A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil

This documentary can be a very exciting foreshadowing for other cities that are in the verge of development. Technology definitely brought potential to the city and provided centralization to the city. For instance, they built bookstore and public library where people can go study and read. These were placed in underprivileged communities. These connections were a combination of a network for all to come together and share knowledge with one another. As cities grow, the buses will continue to grow. We have to act together where things will be done right. Change is in the eye of the beholder and it is all possible if we can all contribute as a community. The city should be the solution and not the problem.

Most environmental films are along the lines of, "You thought the world was bad? Well, actually it's worse...". How refreshing then that a film offers practical solutions from a real-life, large-scale example rather than just showing the problems. Town planners everywhere should see this. Curitba in Brazil needed solutions to the usual major problems facing a large city. A limited budget forced innovative and also environmentally friendly solutions.

What emerged was an effective bus system that rivals underground trains for efficiency, a pioneering recycling scheme that also cleaned up the city by paying people for collecting trash, housing and jobs for people on low incomes and a solution to flooding that also created beautiful park areas. All sound too good to be true? Don't judge a DVD by it's cover (the graphic design was on a budget, too), see this film!

This review is for the documentary titled A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil. It was filmed in 2007 by Giovanni Vaz Del Bello and produced by Maria Terezinha Vaz.The city of Curitiba has a population of about 2 million and is located in Brazil's state of Paranà. As a result of its cost efficient innovations they have gained the following title of "The Model City" and as of 2010 they received the Global Sustainable city award. The film does a good job in informing us how and why the city has grown to be known by its various names. The film's organization, ability to address its topics in just the right amount of depth, and attempt to place the topic in the global perspective makes it a good and informative film. This film has the basic message that lack of money should never be one's excuse, in cities like Chicago or New Orleans, to fix any of its planning problems. Especially if one decides to focus on the well-being of one's citizens and not profiting. The bases of this argument is based on one city's original research.

When referring to the organization of the film. As mentioned earlier, it was well done. The film begins by informing its' audience that it will be divided into four part that includes transportation, recycling, parks and affordable housing. In addition, it introduces each section before it goes into depth. Telling the majority of the story of Curitiba's innovation are the political figures and planners directly involved it.

The film A Convenient Truth:Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil begins by taking a look at the transportation of the city. The mayor at the time makes it clear that Curitiba is defined by its people and not cars. So in order to increase the emphasis placed on the people he implemented a new transit system. This transit system influenced the format of streets. This new transit system would be highly desirable in a place such Chicago. It's cheap, time efficient and visually interesting. Not only is it cheap for the riders, but it remains a profitable endeavor for private companies to invest. It's time efficient because with this new transit system comes a trinary road system. This system dedicates lanes specifically to buses and emergency vehicles. Finally its visually interesting because it switches up the traditional road systems in the center of town.

Next the film addresses the common issue of recycling. The work put into encouraging citizens of Curitiba to recycle is AMAZING! It encouraged citizens to clean up the city by buying their trash and paying them with bus tokens. Then the city continued to encourage recycling by reaching out to the youth and not implementing disposal fees. Eventually the city opened up their own recycling sorting plant and as a result they are able to sell back its recyclable trash in order to be reused and transformed into other goods like Styrofoam being used as stuffing for furniture. The film makes it clear that in order to encourage things such as recycling one must eliminate all things that would deter people to do so while offering them incentives.

The same applies for low income housing. Curitiba offers its low income citizens the opportunity to own, also. In the film the main message that the audience receives is that in order to increase pride and upkeep of the city, the city must make citizens feel as though they have a stake in it. So they not only offered the opportunity to rent to residents of low income housing to rent to own but also to alter their own homes. Furthermore the city attempted to create self-sufficient miniature cities by adding Linceas de Oficios. For which they provided free training, assistance and space to make the products they wish to sale. Positive things like this make people want to do better for themselves. And if it was implemented into cities like Chicago it would more than likely decreased the amount of crime. That's if and only if the city decided not to deter people through monetary fees, fines and taxes.

The next thing discussed in the film was its' parks which were greatly influenced by its geographical down fall of flooding. Curitiba is located on a flood plain and at one point used to flood annual. So what the city decided to do was to compensate and relocate about 800,000 homes. Then they transformed these naturally flooding areas into parks with large ponds and huge amounts of green space. This natural solution was largely more cost efficient than building canals or dams. And in the documentary it is what's recommended as a solution for New Orleans.

Now that you know in detail what the film was about hopefully you understand why it I considered it to be great. Essentially what makes this documentary great is that all the innovations done were cost efficient choices for Curitiba. Their choices were made not solely on budget but on the possibility of increasing the well – being of their residents. The innovations of the city were influenced by its current and reoccurring problems along with anticipated future ones.

Here in America it reminds me and gives me hope that during this time of economic hardship things could be done that are cost efficiently, if American society was "for the people". Curitiba has the motto a city for the people. It makes it about the well-being of the people and not the money.

I agree with the basic message of the film which is that if each city used at least one of their innovations we wouldn't have the current climate issue. In addition I believe this film reminds of that when we make life less about profiting and more about bettering the lives of people on all economic levels, less financially based social issues and more pride within one's city radiates from it.