# Cities and places of Paraná I: Maringá (beware: many pictures)



## urbane (Jan 4, 2005)

Maringá is a city in northern Paraná state, located in southern Brazil. Northern Paraná wasn’t extensively settled until the 1st half of the 20th century and Maringá was incorporated only in 1947. The city has about 300000 inhabitants. I was there in January and took lots of photos. I will make other threads for cities and places I visited in Paraná: Londrina, Curitiba, Iguaçú, and the Litoral Paranaense

A map of the location from the net:










A map of the city:










Let’s start with the Catedral Metropolitana (shaped, I was told, to resemble the Sputnik spaceship  )





































The inside:





































Walking up, inside the cone we find some bare and unfinished interiors:










Imprints of shoes on the ground:



















But the view from the top is magnificent !

Looking south away from downtown:










Looking at the two large city parks that are to the east and west of the cathedral:



















Looking to the eastern end of downtown, where the bulk of the retail is located:



















The road leading to the Stadium:










The western end of downtown, with Maringá’s tallest building on the left:










Looking towards the terminal for city-buses and the suburbs:










City hall:










Zooming on the sprawl:










Let’s get out, I don’t remember to whom this statue is dedicated, I think it’s the Virgin Mary but there was more of a story behind it:










Virtually all of Maringá’s streets are lined with trees, this is how the city was planned. Here are some examples:




























On another planning note, Maringá’s traffic lights are rather interesting: the red light starts with a red ball on top which then drops down every so many seconds. When it hits the bottom it changes to green, which changes the light to a green ball on top which goes down and so the cycle continues:










A street-performer during a red-light:










Avenida Brasil is the main shopping avenue for Maringá, despite that it looks rather unremarkable:




























Maringá has two malls: Aspen Park and Avenida Center.

Aspen Park:



















And just in case you haven’t had enough of the cathedral :










Avenida Center:










Now to the high-rises with some shots from the street. Something that surprised me was that most high-rises were exclusively for residential use. I could hardly find any tall buildings that were for office use.

Maringá’s tallest:










Others miscellaneous:



















Under construction:











Now to low-rise architecture:





































Old and modern coexisting in Maringá:










Maringá’s railroad line that eventually goes underneath the city, I was surprised that the intersection is not operated automatically:










Skyline view from CESUMAR (Centro Universitário de Maringá):




























Looking towards the countryside:



















The campus of CESUMAR:





































The Parque Ingá: is one of the two large parks in the city and just like the city, it is named after Maria Ingá, an immigrant from the northeast of Brazil featured in a song (I don’t think she ever existed). Hence the city’s nickname: Cidade Cancão.























































The park has quite a few animals as well:














































These mini-monkeys can be found everywhere in the park:



















Telephone booth outside the park:










Sidewalks:

I am not sure if it’s the case everywhere in Brazil, but the pavement of the sidewalks in Maringá is handled by the owner of the property abutting the sidewalk, hence it changes in patterns, materials, and quality every few meters/yards: 










Maringá also has a requirement for property owners to plant trees on the sidewalk, here is a small one:










This requirement, however, leads to problems when the tree grows and becomes too big and cracks the sidewalks:



















I was also told that there is a new requirement for ecological sidewalk which will enhance natural water drainage through the soil:










A vast expanse of undeveloped land in a relatively central are of town sits idle by the citybus terminal. Are there any plans to develop it ?? :dunno: 



















The Terminal Rodoviario - where intercity-buses arrive and depart: Brazil doesn’t have much of a passenger railroad network but many bus companies link cities for those who don’t drive. The terminals in Maringá and Londrina are modern and clean:





































Now to the residential neighborhoods:




























Raised trashcans in a residential neighborhood, I guess they don’t require lots of bending for those depositing or picking up the trash and keep the trash away from animals (unless those can crawl up the pole or are birds):










Most single family houses are built close to the street: 



















But occasionally there are a few which have huge setbacks: apparently some people first build the building in the back as a house, and then build the main building towards the street. Once that is accomplished they move into the main building and use the other building for storage, for guests etc.:










Living in a cage :runaway: 



















Living fenced-in:



















Gated communities all located on the same hill south of downtown echoing European flair  



















This how the first buildings in Maringá looked like: now there are only a few left, and they are often in disrepair. Hopefully they will preserve them, since they are a part of Paraná’s heritage:





































Jogger’s highway next to Maringá’s other park, complete with median ! I couldn’t find a single person walking the wrong way, maybe you get fined if you do  



















Political advertisement: Maringá has a sizable Japanese community which influences local politics.










