Jaime Lerner's Inspiring Green Sustainability Solutions

Jaime (pronounced CHAI-me) Lerner brought his vision of sustainable cities — "A city is not a problem, a city is a solution" — to a packed Seattle audience Monday night. The former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, known for creative incentives toward mass transit and urban rehabilitation, frames issues in ways most of us haven't even considered. As a result, he has managed to accomplish wonders in progressive, green policies in urban environments.

Lerner notes that for the first time in history, more people live in cities than do not. That means we must transform the urban environment toward a more efficient mechanism or we face certain doom. Fortunately, it can be done with the right blend of moxy, leadership and cleverness.

Examples of some of Lerner's inspirations:

A windmill boulevard, where the mill blades are attractively perforated. You still get the power generation, but they look a lot better and create a comfortable corridor. Cabs which take passengers only as far as the nearest mass-transit terminus. Bus tubes where patrons wait no longer than a minute for the next ride. The no-wait program means you don't need huge waiting areas, so you save on public space. And the bus system pays for itself, it needs no subsidy.

When surfers resisted public transit, Lerner designed an open-air "wave" vehicle where the surfers could toss their boards and catch a ride. The bed of the vehicle was curved like an actual wave.

Bike lanes were located only along rivers and canals. The terrain is always flat, and the scenery excels.

Lerner says a good idea needs to be acted on promptly or it can get bogged down in process. Most botanical gardens take years to build; Lerner got one in place in two months. He put a commanding theater in a former stone quarry; another quarry was converted to a dramatic bluff park.

Some Lerner pearls: "Creativity comes when you cut a zero from a budget."

"Cars are like a mother-in-law. We have to have a good relationship with her, but we cannot let her run our life."

"I was told every citizen should have a BMW. What do you mean, I asked. The answer was Bus, Metro, Walk."

One of the most brilliant things Lerner did came when corporate and transportation interests opposed his notion of turning a throughway into a pedestrian mall. Practically overnight he had pavement jackhammered and cobblestones, kiosks and flowers installed. As author Bill McKibben notes:

"The next weekend, when offended members of the local automobile club threatened to "reclaim" the street by driving their cars down it, Lerner didn't call out the police. Instead, he had city workers lay down strips of paper the length of the mall. When the auto club arrived, its members found dozens of children sitting in the former street painting pictures."

The anniversary of Lerner's coup is still marked each year by children drawing in the mall.

Lerner's fertile imagination is the kind of innovative thinking we need to tackle the challenges of global warming, peak oil and climate disruption. He has traveled throughout the world helping other cities with sustainability challenges. America has a host of institutional barriers to his style of sociopolitical alchemy, starting with the no-limits-on-growth assumptions corporations drive and government institutions labor under. But it's nice to know that Lerner's ideas are gaining wider visibility; maybe his genius can rub off on us!

— Paul Andrews, GreenforGood

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