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).
Urban service provision in LDC cities: transportation &
urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil
Agache’s 1912 plan for Canberra, Australia design competition
•
•
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..
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
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.
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.
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)..
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.
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.
Outline
1. Global patterns of urbanization
2. Differences in urbanization between
MDCs and LDCs
3. Urbanization and the population question
4. Urban service provision and urban
economies in LDC cities
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
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
Urban economies in LDC
cities
Formal
Informal
http://www.communityeconomies.org/info.php
Urban economies in LDC cities: petty
commodity trade
Urban economies in LDC cities: petty
commodity trade
Urban economies in LDC cities: petty
commodity trade
Urban economies in LDC cities: petty
commodity trade
Urban economies in LDC cities: petty
commodity trade
Urban economies in LDC cities: petty
commodity trade
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
And now they have a world-wide following
among business gurus
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.
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’.
Urban economies in LDC
cities: the ‘waste’ trade
Source: Basel Action Network. 2002. Exporting Harm www.ban.org
Urban economies in LDC
cities: the ‘waste’ trade
Source: Basel Action Network. 2002. Exporting Harm www.ban.org
Urban economies in LDC
cities: the ‘waste’ trade
Source: Basel Action Network. 2002. Exporting Harm www.ban.org