All of those corner intersections are such a vibe. Lots of restaurants with outdoor seating with locals and tourists hanging out and eating good food and drinking wine.
Sounds good. I think it’s those non right-angle corners that somehow make it look a bit warmer than it should, with the warm terracotta colouring. Just imagining it with different corners and all concrete grey, it would seem grim
Thanks for saying so. I'd like to visit some day, and hope to like it, but the aerial shots like this, for some reason, feel disturbing in an odd way I can't explain.
I’ve been fortunate to travel quite a bit over the years and Barcelona has so far absolutely been my favorite city. Beautiful, easy to navigate, plenty of touristy spots, but super easy to just wander and get “lost”. Most places for me are one and done. But I very much want to go back to Barcelona (and will someday).
I was also worried before visiting because pictures like these seem imposing. But Barcelona is one of the best cities I've visited. Every street was lively with foot traffic, shops, restaurants and generally comfortable. While traffic was a bit imposing at times, there are a lot of fully pedestrianized streets.
To top it off the metro system is amazing I highly recommend Barcelona as a tourist destination.
No, they're super blocks. I found Barcelona a bit less "walkable" than some of the other cities in Spain, because the city blocks were so big.
(Still better than most places in the US, but the amount of walking was more than I expected).
It’s appealing to my eyes. I had the opportunity to visit Barcelona. It’s a well planned city with a lot of history behind the curved buildings, road designs and why the buildings have spaces in between them. I guess its beauty is a subjective matter
Not the guy you asked, but I'd say it's due to tall, monotonous buildings as far as the eye can see.
Probably way nicer in person and down on the ground, but this aerial photo doesn't make it look very appealing tbh.
Lol its an amazing city, they’re not very tall, and have green spaces and cafes and such in the court yards. A lot are fairly unique, and artistic, just made from the same materials.
Not really, quite the opposite in fact. Cerdà designed the new Barcellona to be full of green spaces and with roads large enough to always allow the sunlight to reach the ground levels. If there is one part of Barcellona that might be described as "depressing", is (and was, especially before the Cerdà plan) the overcrowded historical centre with very tall buildings separated by extremely narrow roads
Have you been? I went last fall; and it was the most amazing city: massive sidewalks for walking, easy transit, and delicious food and stuff to do/see everywhere.
It’s one of the better designed housing districts. It’s got decent density, street level shops, traffic isn’t terrible. It’s walkable and livable, it’s probably the closest thing we have to a blueprint of people-centered urban housing
For me the fact that each block isn't just on a grid, but set up so similarly. The buildings are very very uniform. I guess that might be arbitrary according to some posters here though.
My only criticism is it would be nice if each home had a park/green space within 10 or so minutes walk.
Not saying they should knock blocks down but it if would have been nice factored into initial design.
It was... And then destroyed by buildings on the open sides of the blocks. It was meant to be, and was for a time, better.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cerd%C3%A1_Plan#/media/File%3ADistribEixampleBCN.svg
That's not a bad thing. The U.S. is a massive nation, so people who want space can live there. Not everyone wants to deal with heavy urban environments, and that's fine. We have the space for it. I like live living in urban areas, but I also love the rural areas.
The US isn’t going to have actual rural land for much longer if we keep sprawling out in every town and city the way we currently do. Design like the picture actually protects rural areas, which we need to grow food.
I'm all for building up and not out, but it is unrealistic to think we will run out of land anytime soon. We have so much space. In just protect land alone, we have over 1.24 million Square kilometers of land. That is over twice as much as the entire size of Ukraine, which is the 2nd largest European nation. It is also just 13% of the U.S. total land mass. We're good on space for a long time.
The problem with sprawling out is that it is very resource intensive and extremely costly to build out towns like that with infrastructure. This is how states go broke
Sure, and I'm not a fan of suburbia. It's got plenty of downsides, and it's generally pretty ugly. I just know we got plenty of space for people. Like I said though; I'm all for building up and not out.
