of numerous other policies, is central to social equity and justice and

environmental sustainability.

Curitiba parks are possibly the best example of a city program that fostered cultural

involvement, social equity, and environmental sustainability. Curitiba parks provide the greatest

amount of green space per capita of any city in the world, contribute to efficient water filtration

and flood control for much of the city, and venues for cultural expression. Furthermore,

Curitiba’s parks demonstrate that achieving such cultural, social, and environmental benefits

                                                                                                               53  Pearce,  "Brazil's  Sustainable  City,"  52.  54  Ibid.    

  29  

need not be financially costly. Initially, they were an economically minded response to the issue

of flooding.55 That the river parks serve as natural preserves for wildlife, provide a healthier

living environment for Curitiba’s citizens, and sink atmospheric carbon are all welcomed

additions. In addition, the implementation process involved numerous cultural groups, thereby

improving social representation and equality of those groups. In the attempt to save money on

park design, Curitiba planners invited citizens to design cultural parks around the city producing

numerous parks including Japanese gardens, the Ukrainian park, and the German Wood among

others. Besides social involvement and corresponding ownership of the city improvement

process, the park design program fosters a kind of incorporated cultural dialogue that implicitly

sets many, though perhaps not all, of the represented cultural groups on an equal playing field, a

significant step towards reducing the marginalization that leads to a socially unsustainable

society. Similarly, the expansion of public places, including parks and pedestrian only streets,

increases the public activity of Curitiba’s populace, a trend noted by Jaime Lerner in the years

following Curitiba’s rebuilding.56 Greater public activity around the city not only reduces crime

rates by “putting more eyes on the street,” as Jane Jacobs observed,57 but furthers the sense of

community ownership as residents use the streets as forums for public interaction instead rather

than as just conduits between work and home.

Even the maintenance of the city parks embody culturally, socially, and environmentally

sustainable practices. Most prominently, the city employs shepherds to use sheep to cut the grass

in the parks provide solutions to a wide array of issues. Initially, the use of sheep flocks to cut

                                                                                                               55  Brugmann,  "Designing  the  Ecosystem,”  217,  and  Kroll,  "Creative  Curitiba,"  95.  56  Lerner,  "Jaime  Lerner  Sings  of  the  City,"  2005.  57  Jane  Jacobs,  The  Death  and  Life  of  Great  American  Cities,  ed.  50th  Anniversary  Edition  (New  York:  Modern  Library,  2011),  38.    

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park grass was an economic choice as it was cheaper than using mowers.58 Employing shepherds

to cut the grass has had many other benefits beyond reduced costs. Using sheep gives the parks

yet another purpose. In addition to providing pleasant green space, controlling flooding in the

city, and filtering water runoff, the parks now also bring local agriculture into the city providing

work for agricultural workers who otherwise would not have work in the city and representing

another cultural component of the city and its surroundings. City residents also benefit from local

access to products that come from sheep. Also, the use of sheep rather than machines to cut the

grass reduces the noise level in the city further increasing the naturally pleasant atmosphere of

the city, a foreign concept to the majority of large cities. Finally, sheep droppings fertilize the

grass naturally, reducing dependence on synthetic fertilizers to feed the grass. This not only

reduces costs by eliminating another maintenance product, but also benefits the local ecosystem

by reducing the amount of pollution runoff into the rivers that would otherwise come from

fertilizers and pesticides. Like the structure and solutions involved in the public transit system,

Curitiba’s parks involve culturally appropriate and representative aspects that produce socially

and environmentally beneficial ends. It is the incorporation of this form of embedded, holistic

sustainability in numerous other policies that has earned Curitiba its title as the “green capital of

the world.”

Another example of such holistically sustainable policy design practices is city zoning

policy. Building design emphasizes smaller scale and spacious sidewalks that are easily available

to pedestrians. Bicycle paths are ubiquitous and city design emphasizes mixed-use areas, creating

essentially self-sufficient districts within the city, reducing the need for residents to travel long

                                                                                                               58  Pearce,  “Brazil’s  Sustainable  City,”  52.    

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distances within the city for various needs.59 So-called social “hubs,” essentially autonomous

communities within the larger city, is an innovative design technique that reduces the need for

travel (reducing strain on the public transit system and reducing emissions), and creates more

cohesive community as neighbors are given more opportunity to interact socially and for

business. This has become a central feature of many European cities in the past decade, most

notably Madrid, Barcelona and various German cities, including Freiburg. Such city design plans

foster the local street activity that is critical to a safer and more economically vibrant community,

encourage more public discourse and reduce consumption and waste, all necessary components

of a sustainable society.

