Today, the city has a sense of cosmopolitan life and is said to be the safest city in Brazil. It is the Brazilian capital with the best quality of life and is a diversified industrial center that gives Curitiba the rank of 4th largest economy in Brazil; the largest in the southern region. The city is said to be one of the five best cities to invest in Latin America and the 49th city with the greatest influence in the world.
Large companies have moved their headquarters to the city because of Curitiba's structure, its international airport, which serves the whole southern region (the Afonso Pena International Airport), its access to the Port of Paranaguá, and the junction of highways and railroads linking the south region directly to the southeast of the country. Many multinational automotive (car) companies are in Greater Curitiba, which makes Curitiba the second largest automotive center in the country. Curitiba is an important cultural, political, and economic center in the country.
Curitiba has high rates of education and is home to the oldest Brazilian university, the Federal University of Paraná. People from Curitiba are called "curitibanos" in Portuguese, and "Curitibans" in English.
The name "Curitiba" comes from the large number of Brazilian "Pines", commonly called "Parana Pine" ("Araucaria angustifolia") which grew in the region before the city was built. There are two reasons for the name: the Indians of the Tupi nation, namely the Jê and the Guarani, used the word "corae" ("pine seed") "atuba" ("a lot"). It may also come from joining the words "kurit" ("pine tree") and "yba" ("large amount"), also from the Tupi language, together. So, "Curitiba" means something like "Land of Abundant Pines".
Curitiba is known for the urban differentiated solutions, notably for the integrated (connected) system of transport of people, together with the regular transit routes, has served, especially from the 1970s, to encourage urban development.
The public transport system in Curitiba features large passenger terminals connected by roads used only by the buses "Vermelhos" ("Red Buses"), the "Expressos" ("Express Buses"), "Articulados" ("Articulated buses"), and "Biarticulados" ("Biarticulated buses"). The biarticulated bus travels on long trips, stopping only on the tube-station stops to pick up or drop off people. Each biarticulated bus can carry 270 people - and complemented with the speedy silver "Ligeirinho" (literally, "speedy"), with an modern design, has fewer stops, therefore shortening distances – when compared to the "Linha Direta" ("Direct Line") – due to saved time, and feeders marked by their own colors.
This model has inspired similar tests in cities of other countries, such as Los Angeles and New York City, where, in the 1990s, the installation of an experimental line of "ligeirinho" in the city connected it to the World Trade Center. The system is the source of inspiration for the TransMilenio in Bogotá, Colombia, Metrovia in Guayaquil, Ecuador,as well as the Orange Line of Los Angeles, California, and for a future transportation system in Panama City, Panama.
Around the city and commonly joined with the terminals of buses, are the "Ruas da Cidadania" ("Streets of Citizenship"), which are municipal centers that bring together municipal departments and public agencies, state and federal, points of trade, services, free Internet access and equipment, and leisure, such as playgrounds and space for all kinds of sports.
Recent measurements indicate that the green area of Curitiba is of 51.5 metres per capita - about three times the minimum area recommended by the UN - one of the highest in Brazil and higher than cities such as London or Paris. These areas are made mostly by municipal parks and forests to protect the forests' gallery of local rivers. There are also a variety of city squares and public grounds, usually associated with public and wooden roads.
The urban zoning of the city and the integrated transport system has allowed a development of urban architecture, taken by some analysts as strong and balanced without the main problems of large modern cities. Curitiba was recently recommended by UNESCO as one of the city-models for the reconstruction of the cities of Afghanistan, after the military action that happened in that country in 2001.
Curitiba was the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola, In the 20th century when he was looking for the "perfect city" in order to create the New York "Megalopolis" (a huge city "which is good for its citizens" for his movie). The director lived in Curitiba for a few weeks and praised the city in many of his lectures around the world, as the only Brazilian city praised by this famous producer of movies. He did not make the movie, however.
In the 1990s, the city won the United Nations Environment Program prize - UNEP, from the UN, said to be the top prize of the environment in the world. In June 1996, the chairman of the Habitat II summit of mayors and urban planners in Istanbul said Curitiba was "the most innovative city in the world." In 2003, the city received the title of Capital of Culture of the Americas by the organization CAC-ACC. In 2006, Curitiba hosted the event COP8/COP-MOP3 the UN. Today, Curitiba is considered one of the best examples of urban planning worldwide.
In 1991, the city asked the French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau to open the Free University of the Environment, being an place for learning about the environment and ecology for the population. Since was created, the UNILIVRE is a reference about studies in economically sustainable care of ecosystems, serving as a model for other similar institutions in various parts of the world, as in Cordoba in (Argentina), Río Grande in (Patagonia), Seoul in (Korea), Guadalajara in (Mexico), and in many other Brazilian cities.
The capital of the state of Paraná was the only Brazilian city to enter the 21st century as a reference for national and international urban planning and quality of life; a search by the American magazine Reader's Digest found that it was the Brazilian city better placed in the ranking of the best cities in the world to live in. In March 2001, a poll sponsored by the UN pointed Curitiba as the best capital of Brazil by the Index of Living Conditions (ILC) and second best among the HDI of Brazilian capitals. The city is the gateway to entering the Mercosur (the southern zone common market of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay).
The city recently was identified as the Brazilian capital with the lowest rate of illiteracy, and also indicated as number 1 in the national education between the Brazilian capitals, and one of the five best cities for investment in Latin America.
According study of the "América Economia" magazine, published in the "Special Edition Cities 2006", which has the title "The City Innovative", Curitiba is ahead of important capitals as Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Brasilia, occupying fifth place. The magazine considered the main Latin American economies or those that have relevance to the business conducted on the continent. In front of the Paraná state capital are just São Paulo, Brazil, first in the ranking; Santiago, Chile; Monterrey, Mexico; and Miami, USA. In 2009, it was one of the three "smartest" cities in the world according to Forbes magazine. The criteria were caring about the environment, quality of life, urban planning, good infrastructure and a strong economy.
The city was the first in Brazil to introduce the separation of domestic garbage on a wide-scale basis. The acclaimed program "Lixo que não é Lixo" (literally, "Garbage that isn’t Garbage"; a successful recycling program) created in 1989 has become an ideal model of caring for the environment. Actually, Curitiba is the Brazilian city that recycles garbage more often: currently, 22% of all the waste produced - about 450 tons each day - are recycled.