Wealthier cities in the United States, such as New Orleans and Sacramento, have built expensive and expensive-to-maintain levee systems on floodplain.

Perhaps the crown jewel of Curitiba's achievements is its Rede Integrada de Transporte Bus Rapid Transit system (called "Speedybus").

Originally, the city was given federal money to build a subway (Curitiba is not a small town), but Lerner discovered that "heavy rail" like a subway costs ten times the amount of "light rail" (trolleys), which, in turn, costs ten times the amount of a bus system, even with dedicated bus ways.

The "light rail" savings usually touted to sway municipal decision makers occur because even trolleys can have relatively fewer drivers than a 40-60 passenger bus.

He got Volvo to make 270 person Swedish articulated buses (300 Brazilians, said Lerner),[5] so that the problem of a lower passenger-number-to-driver ratio was no longer an issue.

The city built attractive transit stops with the look and feel of train stations, and all with handicapped access equipment, inducing private firms to purchase and operate the buses.

Following upon his experience in Curitiba, Lerner focused on issues like transport, education, health, sanitation, leisure, and industrialization.

In 2011, Lerner was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for the illegal layoff of a public tender during his mandate as governor.

[6] At the General Assembly of the International Union of Architects in July 2002, Lerner was elected president for a period of three years.

In April 2005, Jaime Lerner participated in the Symposium of China Bus Rapid Transit Initiative (Shanghai) to promote the BRT project in some larger cities.