Conclusions  uch literature has been written about the successful policies that have been enacted in

Curitiba and which have propelled it into an internationally renowned position. Much

of this success has been credited to the creative thinking and awareness of Jaime

Lerner, credit that is much deserved and impossible to refute. Nonetheless it is important to note

that policies are not created in a vacuum and Curitiba’s sustainable planning policies are no

different. Recognizing the national level, socio-economic, and city level foundations and

backgrounds to these policies is crucial to understanding the key lessons to be learned from

Curitiba and how they can be successfully implemented in cities around the world. Most

importantly though, understanding these background forces recognition of how Curitiba is

politically different from many Western counterparts. Synthesizing both the key lessons and the

fundamental differences is the first step towards moving the global urban trend towards a more

sustainable model.

                                                                                                               59  Ibid.,  48.    

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Key  Lessons  From  Curitiba    he effect of all of these policies has not been only a top-down change in the city, but the

creation of a mass social ethos of sustainable thinking that has embedded sustainability in

the roots of Curitiba society. Public involvement in the creative process, such as through the

designing of public parks or public art, was critical to the development of a city-wide ethos of

sustainability.60 Cultural expression that resulted from public interaction contributed to the

reversal of negative cycles such as poverty and crime, and made environmentally sound

practices, such as public transit use, reduction in consumption and recycling ubiquitous. The

mobilization of social capital, the involvement and support of the citizenry, as a component of

sustainability has been key to Curitiba’s success. To draw once again on the policies of European

cities for contrast; Madrid has instituted a metro system that is the third larges in Europe totaling

over 227 km, developed numerous green spaces in and around the city, and has set out a plan for

localized community “hubs” that reduce the need to commute long distances within the city on a

regular basis.61 Despite the numerous investments in sustainable planning, many of Madrid’s

efforts face a dearth of public support. As an example of Madrid’s less successful policies,

ridership of the public metro system has seen negligible increases in ridership, all of which have

been offset by declines in ridership in previous years.62 A possible contributor to Curitiba’s

success where Madrid was less successful is public involvement.

Due to Curitiba’s less financially and economically advantageous position compared to

many western European cities, the policies of Curitiba necessarily relied upon creative thinking

that involved cutting cost by involving public contributions. In contrast, Madrid, during more

                                                                                                               60  Lerner,  "Jaime  Lerner  Sings  of  the  City,"  2005.    61  Ayuntamiento  de  Madrid,  ""Diagnóstico  de  Sostenibilidad  de  la  Ciudad  de  Madrid","  2010.  62  José  Manuel  Vassallo,  "Public  Transport  Funding  Policy  in  Madrid:  Is  There  Room  for  Improvement?,"  Transport  Reviews  29,  no.  2  (2009):  264.    

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prosperous economic times, relied on heavy amounts of government funding to develop its green

infrastructure. For instance, Madrid built a beautiful and expensive underground metro system.

The success of Curitiba with sustainable planning on a budget prompted Jaime Lerner to remark

that the best way to promote creativity in city planning is by, “cutting a zero from your city

budget, better yet, cut two.”63 Though possibly unintentional, such planning also helped to

mobilize more social capital and has bred an ethos of sustainability that goes beyond the city

policies. Many of the programs that involved high amounts of public involvement, favela clean

up programs, city park designs, and public art, were motivated by a desire to make improvements

while reducing the up-front costs.

Envisioning the success of Curitiba from the perspective of the earlier definition of

sustainability, it is helpful to imagine the rings of influence of the three components. While each

consecutively larger circle impacts those within it, each interior ring also impacts those above it,

but beneficial change comes most successfully from the interior rings. Madrid’s public transit

system lacks the success of Curitiba because it was an infrastructure that sought to deal with

social and environmental issues without dealing with the level of cultural relationship with the

system. In contrast, the Curitiba transit system was built to fit the needs of the populations it

served and was promoted by linking the cultural and social activities of the communities with its

operation, i.e. cleaning up trash with needs for transportation. Rather than creating the solution

and hoping for public involvement, Curitiba policies began with public involvement and built the

solutions around it thereby permitting social and environmental change to be motivated by

culturally appropriate inclusion. To use another example, many public parks go unused in cities

around the world. This is a great fear of planners, that infrastructure will be built, but go unused.

                                                                                                               63  Lerner,  "Jaime  Lerner  Sings  of  the  City,"  2005.    

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In Curitiba, the parks are well used because they were the result of the communities that now use

them.