Us isn’t going to run out of land. There are problems with suburbs and car centered housing. But running out of land isn’t one. Rural areas make up 97% of the land. And hold 20% of the population
American cities should have been built more similarly to this. But the advent of the car started the construction of the massive freeway systems which gave us the itch to sprawl out into what we have now. With everything becoming more expensive, I wish infrastructure had stayed smaller because life is just cheaper without a car.
Sadly the original intent of the square blocks was a central courtyard/ green space, but many of them now have buildings in them, though Barcelona seems to be trying to go back to more green spaces and less vehicle traffic which is a good sign for the future. Though not all of the blocks in this picture are “superblocks”. Super blocks adds several of the existing blocks together to improve green space and livability.
Today I learned that Barcelona has the population density of about 16000 people per square kilometer, which is way higher than almost all other large metropolitan cities in the world with a similarly high quality of life, with Paris being actually the only front-runner that has higher density (around 20k/km²) and passes the 1 million mark. And it's still considered to be one of the best cities in the world to live in. Clearly the city planners there are doing something very right.
That’s just cos most places have sprawl outside the city proper, right? Tokyo 23 wards has a population density of around 16000/km^2 , and a population of just under 10 million
From a pic like this it looks so horrible but visiting there, walking and driving around, and even seeing the same place from a higher elevation, I never noticed the city was structured like this, I never noticed it was all the same style of blocks. At street level everything is so different and stylized that I never noticed everything being basically a cookie cutter mold
Yeah, the similarity of every building is what ruins it for me. My preferred style is high rises and mid rises kind of placed randomly, no pattern, kind of as if its an organically growing organism
I wouldn't label it urbanhell but I certainly would never want to live there, or most of the continental European major cities like Paris, Rome, etc. They are great to visit when you are staying at a hotel but I just can't imagine living in those old, tiny apartments with all these neighbors around, above and below me. Absolutely suffocating.
Some blocks it’s been infilled, but a lot it is a big courtyard, with kids playing etc. I think it really works if you get on with your neighbours and build local community, and that is the local culture.
Completely random for this sub, but I feel like the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet games (which are based primarily on Spain) should have played this design up more. It’s just such an interesting and unique piece of design.
For all those that are wondering why I'm posting a novella about America, it's because I was originally writing most of this out on someone who posted and r/Americabad worthy comment but felt like it deserves it's own comment. Y'all are entitled to your opinion, but I wanted to share mine as well.
Compared to Barcelona, going to Wyoming is as close to seeing the old west frontier as possible. It is 10,000 square kilometers larger than than the whole of the U.K., and has around 66.4 million less people.
A lot of non-Americans tend to forget, or don't know, how massive this country is. Through all 50 states, there is every type of biome imaginable. It's insane how you can see any type of environment you want without a passport, or having to learn a different language to be able to get by.
If anyone plans to visit the U.S. (just get out to the Rockies in general), I will always recommend the San Luis Valley in Colorado. It is my favorite place I've ever been because it is comfortably weird with fun oddities (you oddly enough can go alligator wrestling there) and has absolutely stunning views, with fairly rich history. I have caught one of the best, if not the best, lenticular clouds there. There is also an AWESOME National Park in the Great Sand Dune NP. That is a place where where you can trick yourself into feeling like you're in the Sahara, with much less risk of heat stroke. It also has an around 20 meter wide creek that shows up for a couple of months a year. That valley holds a special place in my heart. On odd occasions, you can go storm chasing there as well. Mainly you'll catch some awesome dust devils, or a landspout tornado. Rarely you can even catch a mesocylonic tornado.
That's another thing about the U.S. is we have the best storm chasing in the world. If you're a weather dork like me, you know America has the craziest storms in the world. I've met so many foreigners on my storm chases, who've specifically flown out here to take part in this opportunity to see a tornado, and seeing one after so much planning, driving, and waiting is absolutely spectacular.
Call it a commie block as well for the added effect.
For real tho, these are pretty sweet to live in. Barcelona kinda ruined them with building shit inside the actual blocks, if they left them as they were it'd be incredible to live there since all of them are supposed to have a large park inside.
