Prep Assignment:
Curitiba is known around the world as one of the greenest cities for many of its brilliant smart growth principles. Its former mayor, Jamie Lerner, designed and built the city to be environmentally friendly by engaging the community and maximizing land and resource use. The four assigned videos gave students an insight to the design and engineering behind the city.
The first video described the recycling and garbage pickup that was instilled in the 1980s. Although this is common in the United States, it was one of the first of its time when it was introduced in the city. This not only engages the community to work together for an income and the greater good, but it also enables Brazil to recycle two thirds of its waste. Lerner also built several parks within the city which provide places of recreation while keeping squatters and illegal activity away. For the lower income earning residents, Curitiba established the Green Exchange Program (which should be a worldwide program), where struggling families can bring their waste and recyclables and exchange them for food. This saves on transportation, since many of the garbage trucks cannot make it into the favelas, feeds families, and gives citizens a sense of self-worth. This video also discussed the integrated bus system, which is cheaper to run than a metro system and can transport four times the number of passengers. The most remarkable of all the changes that Lerner made during his time as mayor was the downtown mall. Although all the shop owners and drivers disagreed and thought it would lower business, Lerner knew otherwise. Lerner brought in children to paint in the streets, forcing citizens to park their cars to walk around. Ironically enough, this actually boosted sales while adding to the growing sense of community in the city.
The final two videos went into greater detail about the planning and principles of Curitiba. For example, the city brings in sheep to eat and cut the grass in the park, which saves money and energy in the long run. Open University allows citizens without financial freedom to get an education and reuses old buses and vehicles. Lerner describes the layout of the city in his Ted Talk as well as important characteristics of sustainable growth. Lerner suggests that it is important to engage the children because they are the future, and ends the talk with a catchy rhyme that would make even China want to live sustainably.
The smart growth principles that Lerner established in Curitiba can be applied not only in Rio de Janeiro and other cities within Brazil, but also around the world. As Lerner suggested, “the city is not the problem, the city is the solution”. Any city can adapt to the smart growth principles if they react sooner rather than later. The question is, which cities will follow suit?
Curitiba is known around the world as one of the greenest cities for many of its brilliant smart growth principles. Its former mayor, Jamie Lerner, designed and built the city to be environmentally friendly by engaging the community and maximizing land and resource use. The four assigned videos gave students an insight to the design and engineering behind the city.
The first video described the recycling and garbage pickup that was instilled in the 1980s. Although this is common in the United States, it was one of the first of its time when it was introduced in the city. This not only engages the community to work together for an income and the greater good, but it also enables Brazil to recycle two thirds of its waste. Lerner also built several parks within the city which provide places of recreation while keeping squatters and illegal activity away. For the lower income earning residents, Curitiba established the Green Exchange Program (which should be a worldwide program), where struggling families can bring their waste and recyclables and exchange them for food. This saves on transportation, since many of the garbage trucks cannot make it into the favelas, feeds families, and gives citizens a sense of self-worth. This video also discussed the integrated bus system, which is cheaper to run than a metro system and can transport four times the number of passengers. The most remarkable of all the changes that Lerner made during his time as mayor was the downtown mall. Although all the shop owners and drivers disagreed and thought it would lower business, Lerner knew otherwise. Lerner brought in children to paint in the streets, forcing citizens to park their cars to walk around. Ironically enough, this actually boosted sales while adding to the growing sense of community in the city.
The final two videos went into greater detail about the planning and principles of Curitiba. For example, the city brings in sheep to eat and cut the grass in the park, which saves money and energy in the long run. Open University allows citizens without financial freedom to get an education and reuses old buses and vehicles. Lerner describes the layout of the city in his Ted Talk as well as important characteristics of sustainable growth. Lerner suggests that it is important to engage the children because they are the future, and ends the talk with a catchy rhyme that would make even China want to live sustainably.
The smart growth principles that Lerner established in Curitiba can be applied not only in Rio de Janeiro and other cities within Brazil, but also around the world. As Lerner suggested, “the city is not the problem, the city is the solution”. Any city can adapt to the smart growth principles if they react sooner rather than later. The question is, which cities will follow suit?
Day Seven:
Curitiba – the greenest city in the world! Here we are. I have been looking forward to this day since I learned about Jamie Lerner early last semester. After contingencies prevented most of the group from doing laundry at a local Laundromat, Renee and I were confined to washing our clothes in our bathtub using soap and water as homemade laundry detergent and the shower rack for a clothes line. Inconvenient as it was, the experience provided nice bonding time for the group as we waited around for Tait, Jess and Cristina to return from the Laundromat.
After lunch, Jess and Cristina prepped the group for what was to come in the following days in Curitiba. Curitiba is renowned for its sustainable development techniques and high recycling rate of 75%. As Jess and Cristina described in their presentation, Curitiba utilizes a number of practices aimed at environmentally friendly lifestyles.
