An ecologically exemplary city

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The experience gained by this city is studied and adopted in different countries - both in neighboring and in remote regions of the world, including more developed ones. By the way, in 2008 Perm joined them, Governor O. Chirkunov invited the ex-mayor of Curitiba to advise on the development of a development plan for the regional capital.

In 1971, architect Jaime Lerner became mayor of Curitiba, the capital of the southeastern state of Paraná in Brazil. The urban population, which is typical for that area, multiplied like mushrooms: in 1942 its population was 120 thousand people, and when Jaime became mayor, it exceeded one million. By 1997, the city's population reached 2.3 million. And, which is typical for those places, most of these people lived in favelas - slums, where houses are made of cardboard and other improvised material.

Garbage soon became one of Jaime's main headaches. City garbage trucks could not even drive into the favelas, as there were no streets. And, as a result, heaps of garbage grew, in which rodents multiplied, and all kinds of diseases spread.

Since there was no money to create "normal" conditions, namely to clear the territory with bulldozers and build streets, Jaime's team suggested a different way out.

Huge metal containers were placed along the borders of the favelas. Wide labels were stuck on them, on which it was written "glass", "paper", "plastic", "biowaste", etc. For those who could not read, they were also painted in different colors. Everyone who brought a full bag of sorted garbage was given a bus ticket, and a plastic card was given for bio-waste, which could be exchanged for a bag of fresh fruits and vegetables.

In recent years, most of the tickets have been distributed by the private sector. Corporations issued 50% of their tickets to their employees. In parallel, the share of fruits and vegetables in exchange for garbage increased. On holidays, in exchange for "garbage" money, they gave festive dishes. The school's garbage collection program helped provide notebooks for the poorest students.

Soon, tens of thousands of children cleaned out the entire neighborhood, they quickly learned to recognize different types of plastic. And their parents began to use the received bus tickets to get to the downtown area where they worked.

Jaime Lerner simply invented new money. His bus tickets and food cards are a form of additional currency. His program "Trash That Is Not Trash" could well be dubbed "Trash That Is Your Money." Today 70% of houses in Curitiba are involved in this process; The 62 poorest districts exchanged 11,000 tons of garbage for almost a million bus tickets and 1,200 tons of food. The paper waste sent there for recycling saves 1,200 trees from cutting down every day.

It should be noted that Lerner's team did not set out to improve the monetary system. They only used an integrated approach to solve the main current problems, which spontaneously led to the consciousness of an additional currency.

Bus vouchers and shop cards are not the only form of local money in Curitiba that has emerged from this approach to garbage collection. For example, a different system was introduced specifically for the restoration of historic buildings, the creation of green areas and the construction of municipal housing and to reduce the costs of the city treasury. They called it solcriado (literally - artificial surface), but here's how it works.

Like most cities, there is a detailed plan of urban areas, which regulates the number of storeys of buildings. In Curitiba, two norms apply: normal and maximum. For example, if a hotel with a floor area of 10,000 sq. M.is being built in an area where the usual permissible norm is 10 floors, and the maximum is 15, and if the hotel owner wants to build 15 floors, then he will have to buy another 50,000 sq. m. (5x10 000) in the solcriado market. The city itself plays here only the role of an intermediary balancing supply and demand in this market. The proceeds go directly to the restoration of nearby historic buildings. Thus, the hotel owner pays for the restoration of the house in order to get the right to add additional floors to his hotel - and the maintenance of the old fund in good condition is ensured without any financial investments from the city.

Another source of such solcriado has become green areas in which trees are protected. Several large public parks (there are 16 in total in the city) are fully funded in this way. The owner of a large plot of land gets the right to develop one side of the street, provided that the other side becomes a city park. Housing gains added value if it's located next to a park that's easy to walk to, and Curitiba has another park to go to on weekends, and the city doesn't have to go into debt or raise taxes to get it. Everyone wins.

Most interestingly, the solcriado market itself has turned into a kind of additional currency that allows Curitiba to receive those public goods for which traditional funding is required in other cities. Plus, when a well-designed new monetary system comes into play, there is more to it than money and economic activity. Today, the average income of a resident of Curitiba is about 3.5 times higher than the national minimum. However, his real total income is at least another 30% higher (i.e., approximately 5 times higher than the minimum). And this 30% difference is due solely to the unconventional junk form of money.

Another indicator is that Curitiba now has the most developed social support system in Brazil and one of the most viable education and awareness programs. At the same time, taxes in Curitiba are not higher than in the whole country.

