But I'm sure they're missing plenty of sidewalks, with busy, dangerous crosswalks and design their cities so pedestrians have plenty of opportunities to get hit by cars speeding down busy stroads, right? That's what we consider good urban planning in America. 👍
As someone from Barcelona, I'd like to add that public transport is very well planned and all the cities next to Barcelona are included in a sort of "zone" that allows you to go anywhere inside that zone in just a few minutes. It's very nice honestly.
@@Lord_Zed Nobody really wants that, most of the Catalonian population is ethnically and culturally Spanish and the Catalan language is barely spoken. The reason why people believe Catalonia's independence movement will work out is because the few people that actually want independence do a lot of activism, thus making themselves look like a bigger movement.
@@spanishball9449 a ver, en las ultimas elecciones ganaron la mayoria los partidos independentistas... creo q bastante gente quiere una catalunya independiente o al menos mas autonomia
@@sergicurero6219 Teniendo en cuenta que en las últimas elecciones no hacía falta DNI y se podía votar varias veces, además los no independentistas no fueron a votar y el recuento de votos no era fiable.
I lived in Chicago for 8 years, didn't have a car and loved it. People who have never lived in a walkable city have absolutely no idea how shitty it is to spend your life driving around in a car.
I've lived in suburbs my whole life and love my city but I hate driving. After college I wanna move to a walkable city and Chicago's been at the top of my list
@@eddiechase9691 my bad, compared to the US, it’s the most walkable city but compared to any city in europe its just a massive parking lot with a dozen concrete rectangles and high crime rates
Barcelona’s only real issue is its overcrowding in the summer. Since it’s an already very dense city, when toutists flocks to the city in the heat, it is not for everyone. But it all in all makes for an as car free metropolis of its size as it can get. All in all it’s doing amazingly good with its urban planning, especially considering 5 million people live there
@@matthewarnold4557 I don’t think so, the city is already too dense (almost as dense as Manhattan iirc). However it could be great to create new downtowns and maybe build high-rises as you said but in the suburbs to relieve some of the overdensity in central Barcelona.
@@matthewarnold4557 because almost all of the city of Barcelona is already made of pretty tall buildings (between 8 to 20 floors tall everywhere with very narrow streets)
Barcelona was so cool when I visited. Was really impressed with the urbanism aspect and how well they’re developing their land. Certainly a leader in livable cities
I think alot of European cities are like that, Amsterdam uses lots fo bikes and very good public transport, London still has lots of cars but the tube system is great, all of france in general is very well connected, same situation with Switzerland
Having been to more than 20 big european cities. Barcelona isn't even in top 5. On top of my head Amsterdam, Barlin, Copenhagen, Zürich, Vienna. And both Amsterdam and Copenhagen are lightyears ahead of, of any other major cities when it comes to all the metrics he mentions here. For instance, they have been removing cars and parkinglots for 30 years, while having some of the highest amount of streets, where only niking and walking is allowed.
@@augth I have no idea where you get that from. The city centers of both Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen and Vienna are all a fair bit larger, than that of Barcelona. Barcelona inner city are both fairly flat aswell, and easily within what can be considered bikeable. It's only when you get out in the Metropolitan area, that it starts getting more rough in the terrain. Barcelona also has much broader boulevards and a more defined grid system, that makes changes to infrastructure easier. That being said, you really can't argue against Copenhagen. It's won a prize for the most urbanized city in Europe, pretty much every year, for the last 15 years.
I lived in Houston and I can attest it is the worst traffic up there with L.A. I will be in Barcelona next month and when my friend said I don't need to rent a car I didn't believe her at first but after downloading some apps like AMB and TMB and after buying a monthly city transit ticket, it looks like Barcelona and Spain with its bullet trains is second to none.
in fact you'll be better without a car. you can get one for a day just in case you want to go to the pyrenees confortably but absolutely useless in the city. You'll walk a lot tho
I am from Barcelona and last year went to Madrid by train and was surprised only took me 3 and a half hours haha, with a stop in Zaragoza even that took 15 minutes.
