Jaime Lerner Quotations

A car is like a mother-in-law - if you let it, it will rule your life.

If you provide good alternatives for public transport, you won't have traffic problems.

There is no place in a city that can't be better. There is no toad that can't be a princess, no frog that can't become a prince.

The secret to the city is integration. Every area of the city should combine work, leisure and culture. Separate these functions and parts of the city die.

Bureaucracy is like a fungus that contaminates everything.

There is little in the architecture of a city that is more beautifully designed than a tree.

If you want creativity, take a zero off your budget. If you want sustainability, take off two zeros.

Many cities end up putting off things because they want to understand everything. They don't understand that innovating is about starting. Taking care of a city is a process that you start, and then give the population space to respond.

Sometimes the media gives us the impression that we are terminal patients, because of problems of global warmth or the ozone layer. And the people, they don't understand that they can could change this situation for the better if they could act locally in a city.

We have to change from 'ego-architecture' to 'eco-architecture.'

A city grows like an organism. It is a structure of living and working together a mix of functions.

There are three major issues now that are becoming important, not only for cities, but for all mankind: Mobility, sustainability - which is linked to mobility - and social diversity.

Curitiba is not a paradise. We have all the problems that most Latin American cities have. We have slums. We have the same difficulties, but the big difference is the respect given by people due to the quality of the services which are provided.

After working in cities for nearly 40 years, I am telling you that every city can improve its quality of life in less than three years, no matter the scale or the financial conditions.

We can't have landfills forever, and we can't ask others to accept our trash.

A lot of people assume that the expensive ideas are the most effective ones, but that is simply not true.

A city is like a family portrait - you don't tear it up if you don't like your uncle's nose.

The design of a city is like a strange archeology.

A system of bus rapid transit is not only dedicated lanes. You have to have really good boarding conditions - that means paying before entering the bus and boarding at the same level. And at the same time having a good schedule and frequency.

I always try to say, 'If you want to help the environment, try to do just two things. One, use less of your car. Second, separate your garbage.'

Every city has to deal with the problem of cars and public transport.

I have realized after all these years that a city that has a good quality of life attracts jobs. People don't want to invest in places if there is no quality of life.

I always run into these Ph.D.s. They write and write and write about sustainable development. Then these guys ask me, 'But, how do you do it?' They are scared to death to do anything.

Brazil will change when its cities change.

The city is not the problem; the city is the solution,

Every city in the world can be improved in less than three years.

Creativity starts when you cut a zero from your budget.

I always run into these Ph.D.s. They write and write and write about sustainable development. Then these guys ask me, 'But, how do you do it?' They are scared to death to do anything.

Cities are not problems. They are solutions.

The car is the cigarette of the future

There is no endeavor more noble than the attempt to achieve a collective dream.

The lack of resources is no longer an excuse not to act. The idea that action should only be taken after all the answers and the resources have been found is a sure recipe for paralysis. The planning of a city is a process that allows for corrections; it is supremely arrogant to believe that planning can be done only after every possible variable has been controlled.

There is no endeavor more noble than the attempt to achieve a collective dream. When a city accepts as a mandate its quality of life, when it respects the people who live in it, when it respects the environment, when it prepares for future generations, the people share the responsibility for that mandate. This shared cause is the only way to achieve that collective dream.