Curitiba 2

I slept in and had a slow breakfast because I would be taking a sleeper bus to Iguaçu that night. I debated with myself whether to attend the Take 6 (an a capella sextet) concert that evening. In the end I decided not to, because I knew only one song of theirs, as guests on a Joe Sample album. Besides I would have to leave the concert early to catch my bus.

I took myself to the Passeio Público (page in Portuguese), the oldest public park in Curitiba, just a few minutes from the centre. It was an island of quiet, something you don't usually expect in a Brazilian city. Couples walked hand in hand. There were pipoco (popcorn) sellers and pigeons. Some people were feeding birds. This was a good sign because it meant that people were kind to animals and hopefully also to each other.

There was a small zoo there with specimens such macaws and this toucan with its prominent coloured bill.

Let's go back to the mall and back 25 years too...

In 1972, Jaime Lerner was a newly elected mayor of Curitiba. A conversion of 6 blocks in the centre of the city to a pedestrian only precinct had been approved in a master plan 6 years earlier, but downtown merchants had blocked its implementation, fearing loss of customers. Lerner ordered his secretary of public works to implement the transformation in 48 hours. You're crazy, said the secretary. Yes, I'm crazy, but do it in 48 hours, replied Lerner. In the event installing paving, lighting, planters and street furniture took 72 hours, over a weekend. Lerner knew that he had to move fast, or the change would be mired in challenges. Within days when the merchants found that they actually had more customers than before, they were converted and petitioned for an extension of the precinct.

There was opposition from another quarter though. Recalcitrant motorists who were used to driving through downtown planned to protest by ignoring the prohibition on a Saturday. Lerner got wind of this, assembled teachers and children in the mall, gave them newsprint and paint, and set the kids to draw pictures. That saw off the last serious challenge to the pedestrianisation. The painting sessions on weekends is a commemoration of sorts of that critical skirmish won decades ago. The precinct has since been extended to cover more blocks.

Besides painting sessions, other activities I saw on offer included a climbing wall, and a chess workshop.

Other examples of unconventional solutions: The access ways in shanty towns were too narrow for garbage collection vehicles so rather than abandon the residents, the city rewarded residents who took garbage out with sacks of groceries and bus tickets. Similarly, fishermen were paid by weight for any garbage they dredged from a nearby bay, cleaning the bay and supplementing their income in the off-season in one stroke.

Instead of putting up expensive levees to protect the city from surrounding floodplains, the city purchased them and turned them into parks. Instead of fuel-guzzling mowers, municipal sheep trim the vegetation. The wool produced funds children's programs.

Curitiba promotes public access to knowledge through a network of public libraries and Internet access points called lighthouse of knowledge (farol de saber, page in Portuguese).

There are far more examples of innovative civic programs than will fit in a blog post. Curitiba did these things long before green became an admirable adjective. A search on the Web will find you many Jaime Lerner stories, for example here and here.

Not everything is perfect in Curitiba though, it's partly a victim of its own success. The higher living standards have drawn more people to live here and they have acquired cars and are straining the transport and sewerage systems of the city. Still Curitiba is a shining example of how enlightened urban planning makes real differences to lives.

Incidentally the state tree of Paraná is araucaria angustifolia. a specimen which you see here. A relative is araucaria araucana (monkey puzzle tree) which is the national tree of Chile. It's not actually sudoku for monkeys; it got its name from a casual remark by a viewer of a specimen raised in Cornwall. Since it didn't have a popular appellation at that time, the name stuck.

At Praça Garibaldi I found a lively market in progress. I found a vegetarian por quilo place nearby serving tasty food. Curitiba was green in that respect too, I mused. 

The colourful T-shirts were tempting, but I decided to be satisfied with what I had bought in Rio.

I took a trip to Torre Panorâmica (page in Portuguese) in the suburb of Mercês. Also I wanted to actually ride an articulated bus; up to this time I had no need to leave the city centre, except for the railway/bus station. The torre is a telecommunications tower with a viewing platform. From there I could see the lay of the land. It was flat and unremarkable but the results of urban planning were plain to see—high rises in the centre, tapering down to single story housing further out.

In the evening, after a nap on the hotel's couch, I went to see Jules et Jim at the Luz cinema to kill time until departure. It was challenging to listen to French and read Portuguese subtitles simultaneously. Afterwards I had a hot dog (with a square bun) at an eatery. The waiter was Chinese. I had difficulty understanding his Portuguese. Later I discovered that he was Cantonese. Then a dessert of ice cream before heading to the bus station.