Sustainable Cities

Instructions: 1) Watch A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil (2007; —50min; find it on Kanopy, LMU’s streaming service). This documentary is about one of the world’s most well-known examples of sustainable urbanism. Pay particular attention to the allusions in the film to swift, top-down, non-participatory urban planning decisions. The pedestrian mall described in the first segment of the film is a good case of this. (Part of the reason that this project happened so quickly was to ensure that shop owners would have no time to take out court injunctions against the construction.) 2) Consider this question: “Is it acceptable to impose sustainable development onto a city?” Write at least one paragraph that argues ‘Yes, top-down authoritarian urban sustainability planning is acceptable,” and at least one paragraph that argues “No, urban sustainability planning must be a democratic, participatory process.”