Curitiba City Especially

The city of Curitiba is especially known by its innovative urban solutions, as a system of integrated transport of masses and that, jointly with the regular roads of traffic, it serves as indutor for the development urbanístico of the city. The system of bus of Curitiba is habitually known by interlinked passengers' terminals by exclusive canaletas for bus biarticulados and complemented with the " ligeirinho " and feeders differentiated by colors. That model has been inspiring similar experiences by cities of several countries and to it generated the experimental installation of a ligeirinho " line in New York, linking the city hall of the city to World Trade Center, in the Decade of 1990.
Recent mensurations attest that the green area of Curitiba is of 51 square meters for inhabitant, about three times adult than the minimum area recommended by UN and composed, basically, for municipal parks that protect the ciliary forests of the main local rivers, as the river Barigüi and the river Iguaçu.
Spread by the city and commonly integrated with the bus terminals, they are the Streets of the Citizenship, municipal centers that congregate trade points, clerkships and municipal, state public organs and you federate, free services of access to the internet and lazer equipments, as infantile parks, blocks poliesportivas and soccer courts.
The urban zoning of the city, integrated into the transport system, it has been allowing an architectural development and urbanístico had by certain analysts as coeso and harmonic, without the main problems of the great modern metropolises. However, those characteristics, formed an alliance with a massive official propaganda, contributed to a pronounced swelling populacional, favoring the demographic explosion in distant neighborhoods, like Boqueirão, Xaxim, Pine tree and Walled Ranch and neighboring municipal districts, like Finance Big Rio.
In any way, for whole its urban solutions, Curitiba was recommended recently by Unesco as one of the city-model for the reconstruction of the cities of Afghanistan. In spite of this, as any other Brazilian metropolis, Curitiba still suffers with some social problems, as the existence of slums in I spill it of the municipal district and of street inhabitants. The crime rate index, however, it is still low, if compared to other cities of the same load.
In the decade of 1990, the city was favored with the prize United Nations Environment Program - UNEP of UN, considered the maximum prize of the environment in the world. In 2003, the city received the title of Capital of the Culture of America for the entity CAC-ACC. In 2006, Curitiba sediou the event COP 8 MOP 3 of UN, accomplished in the neighboring city of Pinhais.
Curitiba is placed at the first plateau of Paraná, in its less wavy part, in the also denominated plateau curitibano, latitude 25º25'04 " south and longitude 49º14'30 " west. The coast of the state is at a distance of 70 km of the city (ocean Atlantic).
The municipal district has a north-south extension of 35 km and east-west of 20 km, with surface of 430,9 km². The medium altitude is of 934,6 m above the level of the sea, varying between the values minimum and maximum of 900 and 1000 m, approximately.
The climate of Curitiba is subtropical humid, without station it evaporates, with soft summers and winters relatively colds, for the classification of Köppen. In reason of the proximity of the sea (the ocean is the about 70 kilometers of the city), the maritimidade has great influence in the local climate, being responsible for to soften the waves of cold of the winter and to avoid days of intense heat in the summer, besides turning the quite humid city (practically the relative humidity reaches everyday at least 90% in the night period).
The annual medium temperature is of 16,5°C, with annual thermal width of approximately 7°C, being 13,1°C the medium temperature in the coldest month (July) and 20,5°C in the hottest month (February).
Curitiba has the lowest temperature medium annual dentre the Brazilian capitals. That characteristic is due the altitude, that guarantees a colder climate than the one of the two state capitals more to the south, Florianópolis (Santa Catarina) and Porto Alegre (Big Rio of the South) both at the level of the sea.
The winter station is characterized by low temperatures and periodic frosts. The rigidity of the winter is similar to it of some European countries. In that period, negative temperatures happen, on the average, in three or four days, usually during the dawn. The snow occurrence is very rare, having been registered in a very sporadic way, as in the years of 1928, 1942, 1955 and 1975.
The index pluviométrico reaches 1.500 mm on the average a year, because the rains are a constant of the local climate. That fact partly is due to the great desmatamento of the Mountain of the Sea, natural barrier of humidity.
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Vegetation
He/she locates in the domain vegetacional denominated Forest Mixed Ombrófila, composed by gramíneo-woody steppes punctuated by capons of forests with araucaria, besides other formations, as várzeas and ciliary forests.
In the local vegetation they still appear remainders of the pine tree-do-paraná (Araucaria angustifolia), that resisted to the action civilizadora of the current times. The araucarias are in private and public forests, now protected by the environmental legislation that impedes yours knocked down. The green area of the city is of 51 m2 for inhabitant.
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Hidrografia
The basin hidrográfica of Curitiba is constituted of several rivers and streams, that cut the city in different directions, contained in five (5) basins hidrográficas:
Basin of Atuba-Bacacheri, with 12,20 km;
Basin of Ribeirão of Padilhas, with 9,40 km;
Basin of Atuba, with 18,20 km;
Basin of Belém, with 20,10 km;
Basin of Barigüi, with 29 km (IPPUC).
Basin of Passaúna.
By virtue of the abundant rains, they cause regular enchentes, being constant concern reason. Now, after a series of studies on its courses of water, almost everybody is being channeled.
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Provisioning of water
In its largest part, the provisioning of water of Curitiba is obtained starting from the receptions in the reservoirs formed by the barragens of Iraí and Piraquara I, that serve the area east of the city, and of Passaúna, that provisions the areas south and west.
The population of Curitiba and metropolitan area consumes 7,5 thousand liters of water negotiated approximately a second, supplied by the Company of Saneamento of Paraná - Sanepar. Besides, he/she is considered that exist more than a thousand artesian wells in the city (used mainly by condominiums, companies and hospitals), that, added, they have potential to supply an additional vazão of approximately 1,5 thousand liters of water a second.
Rationings
During the estiagens of winter of the last years, the provisioning of water is occasionally committed. On those occasions, they have been necessary programmed interruptions of the vazão, that are executed in agreement with cronogramas defined by Sanepar.
Foreseen increase of the capacity
The barragem Piraquara II should have its works ended in the beginning of 2007, but it will only be operational in the summer of 2008, because it is necessary a period of approximately one year for the elevation of the level of water in the reservoir, that will have final capacity to store 22 billion liters. After that, the next work to be built should be the reception station and treatment of the river Miringuava, in São José of Pinhais.

Old Municipal Paço, Generous Square Marques
The area of Curitiba began to be populated about 1630, for inhabitants vindos of Paranaguá, where the alluvium gold had been discovered, forming the town of Our Lady of the Light and Good Jesus of Pinhais, that it was high the villa in 1693. Without many mineral resources, the area did with that many of the inhabitants if they moved for the area of Minas Gerais. For a long time, the villa was not more than a passage of the transport of cattle of the fields of Viamão, in Big Rio of the South, Minas Gerais. The desenvolvimeno in the city began starting from the beginning of the century XIX, with the exploration and export of the herb-checkmate, being elevated to the city category in 1842. In 1853, the south and Southwest of the county of São Paulo they separate this, forming the new county of Paraná, of the which Curitiba becomes capital.
Starting from 1867, the city begins to receive immigrants' recruitments, in its Slavic and Italian majority. During the century XX, especially in the last half, the city starts to have a great increment populacional, already consolidated as regional pole of trade and services, becoming one of the richest cities of Brazil and pioneer in a lot of solutions urbanísticas.