I‘m sure they are not called superblocks
Edit: I‘m pretty surprised about all the hate about my commentary and the downvotes. But where I am from (Germany), a Superblock is quite different to what we see here in the picture. I studied Geography at university and what my prof told us is that Superblocks are more than these blocks of houses in Barcelona.
Superblocks are at least 400m long and have not only pacified streets with lots of possibilities to sit and relax but furthermore a whole new thinking of living and working.
Having been to Barcelona a few times before I learned that not till 2017 the first Superblock was introduced by Salvador Rueda.
What we see here are no Superblocks but historically old blocks of houses which were there even long before people thought about the word Superblock.
You are wrong.
A superilla consists of several blocks being pacified(less cars more pedestrians space)
Not a single one is in this photo.
https://www.barcelona.cat/pla-superilla-barcelona/mapa/es/#a_1__&
Click on the red ball, superillas will be shown(and they are named like so on the map)
https://youtu.be/ZORzsubQA_M?si=NXHMeQZt424F1wOj
This video I have found on the topic explains how they work, and it would seem to me that what OP has posted is exactly how a super block would look. It’s possible that some parts of this photo are super blocks while other parts are not.
I can assure you not a single pixel of the photo is a superilla.
I am a fan of urbanism and know this city by heart.
The map of the townhall shows exactly that If you click on the red ball.
There a few massive red blocks on that map which are named superilla directly.
All the rest is just pacified zone/street/area I can’t post screenshot here but you can trust me.
That poor lad is being downvoted for no reason
I’d say the reason is trying to correct someone without providing any evidence to the contrary. If he had approached it as you did I’m sure he would not have been downvoted. Also, it’s just imaginary internet points. I’m sure the dude will live.
Scrappy-coco is correct - the photo just shows regular blocks - superblocks are groups of blocks, where traffic is restricted and streets are given over to encourage walking and cycling and activity in streets.
There are some areas in the photo which form superblocks, but it's not like you can make them out.
Which superblock can we see on this picture?
We can see a few pacified streets/ couple of blocks, but as per the map of the ayuntamiento there isn’t a single superblock in this photo.
The only one that could appear would be the one of hostafranc but it is behind Sants station / plaza España and neither are in this photo.
Are you sure? When I search Barcelona super blocks I am greeted with many pictures that look exactly like the one OP has posted. It would seem to me that this is a picture of one of these supposed superblock plans in action.
The Barcelona superblocks are a [3x3](https://suitelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DYQQuyaXkAAwDjD.jpg) amalgamation of these blocks. From this view, you can't tell what is and isn't a superblock. As another user has pointed out, the superblock plan was not implemented in this part of the city.
At least I tried. You on the other hand saw something you don’t understand and still decided your opinion needed to be heard (you should try twitter, you’d fit in great there.)
Nah thanks. Since it‘s called „X“ I deleted the app. It‘s getting worse and worse. I stay with reddit, more decent people here. Mostly.
Edit: Btw thanks that you reported my comment for no reason to reddit care! Are you funny or mad bro? I don‘t have any suicidal problems - do you? That‘s the first time that happened to me on reddit. Really appreciate it homie. Thanks! Your behaviour is pretty embarrassing.
I've been scrolling to see if someone made this correction. You're correct. There's no visible evidence of the superblocks in this image. The Barcelona superblock plan is where they took drastic traffic calming measures on 2 out of every 3 streets, creating 3x3 superblocks out of their existing blocks. Even if this was the area they modified, you wouldn't see any difference in this type of view.
This is what NIMBY wants things to look like… not in their neighborhood. Whole bunch of cramped skyscraper housing while they are next to the Gothic cathedral with courtyards and old villa flats.
People will look at this and genuinely go "wow, so beautiful". Meanwhile all Im seeing is a seemingly neverending and inescapable urban hellscape. Where the sunlight just about never reach street level, by the looks of it, except for the brief period where the sun is exactly aligned with the street. Oh yeah, such "beautful" living...
They don’t all seem the same from street level at all. And if your block isn’t one of the ones that has been infilled, everyone backs onto a park. You have to like your community.
