Exclusive interview with the man behind Curitiba's master plan

Jaime Lerner tells Green Futures how to redesign a city, what Brazil’s major metropolises have yet to learn, and why urban acupuncture is the way forward.

When it comes to urban design, here’s the rule of thumb: city = life, work and mobility.” Jaime Lerner, former Mayor of Curitiba turned green city guru, is never short on soundbites. They helped him get elected back in the 1970s, when his urban master plan did so much to transform the city. And he wields them neatly to sum up the various successes along the way – from the celebrated rapid transit system, to overcoming the city’s notorious flood problems. Or as Lerner puts it: “While other cities buried rivers in concrete, we created parks along ours.”

And the parks aren’t just for the pleasure. As natural floodplains, they offer a more effective defence against seasonal flooding than concrete barriers, and can be used as boating lakes when the Iguazu River bursts its banks. It’s a strategy now being adopted as far away as the Netherlands, as governments look to adapt to climate change.

This respect for the pre-urban landscape helped Curitiba to hang onto a dwindling resource that many cities destroy, only to spend millions bringing it back: green space. “When we started planning, we came up with the idea of establishing a ‘grid’ for Curitiba, and occupying some of its cells with parks. But as time went on, we saw that a better idea was to save the existing – but endangered – forest remnants. With this policy, even as the population tripled, we were able to increase the amount of green areas per inhabitant from 0.5 metres squared (m2) to 52m².”

The importance of green space to good health and quality of life is undisputed, “and if a city has quality of life,” says Lerner, “naturally it has a very strong sustainability component”. By way of example he comments that by living close to your work, or bringing your work closer to home, you’re both improving the quality of life and reducing demand for transport.Curitiba is perhaps best known for its extraordinarily cheap and effective transport system, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). With triple-section bendy buses in dedicated bus lanes, it carries two million passengers a day, as many as some subway systems. But where an underground rail network costs as much as $100 million per kilometre, the BRT costs just $1 million per kilometre. “Creativity begins when you cut a zero from your budget,” Lerner laughs. Fares on the buses are flat, and the city’s growth has been planned along the routes, so that no one lives or works more than 400 metres from a bus stop.

A quick, precise touch

Of course, Lerner acknowledges, this system can’t just be copied and transferred to any urban area. “Every city has to make the best out of each mode of transportation it has, be it on the surface or underground. The key resides in not having competing systems on the same space, and using everything that the city has in the most effective way.”

Lerner began with a simple dream for Curitiba: health, education, childcare. But he is quick to acknowledge that he couldn’t have changed a thing if others hadn’t shared his vision. “A city is a collective dream,” he says, “and to build this dream is vital.” This is where leadership and good communication skills come in. Building the dream means creating scenarios of a possible future that are “desired by the majority”. Because unless the inhabitants share the dream and can believe in it, their “essential involvement” will be lacking.

The downside, he jokes, is that once you start the population dreaming, it’s hard to get them to stop: “The more the population gets used to advances, the more demanding it becomes. Managing Curitiba became a commitment of constant innovation”. Rather than stem the dream, Lerner recommends ‘urban acupuncture’ as a cure for all sorts of urban problems from neglect of the natural environment to poor economic management.

“It’s a quick, precise touch in a key point,” he explains. “Just as in the medical approach, strategic ‘punctual interventions’ create a new energy that will trigger positive chain-reactions, helping to cure and enhance the whole system.”

And the cure for environmental damage on a larger scale – like climate change? The same rule applies, says Lerner. “Around 75% of global carbon emissions are related to cities. And little by little, it is becoming clear that it is in the cities that we can bring about more efficient and effective changes.” – Anna Simpson and Ben Tuxworth.

10 March 2010

Anna Simpson and Ben Tuxworth