ABSTRACT
Curitiba's economy was traditionally that of an agricultural market and food processor. All of Curitiba's mayors have followed Lerner's policies, leading to a flow of interconnected, interactive, evolving solutions, mostly devised and implemented by partnerships amongst private firms, non-governmental institutions, municipal agencies, and individual citizens. Because health depends critically on sanitation and nutrition, Curitiba found a creative way to fund both by turning garbage into value. In Curitiba everything is recycled. Ultimately, teasing apart the strands of the intricate web of Curitiban innovation, according to American environmentalist Paul Hawken, reveals the basic principle of natural capitalism at work in a particularly inspiring way. For Curitiba has discovered a way to build on a soul force, embodied in its urban community, to evolve its culture and spirituality, through building lighthouses of knowledge, as its natural and societal agenda, and to establish vibrant enterprises, specifically, and an urban economy, generally. Such, altogether, constitutes its Western integral polity.