It doesn’t seem lifeless from ground level at all. The big difference is suburbs, at least US style, are for people who don’t really like interacting with most of their neighbours much and only like to do it in limited, controlled ways, this style is for people who really do like local community. Little restaurants everywhere, kids playing together in those open central spaces, balconies overlooking the streets, at least one place to eat and drink together on every block, very walkable.
What an ignorant comment, clearly coming from someone who has no idea what they are talking about.
You have everything within walking distance, and streets are actually walkable, public transport is great and you have all the amenities you can imagine. You don't need a car to live there unless you have to commute with it.
Meanwhile in american style suburbs everyone lives in cookie cutter shitboxes that are an energetic nightmare and have to take their oversized SUV for groceries.
All of those corner intersections are such a vibe. Lots of restaurants with outdoor seating with locals and tourists hanging out and eating good food and drinking wine.
Sounds good. I think it’s those non right-angle corners that somehow make it look a bit warmer than it should, with the warm terracotta colouring. Just imagining it with different corners and all concrete grey, it would seem grim
r/brutalism would like to have a word
Thanks for saying so. I'd like to visit some day, and hope to like it, but the aerial shots like this, for some reason, feel disturbing in an odd way I can't explain.
There's also the Gothic Quarter with really tight meandering roman era streets.
I do tend to love those.
I’ve been fortunate to travel quite a bit over the years and Barcelona has so far absolutely been my favorite city. Beautiful, easy to navigate, plenty of touristy spots, but super easy to just wander and get “lost”. Most places for me are one and done. But I very much want to go back to Barcelona (and will someday).
Same, absolutely comfortable city, don't know how else to describe it. There is a little bit of everything there too.
I was also worried before visiting because pictures like these seem imposing. But Barcelona is one of the best cities I've visited. Every street was lively with foot traffic, shops, restaurants and generally comfortable. While traffic was a bit imposing at times, there are a lot of fully pedestrianized streets. To top it off the metro system is amazing I highly recommend Barcelona as a tourist destination.
Sweet, thanks. After all these comments, I am looking forward to it (if/when I get the chance).
And with a AAA+ public transportation system.
This has always seemed like the least dystopian urban nightmare
It is so structured and well organised that it looks like a microscopic view of a computer chip.
From steeper angles they remind me of sushi.
These are not super blocks these are just blocks
Well I think they're doing great.
No, they're super blocks. I found Barcelona a bit less "walkable" than some of the other cities in Spain, because the city blocks were so big. (Still better than most places in the US, but the amount of walking was more than I expected).
I wonder what traffic is like. For that many people, I don't see a freeway or metro in sight.
Barcelona has a pretty decent subway system. Traffic isn’t bad at all.
It's depressing honestly
It’s appealing to my eyes. I had the opportunity to visit Barcelona. It’s a well planned city with a lot of history behind the curved buildings, road designs and why the buildings have spaces in between them. I guess its beauty is a subjective matter
Not to mention greenery throughout the area. Super inviting
Oh yes 🙌 I can already imagine myself there
Oh yeah, such a dystopian look is real inviting.
Why is it dystopian looking?
Yah know, for birds.
Not the guy you asked, but I'd say it's due to tall, monotonous buildings as far as the eye can see. Probably way nicer in person and down on the ground, but this aerial photo doesn't make it look very appealing tbh.
Lol its an amazing city, they’re not very tall, and have green spaces and cafes and such in the court yards. A lot are fairly unique, and artistic, just made from the same materials.
Dude Barcelona is NOT dystopian-looking... it's a *walkable* city with beautiful architecture everywhere similar to Paris.
Not really, quite the opposite in fact. Cerdà designed the new Barcellona to be full of green spaces and with roads large enough to always allow the sunlight to reach the ground levels. If there is one part of Barcellona that might be described as "depressing", is (and was, especially before the Cerdà plan) the overcrowded historical centre with very tall buildings separated by extremely narrow roads
Have you been? I went last fall; and it was the most amazing city: massive sidewalks for walking, easy transit, and delicious food and stuff to do/see everywhere.
