To grow with quality is the challenge of medium-sized cities

Mayors of Chattanooga (USA) and Santa Maria (RS) speak of the new urban model that involves the population in decisions about the future of cities

The medium-sized cities, with between 100 and 500 thousand inhabitants are the ones with the fastest growing in developing countries. To ensure their growth, but at the same time to preserve the characteristics that distinguish them from metropolis is the challenge of mayors, public administrators and the community in general. The issue was discussed on the 1st International Meeting pf Medium-sized Cities, opened on Wednesday (10), within the CICI2010 - International Conference on Innovative Cities, held in Curitiba, a promotion of Fiep. The debate on the first day of the meeting was attended by the mayors of Chattanooga (USA), Ron Littlefield, and Santa Maria (RS), Cezar Schirmer, and the economist, the public administrator and consultant for the UN, Ana Carla Fonseca.

The mayor of Chattanooga showed with photos the great transformation that the city has suffered since 1980, inspired by the innovative experiences of other cities. It is no longer the most polluted city in the U.S.A., which it was in the sixties, to become the greenest. "As we started planning to create a beautiful city, planting trees, revitalizing the river, creating parks, restoring public areas and this way we attracted people," he said. For Littlefield, cities that want to change need to use the population in decision-making. "So people feel the owners of the ideas and responsible for the city. We put plans in practice and we made them active participants in the process. This is the key to success," he pointed out.

The model of Chattanooga was the inspiration for Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul. With nearly 1 million inhabitants, the city is investing in technology, infrastructure, rural development and education. In order to grow sustainably and be creative, the City Hall called the people to respond: "What is like the city we want?". "We involved the local population to build the city's future and not the government," said Cezar Schirmer, mayor of Santa Maria. "We do not have the problems of large cities yet. Let us learn from them to avoid them," said the mayor.

Advantages and opportunities - "The medium-sized cities have advantages and opportunities in relation to the metropolis: they do not have any major problems or lack of resources of the small ones, they are vital to the balance of regional development," said Ana Carla Fonseca. According to her, the medium-sized cities have more engaged society, set points and connections between the large and the small ones, between local and global, between the past and future. "These are cities which hold much to their history," she said. A consultant to the UN spoke of the concept of creative city, highlighting the spaces that bring together labor, leisure and housing in an environment of innovation.

You need to keep and reveal the uniqueness and should not be seen in pieces, but as a whole, with a connection of ideas, diversity, she said. Within this model, the public space is no longer an area of no one and becomes a space for all, "said Ana Carla.