Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation & urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil

1. Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation & urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil • Population of >2 million. • Municipal operating budget ~ $US600 million (about same as Vancouver in 2004).

2. Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation & urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil • 1940: Curitiba population reaches 150,000; city hires French architect Alfred Agache to help accommodate growth. • Agache’s plan draws on modernist urban planning ideals e.g., total separation of industry, residential, administrative; the inculcation of progressive social values through rationally planned space.. Agache’s 1912 plan for Canberra, Australia design competition

3. Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation & urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil • By 1960, population more than doubles (430,000); Agache’s original plan can’t accommodate the new growth. • Mayor (Ivo Arzua) initiates first master planning session. • Brazillian architects led by Jamie Lerner create master plan that proposed to: • Minimize urban sprawl • Reduce downtown traffic • Preserve Curitiba’s historic district • Provide cheap, accessble public transit

4. Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation & urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil • Some key decisions: • Integrate transit planning and spatial structure of the city. • Make transit cheap and accessible (no expensive underground subway). • Retrofit broad boulevards of Agache’s plan to accommodate public transit. • Devote portion of arterial road space solely to public transit.

5. Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation & urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil • Curitiba has one of the highest per capita car ownership rates in Brazil, yet 60% of travel in the city is by bus. • Curitiba uses a third less gasoline per capita than the next eight comparable Brazilian cities (in terms of size). • Bus ridership has increased 400% since 1983.

6. Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation & urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil • What makes Curitiba’s public transit system work: • Flat fare, regardless of distance traveled (approx. 60 cents US). • Mixed, integrated transit fleets and routes (regional, express, local busses). • Financed through mix of public and private ownership: • Transit services regulated by the city, but contracted out to 22 individual corporations that run the buses and taxis. • In past, lottery incentives used to increase ridership (bus ticket = lottery ticket)..

7. Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation & urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil • What makes Curitiba’s public transit system work: • Speed and accessibility of a subway system at the cost of a bus system.

8. Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation & urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil • Other innovative initiatives in Curitiba: • 2/3 of city’s ‘garbage’ recycled at same cost as running original landfill. How? • Residents in wealthier areas separate household waste into only two categories for curbside pick-up: inorganic and organic. • Poorer residents not serviced by trucks, bring recyclables to neighbourhood collection centres in exchange for transit tickets and food (purchased by city from farmers on outskirts of city). • All inorganic waste brought to central depots to be sorted into recoverable materials by those unable to find other employment; recovered materials sold back to local businesses e.g., styrofoam for quilt manufacturing. • Consequences: cleaner city, some employment options, farmer incomes stabilized, poor have access to transportation and food.

9. Outline • Global patterns of urbanization • Differences in urbanization between MDCs and LDCs • Urbanization and the population question • Urban service provision and urban economies in LDC cities

10. Major questions raised by urbanization in the LDC’s • Will per capita income in the LDCs rise as urbanization increases, as it did in the MDCs? • Will cities in the LDCs serve as engines of growth, of industry and commerce, promoters of law and stable government as they did in the MDCs? • Will the increasing concentration of population make it easier for governments to deliver essential goods and services? • Will increasing urbanization lead to reduced fertility as it did in the West – because the costs of childrearing are higher in cities, family planning and medical care services are more available, and social norms are more conducive to small families?

11. Urban economies in LDC cities • Formal sector labour: • Waged; relatively secure • Not the dominant form of employment in many ‘developing’ economies • Informal: • Legal & illegal • Especially important in urban areas • Difficult to measure but 40-70% of urban labour force may be in informal section

12. Urban economies in LDC cities Formal Informal http://www.communityeconomies.org/info.php

13. Urban economies in LDC cities: petty commodity trade

14. Urban economies in LDC cities: petty commodity trade

15. Urban economies in LDC cities: petty commodity trade

16. Urban economies in LDC cities: petty commodity trade

17. Urban economies in LDC cities: petty commodity trade

18. Urban economies in LDC cities: petty commodity trade

19. Urban economies in LDC cities: petty commodity trade • The white topi identifies these men (there are only two women) as some of Mumbai’s 5,000 ‘Dabbawallahs’ (can carriers) • They deliver 200,000 ‘tiffins’ (lunch tins) daily, to both Hindu and Muslim customers • 85% of them are illiterate. The error rate is 1 in 8 million. • Just like FedEx – without the bar code, computers or a telephone – one of the world’s most amazing delivery systems – based on a colour code to denote the pick-up point for the dabba, the station where it must be unloaded, and the office to which it must be delivered. There is also a ten-digit alphanumeric code to track deliveries.

20. And now they have a world-wide following among business gurus

21. Urban economies in LDC cities: the ‘waste’ trade Source: kang, H-Y. and Schoenung, J. M. 2005. Electronic waste recycling: A review of US infrastructure and technology options. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 45: 638-400.

22. Urban economies in LDC cities: the ‘waste’ trade • Greenpeace & BAN: 50-80% of e-waste designated for ‘recycling’ exported out of US & Canada. • BAN: 400-500 shipping containers/yr from single Vancouver based ‘recycler’.

23. Urban economies in LDC cities: the ‘waste’ trade Source: Basel Action Network. 2002. Exporting Harm www.ban.org

24. Urban economies in LDC cities: the ‘waste’ trade Source: Basel Action Network. 2002. Exporting Harm www.ban.org

25. Urban economies in LDC cities: the ‘waste’ trade Source: Basel Action Network. 2002. Exporting Harm www.ban.org