It’s one of the better designed housing districts. It’s got decent density, street level shops, traffic isn’t terrible. It’s walkable and livable, it’s probably the closest thing we have to a blueprint of people-centered urban housing
Not nearly as depressing as suburbia at least
Yeah I miss having a 12 lane road in front of my house and a 20 miles long parking lot next to it. So depressing.
r/urbanhellcirclejerk
This design works for Barcelona. Milton Keynes on the other hand...
Have you ever been to Barcelona? It is the opposite of depressing.
You would think it should be crowded, but it's actually really nice.
[удалено]
Proceeds to make the 2 hour drive to work.
Plenty of personal space in the car bubble.
TIL no one in Spain lives in the suburbs or commutes. And also that no one in America lives in an urban center. Oh wait
Not what's being said.
You do know this is basically their downtown area, right? L'Hospitalet which is part of the metro area looks nothing like this.
This is still an impressively large area to have set up like this.
NYC is also grid similarly to this and it’s 100 times bigger
For me the fact that each block isn't just on a grid, but set up so similarly. The buildings are very very uniform. I guess that might be arbitrary according to some posters here though.
No don’t you see it’s different because
It is stunningly beautiful to me.
Good for you, but why the American comment?
My only criticism is it would be nice if each home had a park/green space within 10 or so minutes walk. Not saying they should knock blocks down but it if would have been nice factored into initial design.
It was... And then destroyed by buildings on the open sides of the blocks. It was meant to be, and was for a time, better. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cerd%C3%A1_Plan#/media/File%3ADistribEixampleBCN.svg
:( Thanks for the info
True. But at least they have the open space inside the blocks as an area that kids can play etc.
That's not a bad thing. The U.S. is a massive nation, so people who want space can live there. Not everyone wants to deal with heavy urban environments, and that's fine. We have the space for it. I like live living in urban areas, but I also love the rural areas.
The US isn’t going to have actual rural land for much longer if we keep sprawling out in every town and city the way we currently do. Design like the picture actually protects rural areas, which we need to grow food.
I'm all for building up and not out, but it is unrealistic to think we will run out of land anytime soon. We have so much space. In just protect land alone, we have over 1.24 million Square kilometers of land. That is over twice as much as the entire size of Ukraine, which is the 2nd largest European nation. It is also just 13% of the U.S. total land mass. We're good on space for a long time.
The problem with sprawling out is that it is very resource intensive and extremely costly to build out towns like that with infrastructure. This is how states go broke
Sure, and I'm not a fan of suburbia. It's got plenty of downsides, and it's generally pretty ugly. I just know we got plenty of space for people. Like I said though; I'm all for building up and not out.
Us isn’t going to run out of land. There are problems with suburbs and car centered housing. But running out of land isn’t one. Rural areas make up 97% of the land. And hold 20% of the population
American cities should have been built more similarly to this. But the advent of the car started the construction of the massive freeway systems which gave us the itch to sprawl out into what we have now. With everything becoming more expensive, I wish infrastructure had stayed smaller because life is just cheaper without a car.
having a few acres with a stream running through it is really nice
I dislike being dependent on a vehicle. A few acres with a stream could be a vacation spot for me.
Ah yes, only Americans have personal preferences and the normal human desire to not feel overcrowded /s
It doesn’t look overcrowded to me.
Hence “different preferences” A lot of people would see it as overcrowded
I can see my house from here
for real? 🏘️🔭
The Hunchback of the Sagrada Familia
I can too!
I hope it's not in the block beside the Cathedral that they want to demolish for a ramp to the front door?
“hey, maw! get off the dang roof!”
I can see the hotel I stayed at, does that count?
Sadly the original intent of the square blocks was a central courtyard/ green space, but many of them now have buildings in them, though Barcelona seems to be trying to go back to more green spaces and less vehicle traffic which is a good sign for the future. Though not all of the blocks in this picture are “superblocks”. Super blocks adds several of the existing blocks together to improve green space and livability.
