Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43260 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-03-21
• Original language: English, Portuguese
• Running time: 52 minutes

Amazon.com
Cities should be a solution not a problem for human beings. The city of Curitiba has demonstrated for the past 40 years how to transform problems into cost-effective solutions that can be applied in most cities around the world.

A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil is an informative, inspirational documentary aimed at sharing ideas to provoke environment-friendly and cost-effective changes in cities worldwide. The documentary focuses on innovations in transportation, recycling, social benefits including affordable housing, seasonal parks, and the processes that transformed Curitiba into one of the most livable cities in the world.

A CONVENIENT TRUTH: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil includes exclusive interviews from world renowned Curitiba's mayors Jaime Lerner and Cassio Tanigushi, as well as other brilliant minds who made Curitiba a world class model.

In a time of so many inconveniences, it's good to know of places where things are done conveniently right.

This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.

Customer Reviews

Frustrated with poor city planning?
This film is a must see for anyone involved in urban/regional planning, city councils, and concerned citizens. Curitiba debunks the myths that logical solutions to cities biggest problems only exist on paper or take billions of dollars to develop. A well made and inspiring documentary. When you see what they've done here, you will realize that our standard of living in the US is not really so high and solutions are far easier than our leaders lead us to believe.

Courage to Change
Environmental changes you always hoped could happen are documented in this delightful, enlightening film.

Take an ordinary, not-so-beautiful, not-so-successful, non-environmentally positive town and think. A vision to improve in 3 major areas became reality; public and private transportation were revamped, housing created and improved, and recycling became a matter of public pride. Beautiful parks were created on top of blighted areas and dumps. The city of Curitiba became a destination instead of a place to pass through.

You look at the figures involved in these fantastic changes and say, gee, they look like ordinary people, and yet this whole thing is pure genius!

Then the whine is, Why Can't We Do This In The USA? Is it the bureaucracies? Is it too big an idea for us? It can't be the money -- the project's leaders tell how the projects became self-sufficient and paid for themselves in a short time.

I'm a teacher in Adult Education, where adults receive a High School Diploma (accredited) (not a GED) and I am incorporating this DVD in classes of Economics, Geography, Sociology, and Earth Science. The more people who see it and are inspired by it, the better. I recommend it to everyone on the planet.

Cities can do it
This film that tells what one city in Brazil has done to make a difference on the problems facing most cities. The film is great for it gives you a feeling that there is a chance. The one problem is that only about half is in English and the other has subtitles. It would have been better to have voice over, but the film is great