@@MahootI've ridden the Red Line up until the line nearest Richardson, and let me tell you it's better than anything south of downtown or somewhat west of downtown. It's still not great at all.
Land use around DART stations is a really mixed bag. Almost all of the stops on the Silver Line have planned TOD around them, and Las Colinas was basically saved by the DART, but then the rest of the stops on the Orange Line are parking lots and really inaccessible
@@altacalifornia2580 Ah yes I remember in 2006 when they said half the world would be under water in 10 years lmao you still believe these liars ? sad.
@@user-cc32vcg811 actually, he though that everyone would have steam locomotives... and he thought about it BEFORE THE CAR WAS INVENTED!!!!!!! He was truly a genius
It's a rip off of ancient greek cities. All the hispanic american cities were projected the same centuries before Cerdá. Not original, but it worked, though
So if a country wanted to replicate one or the other from scratch (like empty or undeveloped land) would you say they should go with the plan of Amsterdam over Barcelona?
Tokyo has an incredibly good public transportation system too. Hong Kong builds a railway station, then builds services around it, then builds residential areas.
I think the greatness of Barcelona is the nice equilibrium they have managed to achieve between how compact (Tokyo isn't) the city is while keeping a good standard of living and pleasant lifestyle (HL doesn't)
@@abelsuisse9671 The reason why you think Tokio isn't "compact" is because of how insanely big actually Tokyo is. 36.000 sq kilometers (10% of Japan's total land area and bigger than the whole Catalonia) with a population of almost 40 million people. Each of the major suburbs of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, like Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, or Yokohama, is pretty compact by itself. The reason commute is rather long in Tokyo is because family members have their workplace/school in completely different places of the metropolis.
@@basti6643 that's precisely the point, Tokyo is huge. Even inner Tokyo's population density is much much lower than Barcelona's. If Catalonia had the same density as the city of Barcelona, the country would have over 500 million inhabitants. But population density is always terribly difficult to compare due to different land sizes, so admittedly my appreciation is based purely on anecdotal evidence from when I visited Tokyo and was surprised by how much of the city is built with houses or small 2-3 floor apartment buildings. Barcelona is insane in this regard, as there is no transition between high rise appartment blocks and the end of the city, a bit like Hong Kong. I'm not sure if there's any objective way to measure this urban concept of 'compactness', I would be keen to correct my perception.
@@abelsuisse9671 Definitely you got a point, I currently reside in Tokyo and have been several times to Barcelona, and the difference you pointed out between both cities infrastructures is clearly noticeable. Most people think Tokyo is just a huge bunch of skyscrapers, but it's true that it has many residential zones between its central areas. However what I was pointing out is that even subdivisions in Tokyo are so incredibly huge and populated that they could be considered cities by themselves (actually some of them are by the Japanese legislation). In fact what we know as the "Tokyo Metropolitan Area" (in Japanese, the Shutoken), with 40 million inhabitants, is never stated to be a city of its own by the Japanese Authorities. Therefore, it's weird to say that "Tokyo isn't a compact city" when it isn't even a city in the first place.
@@basti6643 okay, so maybe I didn't understand you. Although you provide the same anecdotal evidence as me... which subdivisions of Tokyo are geographically comparable in size to an European city, have a high content of residential areas, and are built mostly or completely with high-rise appartment blocks?
All these urbanists channels love to joke about Houston, because it's basically "how to make things as wrong as possible". Little to no public transportation, gigantic areas of surface parking downtown and freeways big enough for aircraft carriers.
As someone in San Antonio who occasionally uses the bus after work because my dad, my family's only driver, is busy from work. I low key feel sad knowing that if I get to a bus late, I would have to wait for 1 hr just for the same bus to eventually come around. You really have a hard time surviving here in the US without cars
A minor detail I like about Barcelona is that each square block has a "cut corner" with parking spaces and stuff, so everyone doesn't have to parallell park along the length of the sidewalk
Those corners were designed so that "personal steam locomotives" (what the urbanist Cerdà though would be cars before their invention), as well as trams, could make turns without too tightlt corners! :) *He also used that then to add parking lots, terraces, kiosks, etc to those corners :) Edit: we still have lots of places with parallel parking though
Of all the cities I've visited in the world, Barcelona is still my number one. It's just perfect everywhere you go. The city design must have played with my experience too.
