Cultural Artifact Post #4:
In this cultural artifact post, I will compare Brasilia and Curitiba, two now famous cities in Brazil. Although they were constructed in the same time-period, (1950s-1970s) their intention and results couldn't have been more different.

Brasilia was designed as Brazil’s new capital and construction was fast, expensive, and emphasized rhetoric over people. Until Brasilia’s construction, the country’s capital had been in Brazil’s southeast - the most developed, wealthy, and populated area. The new capital was the pet project of developmentalist president Jucelino Kubitschek and was finished quickly because he feared the following administration might abandon a partially-completed city. The goal then was to lay down such a foundation, that his administration’s successors would have no choice but to continue investing in the city. Additionally, Kubitschek and his chief urban planner Lucio Costa didn’t want the city to become co-opted by successor administrations. They wanted to build a modernist utopia and didn’t want successors to warp their initial vision. To prevent this, they paved roads going nowhere and claimed space on the periphery they wouldn't need for decades to forestall deviations from their vision. All of this, of course, was extremely expensive. It’s hard to draw causality in circumstances like this, but a massive infrastructure investment like Brasilia no doubt contributed to the foreign debts which troubled Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s. Brasilia also emphasized rhetorical design over human design. The pilot plan literally looks like an airplane where the wings are the residential districts, the body is the commercial district, and the cockpit is the seat of government. Transportation around Brasilia was centered around cars partly because they were seen as vehicles of modernity and progress and also because Kubitschek wanted to emphasize automobiles as the path of the future. Kubitschek had showed favoritism to the automakers and wanted to use the city to justify his economic policies. Unsurprisingly, this hasty, expensive, and rhetorical rather than human design came with problems. Since its construction, Brasilia has had traffic challenges, livability challenges (top down development regulations have stymied new constructions creating a wealthy core and poor periphery), and – with so many cars – air pollution difficulties. As a city, it's not popular. Few Brazilians visit and many never plan to.

Juxtapose all of this with Curitiba. Curitiba has never been a first-class destination city in Brazil, but in recent years it has become an international icon for sustainable development and smart urban planning. Designed only a few years later, Curitiba differs from Brasilia in that progress was gradual, affordable, and human-centered. In 1965 Curitiba made a design plan called the Plano Diretor and since then the city has had around 40 years of leadership following that singular vision. Compare that with the frenetic pace of development in Brasilia where leaders feared their successors and it's no surprise Curitiba was cheaper.

Also contributing to affordability was the impressive design ingenuity of the city planners. For example, in the 1970s planners like Jamie Lerner saw public transportation as the answer but knew the city didn’t have the money for a subway or rail. Instead of abandoning public transportation, Lerner proposed a bus system with exclusive lanes (to boost speed and reliability) that eventually became the primary mode of transportation for Curitibans around their city. As transportation needs grew, Curitibian city planners in partnership with Volvo invented articulated and later bi-articulated buses that now operate in Curitiba and can hold up to 250 passengers per bus. Other cost saving ideas include: using sheep rather than lawn-mowers to maintain Curitiba’s green spaces, having small libraries (called 'Lighthouses of Learning' for their lighthouse designs) in the poorest areas of the city, and paying members of nearby favelas 1 kg of vegetables for every 4 kg of trash they collect. This increases the health, sanitation, and educative opportunities for the citizens living in Curitiba’s periphery and create a stronger sense of identity and social cohesion within the city. With 4x the green space per citizen recommended by urban planners, Curitiba has become a textbook example for the rest of the world in comfort and sustainability. It’s considered the sustainable city in Latin America, is one of the leading contenders in the world, and Curitiba boasts 99% approval ratings in city satisfaction surveys.

A final contrast with Brasilia is in the intention of the city. Unlike Brasilia, there was no central rhetorical mission. Curitiba didn't care about displaying power, post-colonial independence, or modernity, city planners just cared about making it a pleasant place to live through the goals of mobility, sustainability, and identity.

I find it astonishing that two large cities could be built in the same country at around the same time and yet follow such different ideologies and experience such different results. I can’t wait to juxtapose these two Brazilian places in person when I visit!

Sources:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BtdH0DJkTgI&pp=ygUUY3VyaXRpYmEgZG...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hRD3l3rlMpo&pp=ygUIY3VyaXRpYmE%3D