Bogotá vs Curitiba

"Bogotá is interesting and important for many reasons but I write only to draw some quick comparisons between it and the Latin American success story probably best known by U.S. planners: Curitiba, Brazil. We mostly know Curitiba for its visionary mayor, Jaime Lerner, who made as much progress as anyone in a metropolitan city in promoting transit over car use for commuting, among several other impressive accomplishments.

...The New York Times published a provocative May 20 piece on Curitiba... It emphasized two points made in recent years: That Lerner's initial great successes were due in no small part to the existence of a military dictatorship at the national level at the time, and that many positive planning indicators have begun to slip lately, especially in the face of a growing low-income population at the urban periphery. Even the transit mode share is dropping."