Sustainable Cities Case Study

Curitiba is aiming to be a Sustainable City

Curitiba is a city in Southern Brazil.
It has a population of 1.8 million people.
The overall aim is to improve the environment, reduce pollution and waste, and improve the quality of life.
The city has a budget of $600 million to spend every year.

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There is a good bus system, which is used by more than 1.4 million passengers each day.
It's an "express" bus system:
- They have special pre-pay boarding stations that reduce boarding times.
- Bus-only lanes on the roads speed up journeys.
The same cheap fare is paid for all journeys, which benefits poorer residents who tend to live on the outskirts of the city.
There are over 200km of bike paths in the city.
The bus system and bike paths are so popular that car use is 25% lower than the national average and Curitiba has one of the lowest levels of air pollution in Brazil.

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There are plenty of open spaces and conserved natural environments.
Green space increased from 0.5m² per person in 1970 to 52m² per person in 1990.
It has over 1000 parks and natural areas. Many of these were created in areas prone to flooding, so that the land is useful but no serious damage would be done if it flooded.
Residents have planted 1.5 million trees along the city's streets.
Builders in Curitiba are given tax breaks if their building projects include green space.

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70% of rubbish is recycled.
Paper recycling saves the equivalent of 1200 trees per day.
Residents in poorer areas where the streets are too narrow for a weekly rubbish collection are given food and bus tickets for bringing their recycling in to local collection centres.

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The reduction in car use means that there's less pollution and use of fossil fuels.
- This means the environment won't be damaged so much for people in the future.
Leaving green, open spaces and conserving the natural environment means that people in the future will still be able to use open spaces.
The high level of recycling means that fewer resources are used and less waste has to go to landfill.
- This means more resources will be available in the future.
Curitiba is also a nice place to live - 99% of its residents said in a recent survey that they were happy with their town.

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