@@ula517 are you aware of what "layout" means? because Barcelona's most famous urban planning was laid out by Ildefons Cerdà i Sunyer who has been dead since 1876
According to car shills, Barcelona must be billions in debt due to their public transport. The people must also live in a dystopian home where your every move is controlled by the government.
The goal of public transit isn't to make a profit; the goal is to improve the access to transportation, services & economic opportunity for more people. Arguing that the public transit is putting Barcelona in debt is just something that rookies who know nothing about urban planning say.
As an American, when I visited Barcelona, I was absolutely in love. I can’t brag enough to people about how much I honestly enjoyed Barcelona. I am certain that in addition to the food and the sights, the incredibly planned city had a subconscious influence on how much I enjoyed the city while I was there. I wish the states designed cities in even 1/100th of the way they designed Barcelona.
@@aledso well, yes. Lately our mayor has run a superagressive campaign against cars, but apart from that, the urbanism itself was desinged to make cars able to share spaces with people. Now tell me, apart from recent times, why is our urbanism anticars? Why are nowadays anticars policies bad? Why cars=freedom?? Please develop with arguments
@aledso , being forced to drive everywhere because every other method of transportation is virtually ignored isn't freedom. Parking minimums that take up valuable space that could be used for other things sucks. Highways that need to be continuously widened and still fail to ease traffic sucks. Subsidizing the automobile industry at the cost of public health, our environment, and our land use sucks. Where is the freedom in all of that?
Not to mention commuting on foot in Barcelona doesn't just keep healthcare costs down by keeping the populace healthy but also would feel like a vacation from the lack of Brutalist architecture.
As someone from Barcelona, the city would be much better without so many tourists. I appreciate people liking our city, but mass tourism drives prices up and makes our dense city even denser.
Barcelona is what great city planning looks like, people who are hired to be city planners should be required to have knowledge of how transit works and have common sense for effective and efficient commuting...sure seems like in America we have city's all over the place that total idiots laid out the roads and building zones..
Barcelona's grid was actually thought for what the planner, Cerdà, thought cars would be before they were invented: personal steam locomotives. But the key was to make a city both for cars and pedestrians, and also investing in public transportation. For example, one of the main streets here is the Diagonal, which has at some points 3 lanes of traffic per direction. But, as it also has wide sidewalks, trees, shops and resudential areas, etc, it makes for a great walkable place :)
I’m from Barcelona No other city I’ve been you can use the bike or rollers to go to the beach and then to the mountain and see the city Center , old new tall or small buildings all styles , you can see everything (from cheap to mansions) and the weather it’s nice , 20 degrees on December 15th. But became to expensive 😅
Reminder that the rail map is not “the public transit” map. In almost every city in the USA the vast majority of transit rides are on the local bus network, where experiences can vary widely from city to city due to network design, reliability, and frequency. Also, length of rail does not equal usefulness of rail. Houston’s rail network is shorter, but generally gives better access to denser areas than the network in Dallas. These two aspects are big reasons why Houston actually has higher per capita transit ridership than Dallas. Barcelona has them both totally beat though of course! But they almost certainly have an excellent bus system underlying this rail network and the much denser development needed to make it all work. We need those things first, lest we end up with lots of empty trains!
Exactly ! Buses are an extremely important part of public transport in most cities. Unfortunately they are somehow ignored, especially by people who have vested interests in metro construction.
