Superblocks: How Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars
VoxCited 3× on HN, 2017–2024
explainer · general · 2017–2024 on HN
A short Vox video on Barcelona's superblocks, an urban design approach that closes interior streets to through traffic to return space to pedestrians.
Cited as an example of reducing car dominance and as a model for walkable neighborhoods.
Up next
12 mo on HNHow Self-Driving Cars will Destroy Cities (and what to do about it)
Not Just Bikes
17 HN recommender · 2024–2026
11 mo on HNStroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]
Not Just Bikes
12 HN recommender · 2021–2025
10 mo on HNWhy This Channel Exists (and why I hate Houston)
Not Just Bikes
11 HN recommender · 2021–2025
10 mo on HNWhy American Cities Are Broke - The Growth Ponzi Scheme [ST03]
Not Just Bikes
14 HN recommender · 2021–2024
9 mo on HNThe Wrong Way to Set Speed Limits [ST06]
Not Just Bikes
9 HN recommender · 2021–2025
9 mo on HNCities Aren't Loud: Cars Are Loud
Not Just Bikes
10 HN recommender · 2021–2025
10 mo on HNWhy Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)
Not Just Bikes
10 HN recommender · 2021–2026
9 mo on HNHow the Dutch got their cycle paths
BicycleDutch
9 HN recommender · 2013–2022
9 mo on HNWhy Japan Looks the Way it Does: Zoning
Life Where I'm From
8 HN recommender · 2021–2026
8 mo on HNThe Best Country in the World for Drivers
Not Just Bikes
9 HN recommender · 2021–2026
7 mo on HNWhy Grocery Shopping is Better in Amsterdam
Not Just Bikes
7 HN recommender · 2020–2025
7 mo on HNWhat can Seattle learn from Dutch street design?
UniversityGreenways
3 HN recommender · 2014–2021
3 comments from Hacker News
I think there is a potential, limited path to success here (depending on what "success" looks like), and it’s likely assisting parents in clustering (via subsidizing moving expenses and affordable family housing) around schools that remain (because many are closing due to funding cuts and the demographic cliff) to maintain walkability for both school commute and socialization. It’s a bandaid, but the only option I see viable considering the cost of re-engineering urban planning to fix decades of car centric policy. Those costs are enormous, and I think in a lot of cases, it’ll be cheaper to allow some places to go terminal/fallow as their population declines. This doesn’t juice the fertility rate (because it doesn't appear anything will), but it will make childhoods suck less for kids already here and those on the way for the foreseeable future (as well as improve parental experience). Barcelona Superblocks is my mental model on this topic. link ▶ this video
Ahh this is a new article from 2019. I remember the 2016 Vox video when they were putting in the first Superblocks. ▶ this video Good to see Barcelona is going ahead with the Superblocks. Found a 2018 video by those great Streetfilms folks: link
I believe that India has to leapfrog the whole car obsession and move over to an effective and extensive public transportation and make cities more “superblocks" like in Barcelona ( ▶ this video ). Adam ruins Cars ( link ) is a rather informative piece you should watch.