I had to post this: Pizza with peanut and caramel !! There was also chocolate Pizza on the menu ! :uh: 










Traveling outside of town one finds himself amongst lush soybean fields:



















Skyline view from the distance:










Northern Paraná’s hilly countryside:




























The city is arriving here too:










Last views with a beautiful sky:




























I hope you enjoyed :cheers:


----------



## tkr (Apr 3, 2005)

hey dude, i enjoyed the pics!  it's nice to have some foreign view on our cities..

About the sidewalks, yes, in all the country, the sidewalks are handled by the owner of the property abutting the sidewalk. It's a way our mayors found to reduce costs for them. hno: I hate that. Some people just don't have any notion of beauty, and sometimes builds horrible sidewalks. And the lack of a pattern bothers me.

Some trees are indeed a problem, as they break the sidewalks. I think they should specify some types of trees that aren't big enough to break the sidewalk and are beautiful. Because many of these big trees are also very ugly. They're trying to do that here in my city.

Unfortunately, in most cities, our houses are all fenced and 'caged', because no matter how safe you think your city is, it's always good to protect yourself. That's also why people choose to live in residentials or gated communities.

A question: how is the garbage handled in the US? Where do you guys put them?


----------



## urbane (Jan 4, 2005)

shosho said:


> hey dude, i enjoyed the pics!  it's nice to have some foreign view on our cities..
> 
> About the sidewalks, yes, in all the country, the sidewalks are handled by the owner of the property abutting the sidewalk. It's a way our mayors found to reduce costs for them. hno: I hate that. Some people just don't have any notion of beauty, and sometimes builds horrible sidewalks. And the lack of a pattern bothers me.
> 
> ...


Glad you enjoyed the thread Shosho. 

I agree with you about the sidewalks and the trees on the sidewals kay: 

Regarding garbage collection: most residential neighborhoods in the United States consist of single family detached houses, and residents bring out their trash on specific days of the week to be collected. In Germany they also have specific days for picking up paper trash, biomass etc. Higher density neighborhoods in the U.S. have large bins (much bigger than the trash-cans shown in this thread), generally serving an apartment complex, where residents put their trash any day of the week. Those bins are usually covered in order to avoid the spread of bad odors. This is also the case in much of Europe, where the trash bins are located at specific points on the side of the street. In all cases, however, the trash bins are not elevated from the ground: that's something I have only seen in Brazil so far.


----------



## gutooo (Jan 30, 2005)

Impressive!

Thanks for the thread!


----------



## Fly Pan Am (Nov 21, 2004)

That cathedral is quite interesting in design.


----------



## grachtengordeldier (Mar 7, 2006)

This thread was very interesting!
Never heard of this city before! It does not look too pretty though...but I love your trafficlights and the trees! Pics of the countryside were interesting too as we never see 'normal' pics of many countries. I mean mostly you just see the so called highlights and they are boring.
Those gated communities...ow my god I hate them!
But still...great thread with good commentaries by the pics...almost makes you feel at home.
More like these please!
Muito obrigado de les montrer!


----------



## MasonsInquiries (Jul 18, 2005)

BE-YOU-TEEE-FUL pics, urbane.


----------



## RGV (Apr 27, 2006)

Very nice and clean city. Can't believe it's that developed yet it was just incorporated in the 1940's.

Where is this city in relation to the German cities of Brazil?


----------



## urbane (Jan 4, 2005)

^^ The German settlements are located south of Maringà, on the southern border of Paranà state with the sate of Santa Catarina and in Santa Catarina itself.


----------



## urbane (Jan 4, 2005)

*Updated photos*

Time to update this thread. I went again to Maringà last month and took more photographs with a better camera, I will post them over the next days. I will start with the where I left off.