Actually YES!!! Barcelona's buses are great, only problem is that drivers are a bit crazy lots of the times, and if you don't get a sit, you could go flying xd, that's why I prefer the metro :) Apart from buses to neighbouring cities, which have their own categories, there are 3 types of buses in Barcelona's municipality and main area: 1. Neighbourhood bus: van-sized buses for short circular trips within neighbourhoods. Used specially by elderly, and in some places it is on demand with an app (that's a pilot experiment they're doing) 2. Traditional buses: most lines are heritage from what were before tram lines dismantled on the 60s-70s. They cover main direct corridors to the center and some corridors to newely built places. 3. The Orthogonal Bus Network: Following Barcelona's grid, there are buses that cover Horizontal routes, Vertical routes and Diagonal routes. You can get anywhere in the city with just one transfer :)
Problem is good urban planning doesn't generate copious amounts of sales from fossil fuels and motor vehicles so the US will never do it with our current structures in place.
I live in Madison, Wisconsin. The outskirts are pretty typical for American planning, but the central city and areas around, since they are on an isthmus, are very walkable and have a wonderful bus system. A look at that city, as it is a small city but functions in many odd ways to a larger or more dense city, could be interesting.
I love how Americans think public transport is a "poor people" thing and here in Europe is better to take the subway or a bus in a city than have a car: you travel faster, spend less money and don't have to worry about where you leave your vehicle. The next best thing is bicycles and motorbikes. Having a car is not expensive itself but is a pain in the a*s.
True. New York City has been looking at it and already started reconfigurating and it started cutting most wide 4 roadlines avenues in half. Adding bike lines parking and outdoor dining. It's getting way better.
Barcelona is a great city. Beautiful parks. Lots of action. Just be careful out there, especially if you're a woman alone going home at night. Like many cities since the pandemic began, Barcelona has seen an uptick in crime. I never had an issue with the much hyped pick pocketing. Paris probably has the most aggressive pick picketers in Europe. Barcelona is a piece of cake compared to that. Plus, the food is excellent and priced just right!
It has other problems. It has the neighbourhood with the most population density in Europe. The original planning was designed by Idelfons Cerdà, a catalan urbanist, one of the first if not the only by the XIX century. Every square, or illa was supposed to have in the centera an empty space to walk, spend time, play..., and it had a complex planning of some sides taken down to facilitate walking traffic. It all was slowly undermined, just to make a few more apartments, which are horribly expensive. Socially, it's very diverse, although some ethnicities tend to not get along. It's main ethnicities are Catalan, Spanish, Moroccan, Romanian, Gypsy, Argentinian, etc.
I live in the first ring of cities in there and Barcelona it's really great. The square grid is part of something from the XIXth century called the Cerdà Plan. It originally would have been composed of open squares with public parks inside that allowed the air to flow in a very contaminated city. A fucking green and eco-friendly city before cars even existed. However, greedy land owners thought there weren't enough houses to sell and rent, and pushed to make those actual squares without the public parks. But yeah, transit wise, Barcelona is great. It's really well thought out. 12-ish subway lines (L12 is only 2 stations long for now), tens of bus lines not shown in the map and even a lightrail built in the 90s. It could work better, though. Subway frequency works great at peak hours (2min) but it can be 5min during work days and 8 to 10min at night and weekends. The short distance train has an awful punctuality (there's tardies of more than half an hour) and is constantly in strike because of the lack of resources. These need to improve if we want to completely get rid of cars in the city.
ANY European city has this. America has the worlds worst big cities. Huston Texas for example. 70% of downtown is tall buildings between parking spaces. ZERO sidewalks.
The main problem with USA is the lack of mixed-use development, in most of other places you don't have to take a trip to the grocery store, school or work, you can either take a walk or use the public transport possibly a few blocks away of your home
@@jonretolaza3238 Barcelona was remodeled with the superblock design, not many other cities use/implemented this design, even in Spain, so not every European city is "pretty much like that."
Oh it most definitely is Tokyo, but Tokyo's problem is that it is too big. It is the largest city on Earth after all and that makes moving around at rush hour a nightmare. The roads are blocked and the trains are crowded. In terms of just transportation though, Tokyo is definitely the best, though not as good for bicycles.