Curitiba's success prompted internal immigration to it, so that the city's population grew faster than in the state of Parana and the country as a whole. The practice of using an ordinary national currency in conjunction with a well thought out additional currency has been going on for over 25 years. This approach allowed a third world city to achieve the standard of living of highly developed countries during the lifetime of one generation.

Curitiba development strategy

• Using public transport is encouraged. This allows public transport to be better and more convenient than private cars. For example, it moves faster thanks to the original way of boarding the bus: passengers, using their bus tickets, go to a specially equipped bus stop, and when a bus approaches the stop, the internal compartments open in it and large groups of people get out and enter in a few seconds. No need to waste time collecting tickets or money. Also, special express routes were introduced for public transport, which made the bus the most convenient and fastest means of urban transport. A single tariff allows a person to go around the entire transport network, regardless of distance. Integration with intradistrict transport systems is also provided here. The real proof of the benefits of public transport is that it is preferred by most of the townspeople. Every fourth user of public transport owns a car, but does not choose it when traveling around the city. Thanks to an efficient public transport system, several pedestrian streets have been created in the downtown area, including the Main Boulevard. These streets host concerts by local musicians, theater performances and children's art festivals.

It is believed that Curitiba has one of the best urban public transport systems (consists of buses only), which is the most unique, efficient and modern in the world called Metrobus.

Metrobus or High speed bus (Bus rapid transit, BRT) is a method of organizing a bus service, which is characterized by higher performance characteristics in comparison with conventional buses (speed, reliability, carrying capacity).

Compared to conventional bus systems, Metrobus differs in several ways.

• Routes run along dedicated lanes (in whole or in part). Traffic lights are often switched directly from the bus, which gives them priority on the move. Buses have advantages at intersections.

• Non-standard buses, such as articulated multi-section buses, are often used.

• On some systems, stops resemble light metro stations: they have ticket and information offices, are equipped with turnstiles (which contributes to faster boarding of passengers, since tickets are checked and purchased before boarding the bus).

The floors of the station and the bus are at the same height, which is very convenient for disabled people. Passengers leave the bus through one end of the station and board through the other.

Each high-speed bus line carries up to 20,000 passengers per hour. This is similar to the indicators of a conventional metro, but differs from the latter in that it costs at least a hundred times cheaper and can be opened in six months, and not in 5-20 years.

Buses Curitiba is the busiest bus system in Brazil, accounting for three quarters of all urban and commuter traffic - about 2 million passengers per day, more than New York.

It was in Curitiba that a completely new type of bus was first introduced - comfortable, economical and fast. These special long buses have three sections connected to each other for cornering and have up to 5 wide doors. They can carry up to 270 passengers, use 40% less fuel and complete the route 3 times faster than traditional buses.

In addition to buses and cars, the city has more than 160 km of well-designed cycle paths, separated from the roadway and connected into a single network with streets and parks. More than 30,000 bicycles are used in Curitiba every day.

• Usually, if the population of a city exceeds a million inhabitants, it is required to build a metro to avoid traffic congestion, and in cities where more than 1000 tons of solid waste are generated daily, it is necessary to build large plants for sorting and processing waste.

There is neither one nor the other in Curitiba. Investments in the development of the local public transport system account for only% of the cost of building a metro. The savings allow Curitiba to equip its bus fleet with the most modern and environmentally friendly transport in the world.

• There is a free University of the Environment that offers short-term courses to builders, engineers, shopkeepers and taxi drivers. They are taught how their daily activities affect the environment. The university building itself is an amazing architectural monument, it is made mainly of processed telegraph poles and was built on an area that now looks like an idyllic lake landscape, although this place was previously an abandoned quarry.

• Curitiba is the only city in Brazil with a pollution level lower than in the 1950s. It has a lower crime rate and a higher education level compared to other cities in Brazil, it is the only city in the country that refuses federal government subsidies, because it solves its own problems.

• The local botanical garden is located on the site of the former city dump, it serves as a recreational and research center. In addition, there are 16 parks, each with a different theme. As a result, in Curitiba there are 52 square meters per inhabitant. green square. According to UN standards, 48 sq. M is considered ideal. area of green space per person, and this level is hardly achievable (if at all) in cities of both the first and third world. In addition, these parks are easy to get to using the public transportation system, so ordinary people can (and they do) enjoy all of their benefits.

• The UN has recognized Curitiba as an ecologically exemplary city.