This discussion of grass roots, culturally appropriate change is not new. However, the

purpose here is to show that effective urban policy engages social capital to reach a solution

whereas ineffective urban policy creates a solution and expects society to respond beneficially to

the plan. Assuming an ideal plan based on how cities and societies should operate rather than

how they do operate was the central problem with 19th and 20th century urban planning theories

such as Ebenezer Howard’s “garden city” plan and Le Corbusier’s “radiant city” design. Jane

Jacob’s poignantly notes that such planners had grand ideas about “ideal” cities, but that they

failed to take into account the actual structure and operation of cities.64 Daniel Klein, in arguing

for a libertarian approach to markets, supports Jacob’s critique of classical urban planners by

pointing out that urban planners, no matter how well informed, cannot control every action or

situation in urban environments.65 This criticism of overly controlling public planning is entirely

correct. Nonetheless, despite Klein’s position to the contrary, central coordination by urban

planning and policy plays an important role in encouraging healthy operations within society.

The policies of Curitiba, and similar cities that have emulated it, operate by responding to public

demand rather than arrogantly trying to dictate it. Parks in Curitiba are used because they were

designed and situated by the people who use them. The program to build the parks, however, was

coordinated by the city planning board, an entity large enough to bring the necessary resources

together, a process that Klein refers to as “mutual coordination.”66 In like vein, the Curitiba

                                                                                                               64  Jane  Jacobs,  The  Death  and  Life  of  Great  American  Cities,  ed.  50th  Anniversary  Edition  (New  York:  Modern  Library,  2011),  23  and  29.    65  Daniel  Klein,  Knowledge  and  Coordination:  A  Liberal  Interpretation  (New  York:  Oxford  University  Press,  2012),  5.    66  Ibid.,  37.    

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transit system maintains an 89 percent approval rating because it is cheap, effective, and flexible

enough to respond to the needs of its users. Yet the effectiveness of the transit system was made

possible by central coordination. In response to these policies, the habits and ethos of Curitiba

residents began to change; public activity in pedestrian only streets and parks went up, mass

transit ridership skyrocketed, wealth increased while use of private automobiles plummeted, in

short, residents responded to the ethos created by Curitiba planning policy.

The key lesson for cities seeking to emulate Curitiba does not come down to a cookie

cutter model to paste on to their conditions. Rather, the lessons from Curitiba are that sustainable

city planning requires 1) addressing cultural, social and environmental needs, 2) motivating

public engagement and 3) enlisting creative thinking to produce solutions that tackle multiple

problems at once rather than single problem solutions.

Obstacles  to  International  Implementation    any  cities  in  Europe  have  started  trying  to  implement  policies  that,  in  many  cases,  

were  first  implemented  in  Curitiba.  From  recycling  programs,  mass  transit  

systems,  and  urban  social  “hubs”  that  create  local  communities,  Curitiba’s  policies  appear  

across  various  progressive  cities  in  the  world,  but  often  without  the  sustainable  ethos  that  

has  made  Curitiba’s  transformation  so  successful.  What  are  the  social  factors  that  separate  

more  affluent  northern  cities  from  the  benefits  Curitiba  style  reforms?    

  The  most  critical  inhibitor  to  the  development  of  sustainable  cities  in  economically  

developed  western  nations  such  as  in  Western  Europe  and  the  United  States  is,  

paradoxically,  not  a  lack  of  money,  but  an  excess  of  money.  The  relative  prevalence  of  

money  has  manifested  in  several  ways;  first  as  a  political  dependence  on  large  sums  of  

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money  for  public  projects,  and  secondly  in  a  populace  that  increasingly  equates  financial  

prosperity  with  happiness.    

  Firstly,  western  nations  tend  to  approach  environmental  and  social  issues  such  as  

transportation  or  handling  erosion  and  flooding,  with  large,  financially  costly  projects.  

Madrid’s  metro  system,  mentioned  previously,  is  a  key  example  of  this  tendency.  

Additionally,  the  tradition  of  U.S.  cities  to  spend  large  sums  on  highway  systems  to  deal  

with  ever  increasing  public  transit  and  transportation  infrastructure  mimics  the  European  

trend.  Seattle,  Washington,  for  instance,  despite  one  of  the  highest  costing  public  transit  

systems  in  the  nation,  including  a  raised  monorail,  remains  one  of  the  most  traffic  

congested  cities  in  the  United  States.  While  less  money  may  be  contrary  to  traditional  

public  policy  goals,  as  noted  by  Jaime  Lerner,  lower  working  budgets  generate  the  kind  of  

creative,  multiple  problem  solving  solutions  that  have  made  Curitiba’s  policies  so  

successful.  Additionally,  lower  working  budgets  encourage  the  mobilization  of  social  

capital  in  place  of  financial  capital,  thereby  developing  a  truly  sustainable  city  wide  

character.  Wealth  also  has  negative  impacts  on  the  individual  level.    