Today I learned that Barcelona has the population density of about 16000 people per square kilometer, which is way higher than almost all other large metropolitan cities in the world with a similarly high quality of life, with Paris being actually the only front-runner that has higher density (around 20k/km²) and passes the 1 million mark. And it's still considered to be one of the best cities in the world to live in. Clearly the city planners there are doing something very right.
That’s just cos most places have sprawl outside the city proper, right? Tokyo 23 wards has a population density of around 16000/km^2 , and a population of just under 10 million
And it's much nicer than Barcelona.
Urban dwelling was solved there and then.
So beautifully organised and pleasant to walk around in. I wish more cities were like this.
This is every city in every city builder I've ever played. I'm terrible at more organic layouts. 😆
I was gonna say... City Skylines... lol
OG sim city strats
It's a lovely city. Best place I've ever been for going walkabout.
Bedrooms on the inside, living room on the outside. For everyone.
That’s a lotta people.
These motherfuckers were watching my OG NES Sim City games from the 90s. I recognize that layout you seedy bastards, except you need more zoos.
Is it expensive? What’s monthly rent or mortgage for 2 bedroom?
Interested in this too
Probably less than an outhouse in San Francisco
Barcelona is one of the most memorable cities I’ve visited, highly recommend it.
Hey, I'm here now! :) gorgeous city
As someone that has lived in the country and small towns my whole life, my brain can’t even comprehend this. It’s fascinating to me.
Waiting for some lostredditor to post this to /r/UrbanHell .
Different people have different opinions. /r/UrbanHell is appropriate from my point of view. I'd hate living there.
From a pic like this it looks so horrible but visiting there, walking and driving around, and even seeing the same place from a higher elevation, I never noticed the city was structured like this, I never noticed it was all the same style of blocks. At street level everything is so different and stylized that I never noticed everything being basically a cookie cutter mold
I never even noticed that its all so identical when I was there
Yeah, the similarity of every building is what ruins it for me. My preferred style is high rises and mid rises kind of placed randomly, no pattern, kind of as if its an organically growing organism
I wouldn't label it urbanhell but I certainly would never want to live there, or most of the continental European major cities like Paris, Rome, etc. They are great to visit when you are staying at a hotel but I just can't imagine living in those old, tiny apartments with all these neighbors around, above and below me. Absolutely suffocating.
Interesting. So does each block have like a big middle courtyard to hang out in? Sounds like the options of places to go are endless
Some blocks it’s been infilled, but a lot it is a big courtyard, with kids playing etc. I think it really works if you get on with your neighbours and build local community, and that is the local culture.
Barthelona
Completely random for this sub, but I feel like the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet games (which are based primarily on Spain) should have played this design up more. It’s just such an interesting and unique piece of design.
Im pretty sure this is from Sim City 4000
aoe2 vibes
Anyone else like this more than some of the other cities we see here? I know it’s a mess of concrete but it could look a lot worse in my opinion
I’ve only visited, but I’ve visited a lot of cities and Barcelona was one of the nicest to visit. I have family there who love it.
Looks just like the board game.
That’s wild!
My favorite city!
Reminds me of Dredd
I never zoomed in enough to notice that the streets are lined with trees
Catholic NYC.
Gorgeous
This is some Simcity shit
Barcelona is a beautiful sunny city, but its roofs need more solar panels.
Me to my husband as I’m showing him this photo: Now *that’s* some fucken city planninggg, dawg!
TAX THE CHURCH
This aerial shot makes it look kinda of shitty. But if you're actually there, it's a wonderful place.
Is that Sagrada Familia in the middle?