The one time I've been in Barcelona I was amazed at how easy it was to move from place to place. You could cover really long distances quickly and safely and it was honestly so discouraging returning to my horrifically car centric, unwalkeable hometown. Honestly, we make Houston look like the pinnacle of urbanism.
here’s the thing tho, in barcelona i took the metro and was amazed at how clean and efficient it was. there was no mentally unstable homeless man threatening passengers, i didn’t feel like i’d be mugged (although pickpockets exist), and i never thought “wow i wonder if this seat was covered in human fluids” that’s the difference between the US transit and spain. when in DC or NY, i’m worried about “if i get on a train does someone potentially have a gun” or “will a homeless person endanger my life because they are hearing voices saying ‘push him’”
You already have similar grids in many USA cities, just make roads narrower, pedestrian friendly and build denser mixed use with parking spaces underground.
It is lol, increases quality of life massively. Why would you want to have to drive in a car for an hour every morning instead of walking for 2 mins and spending 10 mins on a train
Decreases noise pollution, decreases stress, decreases air pollution, increases space for humans, better for local businesses, higher levels of exercise etc. Should I go on? Cities that are not dependent on cars are more or less objectively better if your frame of reference is the standard of life in a city.
What @no says is true, but even if it wasn't, Barcelona is better because it gives you the options to CHOOSE. Want biking? Go on! Driving? Why not, streets are wide and there's no sharp turns! Bus, metro, walking, train (they could work better, but anyway...). Isn't freedom what you, car lovers, say you like? So here you're MORE FREE than if your only option is driving a car :)
I went to Barcelona a couple months ago and couldn’t agree more. Here’s a story from my trip. I left the group of people. I don’t speak Spanish and a couple of hours later my phone died and I was lost. The sun light slowly diminished but I found a metro map and went to the main park. I got followed by a group of guys till I reached the park. Than asked a couple to use their phone. But when my phone had died and I was just waking I really appreciated all of the infrastructure. It accommodates all forms of transportation. Side note the people of Barcelona are fast walkers.
Berlin has great public transport but terrible overall planning with a lot of very wide urban roads and massive corporation buildings that make many areas of the city bad for walkability and loud bc of the traffic noise pollution. There are some notable exceptions tho, Mitte and some of the old neighborhoods are great, but still can be improved by adding car-free zones for pedestrians, something which Berlin truly lacks.
Well, hate soviets and their commie blocks all you want, but in my opinion they had amazing urban planning. High density neighborhoods with schools, stores, kindergartens, pharmacies, cinemas, medical clinics all within walking distance. Most of the time, living in a soviet-style city meant you didn't need to walk more than 5 minutes to meet your daily needs. People only had to travel to other neighborhoods for their jobs and soviets generally accounted for that and provided good public transport, mostly trolleybuses or trams that were of course fully electric and non-polluting. Their cities were much more livable and sustainable than most cities built nowadays and I would even personally claim East Berlin is much, much better than West Berlin if you only compare the urban planning itself.
Just look at any city in America. Drive down the street and just look at how much infrastructure is dedicated to cars. The road itself. Parking lots, gas stations, dealerships, repair garages, scrap yards, auto parts stores, oil change shops, tire sales shops, auto insurance companies, manufacturing centers, etc. It’s ridiculous how much of our lives are encircled around cars specifically, but somehow bicycles and public transit and sidewalks aren’t feasible. Sure. With that amount of resources in our economy being focused on building roads and keeping people in cars and keeping cars running, it’s no wonder that we are stagnant. That’s a lot of resources, money, and manpower being wasted on that rather than anything productive that actually improves quality of life and prosperity.
Okay, to be fair, that isn't Houston's public transit map, that is just the rail map. Here in Seattland, we have three streetcars and two light metros, and two commuter rail lines which seems sparse but we also have an incredibly strong BRT, local; and all day regional express bus network that doesn't show up on the Google overlay
I live close to LA and that skewed my views of cities. Got the chance to study abroad in Barcelona and I grew appreciate what great potential cities could have. There I felt independent and free to enjoy my life. Back in LA I don't drive and it's a living hell taking public transportation
...uh every city in the world without exception has homeless people. Where they gonna beg for money and quick access to resources, the suburbs, the country side? You're talking about social economic issues not civil infrastructure issues.
