When I was young, I would pass by construction sites time and time again and I would ask my parents, "Why is there never anyone working on the project?". I would always get a response like, "That's the way government works", or "They don't have the money to finish it". Growing up, this was very confusing to me. It made sense that if you want to get something done or built, you make a plan, decide how to pay for it, and just do it. However, in many "First-world" cities, this is not how projects are done. In Curitiba, Brazil, on the other hand, a beautiful city has been built with limited budget and in a short time-frame.
After reading about Curitiba in Bill McKibben's Hope, Human and Wild, I was impressed at how a small, over-populated city in Brazil had grown into a template for what cities around the world can and probably should be. The citizens of Curitiba have taken a limited amount of money and time and under extreme pressure from the outside world, especially the rest of Brazil, they have built a city where everyone is happy, there is little crime, and the people are the focus. It is my belief that if the rest of the world followed in Curitiba's footsteps, the world would simply be a better place.
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