A little rural flair:



















Within close reach from the city:



















A new neighborhood developing in proximity to the the University of Maringà:



















Many new residents feel very vulnerable in this fledging neighborhood, and literally gate themsevels in their homes (some of them were already shown in previous pictures):




























Rural mixing with urban: a horse freely walking around the neighborhood...



















....and eating from a soybean field:










An ecological sidewalk (minimizes water runoff):










A more interesting sidewalk from a different area of the city:










A couple more houses from another neighborhood:



















Cloudy sky:










Now to the industrial area of the city, an important economic engine for Maringà located near its airport. The huge food-processing plant of Cocamar, a large producer of foodstuffs under different brand names (e.g.: Purity). The pics are a bit blurry because they were taken from the car:























































Many small warehouses and light-industry companies are located near the airport:


----------



## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Excellent shots!


----------



## urbane (Jan 4, 2005)

More photos: I went to Jardim Monte Rey, one of the new subdivisions springing up in this rapidly expanding city. This one is located close to the planned campus of a private university. I met the land developer's salesman and made it seem that I was interested in buying one of the lots. From my conversation with him it appears that all lots have road access, water and sewer connection, and electrical connection. Houses can be built on all lots: they can't be more than 2 floors tall, and have to be setback a minimum of 3 meters. Apparently there are no lot-coverage ratios to be fulfilled under zoning, nor are there any setback requirements from the rear or the sides. Furthermore, the lots can be divided in two parts and two townhouses can be built on it. Lastly, parcels facing highly trafficked streets could be used for commercial purposes, as long as the commercial establishments were no taller than 2 floors. Commercial buildings have no setback requirement. Frankly I was suprised at how many streets could have commercial: it wasn't just the collector roads but even some interior streets within the development (maybe as many as 1/3 of the streets).

I inquired about prices and found out that a typical residential lot (that can't be converted to commercial use) would cost around 100000 Reais (approximately 40000 euros these days) if paid at settlement. The prices naturally increase if payment occurs in several installments.

The area:




























Looking at another subdivision:



















Some of the construction going on:



















Some of the non-reisdential buildings being built:




























THe Faculdades Nobel campus nearby:


----------



## urbane (Jan 4, 2005)

A cool mural depicting the history of Maringà located on the wall of a school:


----------



## urbane (Jan 4, 2005)

Now some photos of downtown Maringà. Avenida Getulio Vargas:




























Praça Pedro II and the cathedral:









































































Three shots of City Hall:




























The oldest hotel in Maringà (now closed):










A square between Avenida Brasil and the bus terminal, just north of the cathedral:





































The old, now crumbling, bus terminal:



















Other random shots of downtown:
































































Hope you enjoyed these views of downtown ! :cheers:


----------



## urbane (Jan 4, 2005)

Some photographs of the campus of the State University of Maringà. Architecturally the campus is unremarkable: its older part has lots of one-story structures. However, it's very lush and has a small museum with some old photographs of Maringà:














































Old buildings falling apart:



















Same type of buildings restored looking much better:



















Library:










Don't know what's in this building:










The new, soon to be finished, building for zoo-techniques and for agronomy:



















Some old pictures of Maringà I found inside the museum:





































Now to the large big development in central Maringà just north of the Cathedal where the railroad tracks used to run before they went underground. The large area was simply devoid of buildings for a long time but new ones have been springing up recently. The only thing I regret is that Maringà didn't use this opportunity of this free large centrally-located swath of land to create a pedestrian boulevard like Londrina or larger Brazilian cities have. It's surely something missing in Maringà. I would have preferred that over a new shopping center.

Now to the photos. Where the tracks go underground:










The development area:




































































































Avenida shopping center:



















Finally some pictures of the dawn taken from the airplane:




























That's all for Maringà for now: I hope you enjoyed :cheers:


----------



## fabionomoto (Dec 13, 2007)

Sorry for bump this old thread.
But I have found this video about Maringa, wich has English subtitles.


----------



## christos-greece (Feb 19, 2008)

Just great photos kay:


----------



## JoseRodolfo (Jul 9, 2003)

Interesting! I liked the State University of Maringá!


----------

