Can sweetness be a new model of urban development?

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What if the development model was not based on GDP, but on the sweetness, empathy and happiness experienced by all human and non-human inhabitants of a territory? What if that development were measured in biodiversity indicators, for example, in how many bees, hummingbirds and butterflies return and begin to inhabit and connect the sidewalks? the parks and balconies of the city? This model is far from utopian. A small city in Costa Rica, Curridabat, with almost 30,000 inhabitants, has experimented and has managed to declare itself a true sweet city for everyone.

"In Latin America we don't have so many economic resources, but we do have a lot of natural resources, however, we try to copy development models from cities in other latitudes that have nothing to do with our reality. Knowing that natural resources are so important, we in Curridabat put them at the center," explains Irene García Brenés, an urban planner and environmental consultant who has worked with the mayor's office and local authorities of this city to bring a change of vision not only in the rulers, but also in the citizens.

After carrying out popular consultations in more than 50% of the territory, work began on a new idea for the neighbourhood that included the recovery of sidewalks and parks as a first measure, but not with a vision that would benefit only the human inhabitants, but everything around it. "We wondered what the real experience of citizens was, but when we did this we thought of all citizens, of bees, of dogs, of plants, of space dwellers. We have to overcome the paradigm that nature is important because it serves us. We recognize that all living beings have rights, that we have to respect their space, their place and that we are an interconnected system. That's the message that sets us apart. Beyond being a green city because that represents health for its inhabitants, it is a sweet city because empathy runs through all our relationships," adds Irene García.

Sweet plants on a city sidewalk. Nina Cordero

After consulting several experts and working hand in hand with the National Museum of Costa Rica, Curridabat created a guide to sweet plants with precise indications of where they should be planted (sidewalk, balcony, pot, park) and what ecosystem services they provided. Thus, this recovery was not only going to change the perception of public space of citizens due to the landscape effect and the experience of planting and watching a plant grow, but it was also going to recover the place of habitat and the pollination work of what they called "the sweet gang": bees, hummingbirds, butterflies and bats. In a world that raises alarms due to the "pollinator crisis," Curridabat was going to turn its public spaces into safe havens for these vertebrates and invertebrates that globally are responsible for pollinating more than 1,200 types of crops. In fact, 75% of the world's food crops depend on them.

"Beyond the landscape effect, this project has helped to deepen everyone's contact with nature. It has helped generate ecological connectivity for many species and host new species. But this has been maturing to the point that today sidewalks and parks provide other services, such as being water sponges, an urban model that invites us not to get rid of the rainwater that falls as quickly as possible, but rather seeks that the drop of water that falls in Curridabat stays throughout its cycle in Curridabat", explains Huberth Méndez, an architect specialized in decolonizing the hegemonic paradigms of traditional urbanism in Latin America, through the promotion of connection with nature and ecosystem services.

This project, which highlights the great potential for transformation that local governments have, has also opted for other actions that amplify this new narrative. In addition to doing a pedagogical work of going to schools to talk about the importance of pollinators, of making sweet days at fairs where the inhabitants commit to take care of a plant, of making hotels for insects in the most visited parks and raising biodiversity indicators to know what species there are in the city, They have developed an ambitious project giving compost bins to all citizens who are up to date with their taxes.

The composting program, according to the city's official website, "seeks to educate citizens in this technique of transforming organic waste to obtain compost, a natural fertilizer that serves to provide nutrients to the soil." Among the benefits of composting are the reduction of the amount of garbage in the city, the fixation of carbon dioxide, the generation of new soil to plant in the pots and the recovered patios, and the fertility of the territory.

A park in Curridabat.Nina Cordero

The idea that runs through the whole project, that of putting nature at the center and seeing humans as one more link of that nature, seems to be an urgent focus in more Latin American cities that, despite being in countries extraordinarily rich in biodiversity, -only Costa Rica, with its small extension, is home to 5% of the world's biodiversity-, They have been built completely disconnected and contrary to those riches.

"Costa Rica, like many other countries in Latin America, is going through a deep contradiction. We are a country that has been at the forefront of many environmental changes at a global level, we were the first to pay to preserve forests, to protect conservation areas, but in cities this does not happen. San José is known as one of the ugliest cities in the region and that antagonism is very rare, it should not continue, cities also have to be the place of life," concludes Irene García.