At the last meeting of the Green Committee of Community Board 7 of the Upper West Side we watched a documentary about the transformation of Curitiba, Brazil.  It’s called “A Convenient Truth” and I highly recommend it, though you must not watch the trailer on Youtube which makes it seem like little but talking heads with cheesy music in the background.  

“A Convenient Truth” describes Curitiba’s instituting the best of cutting-edge urban design, and doing so with such speed and executive authority that in one example residents went to sleep beside a traffic-choked noisy nightmare of a main thoroughfare, and woke up to a pedestrianized street with benches and birds singing. The pedestrianized street quickly became a success with business owners (because people buy more when they are strolling than when they are driving by at 30 mph) and residents.  

Here are a couple other examples:  Curitiba took away traffic lanes from cars in order to create one of the most advanced bus rapid transit systems (BRTs) I’ve yet seen. The BRT was much cheaper to build than a subway, and it now moves a huge proportion of the City, cuts down on air and noise pollution, lessens traffic and helps people get from one part of the City to another faster and with less aggravation (less traffic jams and noisy streets).  

Curitiba paid residents of an easily flooded urban lowland to move to higher ground, and then restored the flood plain to a wetland that protects the City from dangerous floods.  The wetland and flood plain became part of a huge park that offers recreation and green space.  

Note that there could be environmental justice aspects to this action: I would like to know what the class was of the residents of the flood plain, and if the City paid the flood plain residents adequately for their dislocation and displacement to other neighborhoods.  If those issues were treated with sensitivity and justice, then this big new park - where people eat their lunches, canoe and picnic while the wildlife habitat filters flood waters safely and saves the city money - is a true accomplishment.  

Overall, A Convenient Truth describes can be done when a government decides to use the best of modern urban design to make itself more livable.