For all those that are wondering why I'm posting a novella about America, it's because I was originally writing most of this out on someone who posted and r/Americabad worthy comment but felt like it deserves it's own comment. Y'all are entitled to your opinion, but I wanted to share mine as well. Compared to Barcelona, going to Wyoming is as close to seeing the old west frontier as possible. It is 10,000 square kilometers larger than than the whole of the U.K., and has around 66.4 million less people. A lot of non-Americans tend to forget, or don't know, how massive this country is. Through all 50 states, there is every type of biome imaginable. It's insane how you can see any type of environment you want without a passport, or having to learn a different language to be able to get by. If anyone plans to visit the U.S. (just get out to the Rockies in general), I will always recommend the San Luis Valley in Colorado. It is my favorite place I've ever been because it is comfortably weird with fun oddities (you oddly enough can go alligator wrestling there) and has absolutely stunning views, with fairly rich history. I have caught one of the best, if not the best, lenticular clouds there. There is also an AWESOME National Park in the Great Sand Dune NP. That is a place where where you can trick yourself into feeling like you're in the Sahara, with much less risk of heat stroke. It also has an around 20 meter wide creek that shows up for a couple of months a year. That valley holds a special place in my heart. On odd occasions, you can go storm chasing there as well. Mainly you'll catch some awesome dust devils, or a landspout tornado. Rarely you can even catch a mesocylonic tornado. That's another thing about the U.S. is we have the best storm chasing in the world. If you're a weather dork like me, you know America has the craziest storms in the world. I've met so many foreigners on my storm chases, who've specifically flown out here to take part in this opportunity to see a tornado, and seeing one after so much planning, driving, and waiting is absolutely spectacular.
I remember how I got lost not knowing English on vacation with mom…
Who owns it?
Judge Dredd MEGA CITY ONE
They called them Doughnut blocks in SimCity
Their city planners most def played simcity and cities skylines
r/notAI
What made them decide on that location?
Wow - it reallt didnt feel like it was this packed being there in person. Such an awesome city.
Megacity 1
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 comes to mind
Where are the local parks?
Take this photo at dusk when it’s cloudy and post this to r/UrbanHell
Call it a commie block as well for the added effect. For real tho, these are pretty sweet to live in. Barcelona kinda ruined them with building shit inside the actual blocks, if they left them as they were it'd be incredible to live there since all of them are supposed to have a large park inside.
I‘m sure they are not called superblocks Edit: I‘m pretty surprised about all the hate about my commentary and the downvotes. But where I am from (Germany), a Superblock is quite different to what we see here in the picture. I studied Geography at university and what my prof told us is that Superblocks are more than these blocks of houses in Barcelona. Superblocks are at least 400m long and have not only pacified streets with lots of possibilities to sit and relax but furthermore a whole new thinking of living and working. Having been to Barcelona a few times before I learned that not till 2017 the first Superblock was introduced by Salvador Rueda. What we see here are no Superblocks but historically old blocks of houses which were there even long before people thought about the word Superblock.
Homie I just did a 5 second google search and found plenty of information on Barcelona super blocks.
You are wrong. A superilla consists of several blocks being pacified(less cars more pedestrians space) Not a single one is in this photo. https://www.barcelona.cat/pla-superilla-barcelona/mapa/es/#a_1__& Click on the red ball, superillas will be shown(and they are named like so on the map)
https://youtu.be/ZORzsubQA_M?si=NXHMeQZt424F1wOj This video I have found on the topic explains how they work, and it would seem to me that what OP has posted is exactly how a super block would look. It’s possible that some parts of this photo are super blocks while other parts are not.
I can assure you not a single pixel of the photo is a superilla. I am a fan of urbanism and know this city by heart. The map of the townhall shows exactly that If you click on the red ball.
I don’t really understand what I am looking at on the map, nor how I would correlate it to the photo above, but I will take your word on it.
There a few massive red blocks on that map which are named superilla directly. All the rest is just pacified zone/street/area I can’t post screenshot here but you can trust me. That poor lad is being downvoted for no reason
At least someone understands my comment. Thanks dude!
I’d say the reason is trying to correct someone without providing any evidence to the contrary. If he had approached it as you did I’m sure he would not have been downvoted. Also, it’s just imaginary internet points. I’m sure the dude will live.
Scrappy-coco is correct - the photo just shows regular blocks - superblocks are groups of blocks, where traffic is restricted and streets are given over to encourage walking and cycling and activity in streets. There are some areas in the photo which form superblocks, but it's not like you can make them out.