@@katjerouac yep but many Americans hold on tight to their car centric model not understanding it is more expensive because now their transportation is tied to gas every day but also inefficient.
I’ve been to Barcelona a few times. Like most European cities it’s very, very crowded people live one stacked on top of the other in cramped apartments. It’s claustrophobic. Prefer to live where there’s a bit of space and I don’t have to go places on a bus and sit next to people with poor hygiene.
That's a way of seeing things. I personally prefer travelling on a metro with air conditioning where I can do my own business while travelling instead of spending hours in a car where I have to be comcentrated on driving. But everyone can have their own options and choose what they want, that's why Barcelona's region is great: even if you want to drive, there'll be a place were you'll be able to (Barcelona itself was pretty car-friendly before 2020)
Nope, we also have highways and all that stuff for cars. Besides rush hour it's actually easy to ride a car here, the only problem is finding a space to park it! Xd
I live in BCN. It's nice that it's very compact. I wish it was more runnable tho. The grid system makes it harder to jog. And they still have too much space for the cars on the road
The thing about Barcelona is that it is probably one of the most car-friendly cities in Spain, therefore the most polluted in the country too. Streets are wide so you'll find that cars occupy a lot of the space. The public transit is phenomenal inside the small metropolitan area, but the connections to the very populated outer region where most of the Barcelona workers and students live, are poor. So you have a city with a massive car use, where 90% of the cars are from people that come from the outer region to work in the city.
Tell this to Renfe xd, that's their fault!!!! PD: and it's one the areas with most cars/km² because it is also the densest urban area in Europe, so even with only 25%of journeys in the city done by car, they seem to take lots of space :(
Just subscribed to your channel!! I live in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area (metroplex) and I’m beyond frustrated with this areas public transportation/city planning. If you want to get anywhere you have to drive atleast 20 minutes and the public trains only run 4-5 lines mainly to city centers. Would love for you to do a video on this in the future if you could!
Thought he was gonna say Houston I was gonna be appalled
No, Houston is a case study on how not to build a city
@@matthewarnold4557 I know, I watched the video too ♥️
You absolutely cannot live here without a car public transportation is practically nonexistent and everything is a two hour walk away
@@alexbrooks1327 Houston is notorious among the walkable city advocates
@@matthewarnold4557 they were talking about parallel city over here
Barcelona is missing a 15 lane highway running through the middle and lots of massive parking lots which are almost empty
This is pne flaw and my overrall rating is 1 houston out of 5 houstons
yeah bro, where is it?
Well… Barcelona does have highways going throug its core but mostly underground, same for parking lots
But I'm sure they're missing plenty of sidewalks, with busy, dangerous crosswalks and design their cities so pedestrians have plenty of opportunities to get hit by cars speeding down busy stroads, right? That's what we consider good urban planning in America. 👍
bit late but barcelona does have two major highways with many lanes , they're call les rondes and they run underground
He had us in the first half 😂
No je did not
Just read the title
Bro 25 minute commute on this tiny ass island and they block the cars so you have to bike. My commute is 12 minutes and I drive 12 miles
@@TheAnnoyingBossone person's journey is irrelevant vs the average journey.
Yeah, I was going to say "you can't be that American to say any city in the US ranks to be that kind of city"...
As someone from Barcelona, I'd like to add that public transport is very well planned and all the cities next to Barcelona are included in a sort of "zone" that allows you to go anywhere inside that zone in just a few minutes. It's very nice honestly.
What are your thoughts on an independent catalonia?
@@Lord_Zed Nobody really wants that, most of the Catalonian population is ethnically and culturally Spanish and the Catalan language is barely spoken. The reason why people believe Catalonia's independence movement will work out is because the few people that actually want independence do a lot of activism, thus making themselves look like a bigger movement.
