Combating a City's Interlinked Issues with a Web of Solutions

There is no such thing as a perfect city. All cities in our world have their fair share of issues and problems. Whether it is a lack of funding for public schools or an aging infrastructure for transportation, every city has a multitude of dilemmas affecting the well-being of its citizens. Sadly, more often than not these cities combat their issues one by one. That is, many individuals within an urban area believe it is best to fix problems by going to the direct and obvious cause of that problem. But in all honesty, this sort of approach does not work. The issues and problems within a metropolis are interlinked, thus the best way for people to improve their city is by solving multiple issues at once.

Curitiba in Brazil is not the "perfect city," but it definitely is a prime example of an urban area that was able to figure out ways to fix multiple issues at once. By recognizing the interconnectedness of a city’s problems, the famous mayor, Jamie Lerner, and other city officials were able to fix up the city’s landscape as well as improve the well-being of its people. That is, Lerner and his colleagues recognized that to truly improve the city, they needed to implement solutions that fix a whole range of problems all at once. Their approach in a way was like the web of solutions that I have created. For example, Curitiba had a problem with slums (poor individuals living in the periphery of the city) as well as an issue with an exponential rise in population. The city’s officials realized that most of the people that were migrating to the city were these slum dwellers. Instead of banishing the poor and limiting the growth of the city, Lerner and his colleagues devised several solutions to help the poor as well as manage growth in a sustainable fashion. To improve the lives of the slum dwellers they implemented the food for garbage exchange and provided health/education services for free. To manage the migration of these slum dwellers, the city designated a section of land outside of the city where these people could take part in a build-it-yourself program (the poor were given some resources and with these items they were able to build their own homes). These solutions did not fix all of the city’s problems, but they lessened the effects thus fixing the situation for the city and improving the conditions for the new migrants. All in all, people should take notice of Curitiba and their web of solutions. If more cities took this initiative to combat multiple problems at once, their people would definitely be healthier, safer, and happier.