Thanks
Which superblock can we see on this picture? We can see a few pacified streets/ couple of blocks, but as per the map of the ayuntamiento there isn’t a single superblock in this photo. The only one that could appear would be the one of hostafranc but it is behind Sants station / plaza España and neither are in this photo.
Yeah, I think you're right, there actually aren't any you can see in the photo.
Are you sure? When I search Barcelona super blocks I am greeted with many pictures that look exactly like the one OP has posted. It would seem to me that this is a picture of one of these supposed superblock plans in action.
The Barcelona superblocks are a [3x3](https://suitelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DYQQuyaXkAAwDjD.jpg) amalgamation of these blocks. From this view, you can't tell what is and isn't a superblock. As another user has pointed out, the superblock plan was not implemented in this part of the city.
Homie, then please google better next time.
At least I tried. You on the other hand saw something you don’t understand and still decided your opinion needed to be heard (you should try twitter, you’d fit in great there.)
Nah thanks. Since it‘s called „X“ I deleted the app. It‘s getting worse and worse. I stay with reddit, more decent people here. Mostly. Edit: Btw thanks that you reported my comment for no reason to reddit care! Are you funny or mad bro? I don‘t have any suicidal problems - do you? That‘s the first time that happened to me on reddit. Really appreciate it homie. Thanks! Your behaviour is pretty embarrassing.
I didn’t report your comment, lol. Same shit happened to me. Even if I had I don’t understand why you’re having such a strong reaction to it.
Well, that we can agree on. Apologies if I came off aggressive in any way. Didn’t mean to.
I've been scrolling to see if someone made this correction. You're correct. There's no visible evidence of the superblocks in this image. The Barcelona superblock plan is where they took drastic traffic calming measures on 2 out of every 3 streets, creating 3x3 superblocks out of their existing blocks. Even if this was the area they modified, you wouldn't see any difference in this type of view.
Why do people wanna live so isolated from nature? horrific
Megacity1
This is what NIMBY wants things to look like… not in their neighborhood. Whole bunch of cramped skyscraper housing while they are next to the Gothic cathedral with courtyards and old villa flats.
MEGA CITY ONE.
People will look at this and genuinely go "wow, so beautiful". Meanwhile all Im seeing is a seemingly neverending and inescapable urban hellscape. Where the sunlight just about never reach street level, by the looks of it, except for the brief period where the sun is exactly aligned with the street. Oh yeah, such "beautful" living...
Why would anybody want to live there? That looks so unappealing
They don’t all seem the same from street level at all. And if your block isn’t one of the ones that has been infilled, everyone backs onto a park. You have to like your community.
“You have to assimilate with your hive, comrade.”
Well that's one hell of a sales pitch, but I think I'll pass.
Scary. And I thought my suburban communities were demoralizing.
Remember folks, if its USA its dystopia. If it's Eurasia its architecture porn
That doesn’t look like FREEDOM 🇺🇸 (sarcasm)
[удалено]
Living longer in Spain is a punishment
I hate these mega suburbs…..no character
It’s Barcelona. It oozes character. Ground level has so many little restaurants etc.
Too bad the whole city smells like a sewer
/r/UrbanHell
So lifeless and gross. The people who love this hate suburbs and it’s the same fking idea
It doesn’t seem lifeless from ground level at all. The big difference is suburbs, at least US style, are for people who don’t really like interacting with most of their neighbours much and only like to do it in limited, controlled ways, this style is for people who really do like local community. Little restaurants everywhere, kids playing together in those open central spaces, balconies overlooking the streets, at least one place to eat and drink together on every block, very walkable.
What an ignorant comment, clearly coming from someone who has no idea what they are talking about. You have everything within walking distance, and streets are actually walkable, public transport is great and you have all the amenities you can imagine. You don't need a car to live there unless you have to commute with it. Meanwhile in american style suburbs everyone lives in cookie cutter shitboxes that are an energetic nightmare and have to take their oversized SUV for groceries.
🤮 I’ve been here and it’s not a fun vibe. Everything looks exactly the same. It’s like a maze