Flower Street, the largest downtown outdoor mall in the world, was one of many attractions created by Jamie Lerner to promote societal and economic gain. Although we did not visit Flower Street, the presentation gave students a clearer picture of Lerner’s solution to preventing cars from driving up the street by inviting children to paint murals on the street on Saturday mornings.
In addition, Lerner also instilled the “green exchange” program, which helps 30,000 families annually by collecting organic and inorganic waste from favelas and other low income communities in trade for fresh food and transportation stamps. This program has been extremely successful not only in providing assistance to impoverished families but also in employing recovering drug addicts and homeless citizens. One of the things I found most shocking in the presentation given by Jess and Cristina was the statistic ranking Curitiba to have the highest recycling rate at 75% of all waste. This is amazing given the imminent levels of poverty that exist in the city.
I was also intrigued by the history of Curitiba and its roots in the food and restaurant industry. Every meal that students ate in Curitiba was characterized by immense portions of food served Italian style. Aside from the similarities in serving style among restaurants, the dishes were also extremely alike. When dining in Curitiba, one can expect to be served unlimited portions of lasagna, fried manioc and chicken liver. Since Curitiba was originally colonized by Italians, many of the cuisines maintain an Italian flair and servers uphold the traditional Italian stereotype of assuming limitless portions.
Students returned to their rooms at the end of the day with full bellies, wet laundry and looming excitement for the next day’s exploration of the green city.
Curitiba – the greenest city in the world! Here we are. I have been looking forward to this day since I learned about Jamie Lerner early last semester. After contingencies prevented most of the group from doing laundry at a local Laundromat, Renee and I were confined to washing our clothes in our bathtub using soap and water as homemade laundry detergent and the shower rack for a clothes line. Inconvenient as it was, the experience provided nice bonding time for the group as we waited around for Tait, Jess and Cristina to return from the Laundromat.
After lunch, Jess and Cristina prepped the group for what was to come in the following days in Curitiba. Curitiba is renowned for its sustainable development techniques and high recycling rate of 75%. As Jess and Cristina described in their presentation, Curitiba utilizes a number of practices aimed at environmentally friendly lifestyles.
Flower Street, the largest downtown outdoor mall in the world, was one of many attractions created by Jamie Lerner to promote societal and economic gain. Although we did not visit Flower Street, the presentation gave students a clearer picture of Lerner’s solution to preventing cars from driving up the street by inviting children to paint murals on the street on Saturday mornings.
In addition, Lerner also instilled the “green exchange” program, which helps 30,000 families annually by collecting organic and inorganic waste from favelas and other low income communities in trade for fresh food and transportation stamps. This program has been extremely successful not only in providing assistance to impoverished families but also in employing recovering drug addicts and homeless citizens. One of the things I found most shocking in the presentation given by Jess and Cristina was the statistic ranking Curitiba to have the highest recycling rate at 75% of all waste. This is amazing given the imminent levels of poverty that exist in the city.
I was also intrigued by the history of Curitiba and its roots in the food and restaurant industry. Every meal that students ate in Curitiba was characterized by immense portions of food served Italian style. Aside from the similarities in serving style among restaurants, the dishes were also extremely alike. When dining in Curitiba, one can expect to be served unlimited portions of lasagna, fried manioc and chicken liver. Since Curitiba was originally colonized by Italians, many of the cuisines maintain an Italian flair and servers uphold the traditional Italian stereotype of assuming limitless portions.
Students returned to their rooms at the end of the day with full bellies, wet laundry and looming excitement for the next day’s exploration of the green city.
Day Eight:
This morning we bought a bus ticket and jumped on Curitiba’s infamous bus system and toured the city. Our first stop, the park, showed students what recreation truly is like living in the city of Curitiba. I was enamored by the immense size of the park, with several bridges, playgrounds and outdoor gym equipment with a ton of people using them on a Friday afternoon. There was a stream that ran not only through the entire park but also through every other park in the city. The water was clearly not swimmable and had a muddy brown tint to it. Across the bridge, capybaras feasted on and lazed in the grass. Initially, Lerner had “hired” goats to mow the fields in public areas, but they later found that capybaras required less maintenance and no shepherd. When strolling through the park, visitors have the choice of taking three paths: running, walking and biking. This simple but brilliant idea makes recreation that much more convenient.
Next on our journey, we stopped at the 24 Hour Mall, which was huge and beautiful but slightly disappointing. While there were many stores and it was impressive in size, the mall consisted mostly of antique shops, banks and high end shoe stores.
The most impressive attraction of the day was our third stop at the Botanical Gardens, the most beautiful structure of vegetation and flowers I have ever seen. We spent about forty five minutes adventuring the grounds and even found an amazing abandoned greenhouse. Along the entire walkway into and through the gardens runs a drainage system to catch and reuse excess water that does not reach the roots of the flowers. This experience made me wish we had more community engaging places in the United States. These attractions not only stimulate the economy as passengers buy bus tickets but it also establishes a sense of community and honor for citizens of the city.
