Curitibanas and Curitibanos like to boast that their city is a German city. While this also includes the German immigrants from the 19th and 20th century, it mainly refers to the order, cleanliness and good urban planning . Or rather it referred to…

At a first glance, Curitiba appears to a German about as as Brazilian as any other city in this country: You see the poor garbage collectors, the concrete housing blocks, and the traffic jam that ranges from one end of town to the other.

But the differences do exist: the well working public transport with its distinctive tube stops (there’s even an app to look up the timetable of buses*), the many large parks and the German restaurants downtown.

In the 70s Curitiba enjoyed a moment of near world-famous celebrity thanks to the public transport system. That the city shares nevertheless the same problems as any other one…