CURITIBA'S STRATEGIC APPROACH TO URBAN PLANNING



A French planner, Alfred Agache, developed the first plan to
direct urban growth in Curitiba in 1943. The government did not
implement the plan.  Its main legacy was to introduce the concept
of urban planning to Curitiba's citizens and government.  This
awareness edged closer to action in 1964 when the city
administration commissioned a Preliminary Urban Plan.  To
encourage an influx of new ideas, the city held a competition for
the best plan among local and national professionals.  The result
was the Curitiba Master Plan.  In 1965, the city created the
Curitiba Research and Urban Planning Institute to implement the
plan and to continue the planning process.

>From 1965 to 1970, the city administration gave the master plan a
low priority.  It did, however, provide the Institute with
resources to detail procedures for implementing the plan.  In
1971, a new administration began to put the plan into practice
(Curitiba Research and Urban Planning Institute 1965).

Political will and political skill were important factors in
initiating the practical steps to implement the plan.  Officials
had to adapt each of the plan's elements and sometimes set them
aside as the two-dimensional planning concepts met a three-
dimensional reality.  This interaction between concept and
reality led to a practical, repetitive planning process.

Today, Curitiba's practical planning process is firmly
established.  When ideas are proposed, they are tested
conceptually and then in application.  These tests generate
feedback that leads to further improvements and applications. 
The ongoing process allows Curitiba to fashion solutions that fit
real problems.  Rather than being stymied by feedback, it
refreshes and redirects the process along a progressive path. 
After two decades of successes, the Urban Planning Institute is
now well established as the local incubator for an urban planning
tradition that emphasizes interplay between planning, analysis,
participatory planning and implementation.



Planning Principles


The implementation of the Curitiba Master Plan addressed
transportation, land use controls, and a hierarchical structure
of the road network.  Planners viewed them as complementary tools
for guiding city growth.  The plan combines these tools to direct
growth out of the central city and into arterial growth
corridors.  Arterial and feeder roadways as well as land use
controls on settlement densities defined these corridors. 

The purpose of the five structural growth corridors was to
redirect growth out of the central city and into the corridors. 
This displacement of growth more evenly distributes settlement
densities in the city center and in the growth corridors.  This
avoids a sharp peak in central city densities and the concomitant
traffic congestion and noise.  The more even density distribution
reduces congestion enough to facilitate uncongested travel while
maintaining passenger numbers at high enough levels to allow
public transportation to be financially self-sustaining.  

Convenient transportation and more balanced densities also:

* encourage economic development by reducing the costs of
mobility, trade, and exchange within the city;

* reduce the indirect costs of other infrastructure improvements
such as water, sewage, electricity, and communication; and

* assist in preserving historic buildings and areas within the
city center.



Consequences


The gradual development of Curitiba's integrated transportation
system is the most visible result of the city's planning
processes.  While this paper focuses on transportation, it is
important to remember that planners in Curitiba do not isolate
transportation as an entity apart from other aspects of urban
life.  They do not view streets only as paved surfaces but as
elements in a larger network and hierarchy of roads.  A building
is not an isolated box but a traffic/public transport-generating
element in a larger pattern of settlement.

Curitiba analyzes travel as a movement and exchange between
activities.  Traditional city planning approaches tend to be
static and oriented toward physical features.  Traditional
transportation planning tends to be excessively data-demanding,
equation-based, and technocratic.  Curitiba's planning focuses
more on the relationship between space and movement.  It
emphasizes the dynamic features of urban activities.  It
considers how much should be invested where.  

The city uses transportation to heighten the socio-economic
payoff from its planning activities.  One example is the city's
role in low income housing.  Rather than build isolated, large
scale, and uniform housing projects, the city took advantage of
effective transportation.  Curitiba acquired land near some of
the planned structural corridors before developing them.  As the
transportation routes were put into place, the city subsidized
low income housing close to these transportation routes and close
to the Curitiba Industrial City.  It also located other small
scale, low income, housing developments throughout the city. 
These are near the transportation corridors and thus are 'near'
in time and cost to employment and other activities.  These small
scale developments blend into the surrounding residential areas. 
They integrate rather than isolate low income households into the
economy and culture of the larger city.  As a result of this
strategy, the city has built housing for 17,000 families.

The road hierarchy system is another element of Curitiba's
planning system.  Each road has a function in relation to its
location and importance.  Curitiba uses four basic categories to
define roads by location and function.  There are arterial
structural roads that are at the core of five growth corridors. 
Priority linkages run between and connect the city center to the
city's outskirts.  Collector streets are common urban streets
typically lined with commercial activity and allowing all forms
of traffic.  Connector streets link the structural roads to the
industrial city.

Land use controls target two basic parameters: the land use type
and the density of development.  The four basic land use
categories are residential, commercial, industrial, and services.
Allowable densities vary in relation to available transportation.
Along most structural routes, buildings can have a total floor
area of up to six times the plot size.  On lower capacity roads
that are well served by public transportation, the city permits
floor space up to four times plot size.  The permitted ratio of
floor space to plot size decreases with the distance a land site
is from public transportation.

The land use density controls encourage a shift of development
activity from the central city to and around the structural axes.
This locates high density residential and commercial in the same
areas and matches density to the availability of public
transport.  This eases traffic and human congestion in the
central city.  Planners converted wide central avenues in the
central city into open air pedestrian malls and walkways.  These
malls and walkways reinforce the city center as a pleasant locale
that preserves historic elements and where pedestrians have
priority.