The last place that our tour stopped was the bus station, where we got to see the giant accordion Volvo buses. As Jess and Cristina told us yesterday, Curitiba is home to the largest Volvo manufacturing plant in the world. The bus station looked very much to me like an airport, and even had buses that went to places like Sao Paolo. Considering the bad reputation of Brazilian roadways, this efficiency shows how effective Jamie Lerner’s policies and administration really was.
We ended the day in a different restaurant tonight, a few steps up the street from last night’s. This restaurant was much larger and slightly more expensive and there were two extra dishes added onto the plates brought out by the servers, but the menu was relatively identical. This new place, however, served free espresso after dinner, making them the better restaurant.
This morning we bought a bus ticket and jumped on Curitiba’s infamous bus system and toured the city. Our first stop, the park, showed students what recreation truly is like living in the city of Curitiba. I was enamored by the immense size of the park, with several bridges, playgrounds and outdoor gym equipment with a ton of people using them on a Friday afternoon. There was a stream that ran not only through the entire park but also through every other park in the city. The water was clearly not swimmable and had a muddy brown tint to it. Across the bridge, capybaras feasted on and lazed in the grass. Initially, Lerner had “hired” goats to mow the fields in public areas, but they later found that capybaras required less maintenance and no shepherd. When strolling through the park, visitors have the choice of taking three paths: running, walking and biking. This simple but brilliant idea makes recreation that much more convenient.
Next on our journey, we stopped at the 24 Hour Mall, which was huge and beautiful but slightly disappointing. While there were many stores and it was impressive in size, the mall consisted mostly of antique shops, banks and high end shoe stores.
The most impressive attraction of the day was our third stop at the Botanical Gardens, the most beautiful structure of vegetation and flowers I have ever seen. We spent about forty five minutes adventuring the grounds and even found an amazing abandoned greenhouse. Along the entire walkway into and through the gardens runs a drainage system to catch and reuse excess water that does not reach the roots of the flowers. This experience made me wish we had more community engaging places in the United States. These attractions not only stimulate the economy as passengers buy bus tickets but it also establishes a sense of community and honor for citizens of the city.
The last place that our tour stopped was the bus station, where we got to see the giant accordion Volvo buses. As Jess and Cristina told us yesterday, Curitiba is home to the largest Volvo manufacturing plant in the world. The bus station looked very much to me like an airport, and even had buses that went to places like Sao Paolo. Considering the bad reputation of Brazilian roadways, this efficiency shows how effective Jamie Lerner’s policies and administration really was.
We ended the day in a different restaurant tonight, a few steps up the street from last night’s. This restaurant was much larger and slightly more expensive and there were two extra dishes added onto the plates brought out by the servers, but the menu was relatively identical. This new place, however, served free espresso after dinner, making them the better restaurant.
Day Nine:
I awoke today feeling extremely nauseous and weak. I did not get much sleep last night for whatever reason, but I figured if I ate something and drank extra water it would help. Unfortunately, right after I tried to eat lunch we boarded the bus, which took us on a very bumpy bus ride to the airport, and I barely made it out of the van without vomiting up my entire lunch and probably the entire liter of water that I drank.
These symptoms are apparently that of dehydration, so Tait and Betty stopped with me for Powerade and rehydration salts which took about twenty four hours, but they did eventually work.
Due to the fog I have been in all day, I cannot say much about my adventures other than our evening arrival to Hostel Manga Rosa. The owners were very friendly and communicated easily with us, but I did not spend much time talking and took a nap in an attempt to alleviate my headache.
I was awoken by the delicious smell of Brazilian barbeque and laughs of many people. I ventured out, introduced myself and made a small plate knowing my stomach was very picky over what it would accept. Although I wanted to socialize, I was practically falling asleep and seized the opportunity to go to bed early and rest.
I awoke today feeling extremely nauseous and weak. I did not get much sleep last night for whatever reason, but I figured if I ate something and drank extra water it would help. Unfortunately, right after I tried to eat lunch we boarded the bus, which took us on a very bumpy bus ride to the airport, and I barely made it out of the van without vomiting up my entire lunch and probably the entire liter of water that I drank.
These symptoms are apparently that of dehydration, so Tait and Betty stopped with me for Powerade and rehydration salts which took about twenty four hours, but they did eventually work.
Due to the fog I have been in all day, I cannot say much about my adventures other than our evening arrival to Hostel Manga Rosa. The owners were very friendly and communicated easily with us, but I did not spend much time talking and took a nap in an attempt to alleviate my headache.
I was awoken by the delicious smell of Brazilian barbeque and laughs of many people. I ventured out, introduced myself and made a small plate knowing my stomach was very picky over what it would accept. Although I wanted to socialize, I was practically falling asleep and seized the opportunity to go to bed early and rest.