  Secondly,  many  western  nations  pride  themselves  on  high  per-­‐capita  incomes.  To  

illustrate,  Seattle,  as  part  of  King  County,  is  included  as  one  of  the  50  wealthiest  regions  in  

the  United  States.  Large  sums  of  money  held  by  individuals  make  encouraging  sustainable  

habits  in  the  urban  culture  more  difficult.  In  part  this  is  because  many,  though  not  all,  

residents  are  willing  and  able  to  pay  more  for  unsustainable  habits,  such  as  reliance  on  

personal  automobiles.  Additionally,  ownership  and  consumption  of  numerous  resources  is  

equated  heavily  with  prosperity.  The  car  is  a  good  example,  but  there  are  others.  The  

advancement  of  the  United  States  over  generations  is  often  measured  by  noting  how  many  

  37  

more  people  have  access  to  electronics  such  as  televisions  and  microwave  ovens.  While  

these  appliances  are  helpful,  their  presence  begs  the  question  of  whether  social  wellbeing  

should  be  measured  by  material  prosperity  or  does  a  focus  on  material  prosperity  create  

losses  in  more  important  categories  of  social  wellbeing?  Why  is  it  that  countries  with  lower  

per  capita  GDPs  tend  to  score  higher  in  happiness  indexes?  These  are  critical  questions  for  

all  of  society  to  ponder.  In  the  meantime,  however,  overcoming  the  greater  presence  of  

individual  wealth,  and  the  unsustainable  habits  that  it  makes  possible,  requires  appealing  

to  different  incentives  than  those  employed  in  Curitiba.  For  instance,  rather  than  the  many  

positive  incentives  used  in  Curitiba,  such  as  bus  tickets  for  trash,  changing  habits  in  

wealthier  cities  such  as  Seattle  requires  first  implementing  negative  incentives,  such  as  

more  expensive  and  less  available  parking  in  city  centers,  a  tactic  employed  in  Portland,  

Oregon,  or  taxes  on  the  volume  of  waste  thrown  in  landfills  rather  than  recycled,  such  as  in  

Germany’s  Grüne  Punkt  waste  program.    

  While  wealth  is  an  asset  in  many  ways  and  necessary  to  many  urban  development  

projects,  overreliance  on  money  can  stifle  more  effective  planning.  Budget  levels  should  not  

be  placed  on  a  pedestal  as  the  solution  to  all  ills.  In  discussing  fixes  to  large  scale  problems,  

such  as  hunger,  poverty,  and  education,  economists  often  estimate  total  sums  of  capital  

needed  to  resolve  the  question.  This  assumption  that  problems  as  mere  deficits  of  spending  

stifles,  exemplifies  a  arrogance  that  denies  the  true  complexity  of  the  problem  and  

encourages  a  mindset  that  seeks  to  deal  with  the  negative  results  rather  than  tackling  the  

problem.  The  obstacle  for  developed  western  cities  will  be  to  learn  how  to  reduce  

dependence  on  simply  dedicating  large  sums  of  money  to  solving  problems  and  increase  

the  utilization  of  social  capital  and  creative  multi-­‐dimensional  solutions.    

  38  

Summation   The importance of Curitiba as a model for other cities internationally stems from the

ability of the city to not only create infrastructure that met its cultural, social, and environmental

needs, but in its ability to shape the cultural ethos of it residents to meet those needs. As Howard

Zinn notes, “the old formulas for socialism have been discredited by the experience of

“socialism” in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.”67 As a result, governments are hesitant to

suggest that they have a role in shaping any cultural ethos whatsoever. However, every

government shapes the character of the governed, just as the governed shape the character of the

government (In a properly functioning democracy that is.). Currently city planning policies

around the world, particularly those in the U.S., cultivate cultures of violence, racism,

environmental degradation, waste, cultural destruction, and poverty. The lesson from Curitiba is

that the issue of holistic sustainability – comprised of cultural, social and environmental

components – relies on shaping the cultural ethos within each city, not simply combating the

effects of a destructive society.

                                                                                                               67  Zinn,  Passionate  Declarations,  173.    

  39  

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