@@spanishball9449 a ver, en las ultimas elecciones ganaron la mayoria los partidos independentistas... creo q bastante gente quiere una catalunya independiente o al menos mas autonomia
@@sergicurero6219 Teniendo en cuenta que en las últimas elecciones no hacía falta DNI y se podía votar varias veces, además los no independentistas no fueron a votar y el recuento de votos no era fiable.
@@spanishball9449 hablo de las autonomicas
I lived in Chicago for 8 years, didn't have a car and loved it. People who have never lived in a walkable city have absolutely no idea how shitty it is to spend your life driving around in a car.
I've lived in suburbs my whole life and love my city but I hate driving. After college I wanna move to a walkable city and Chicago's been at the top of my list
The suburb defenders are basically telling me they've never been anywhere without telling me they've never been anywhere.
Saying chicago is walkable is like saying houston has the best public transportation.
@@cafolaadee5920 Said by someone who lives/ed in Chicago?
@@eddiechase9691 my bad, compared to the US, it’s the most walkable city but compared to any city in europe its just a massive parking lot with a dozen concrete rectangles and high crime rates
Barcelona’s only real issue is its overcrowding in the summer. Since it’s an already very dense city, when toutists flocks to the city in the heat, it is not for everyone. But it all in all makes for an as car free metropolis of its size as it can get.
All in all it’s doing amazingly good with its urban planning, especially considering 5 million people live there
I do love the aesthetics and the appeal of barcelona, but I feel building actual high rises would help a lot with the overcrowding
@@matthewarnold4557 I don’t think so, the city is already too dense (almost as dense as Manhattan iirc). However it could be great to create new downtowns and maybe build high-rises as you said but in the suburbs to relieve some of the overdensity in central Barcelona.
@@matthewarnold4557 because almost all of the city of Barcelona is already made of pretty tall buildings (between 8 to 20 floors tall everywhere with very narrow streets)
@@vanaox3690 are the grids that high? I've only seen Street pictures. And they only seemed 4-5 stories tall.
@@matthewarnold4557 wait yeah you are probably right, I was thinking about the neighborhood where I was at, but still it makes for a very dense city
Barcelona was so cool when I visited. Was really impressed with the urbanism aspect and how well they’re developing their land. Certainly a leader in livable cities
I think alot of European cities are like that, Amsterdam uses lots fo bikes and very good public transport, London still has lots of cars but the tube system is great, all of france in general is very well connected, same situation with Switzerland
Having been to more than 20 big european cities. Barcelona isn't even in top 5. On top of my head Amsterdam, Barlin, Copenhagen, Zürich, Vienna. And both Amsterdam and Copenhagen are lightyears ahead of, of any other major cities when it comes to all the metrics he mentions here. For instance, they have been removing cars and parkinglots for 30 years, while having some of the highest amount of streets, where only niking and walking is allowed.
Another aspect of European cities is that the planning which occured in ancient or medieval times depending on the location is vernacular.
@@herrensaar1989 definitely not zurich or berlin bro
@@herrensaar1989 tbh these cities are small compared to Barcelona (except Berlin) and the terrain is very flat
@@augth I have no idea where you get that from. The city centers of both Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen and Vienna are all a fair bit larger, than that of Barcelona. Barcelona inner city are both fairly flat aswell, and easily within what can be considered bikeable. It's only when you get out in the Metropolitan area, that it starts getting more rough in the terrain. Barcelona also has much broader boulevards and a more defined grid system, that makes changes to infrastructure easier.
That being said, you really can't argue against Copenhagen. It's won a prize for the most urbanized city in Europe, pretty much every year, for the last 15 years.
I lived in Houston and I can attest it is the worst traffic up there with L.A. I will be in Barcelona next month and when my friend said I don't need to rent a car I didn't believe her at first but after downloading some apps like AMB and TMB and after buying a monthly city transit ticket, it looks like Barcelona and Spain with its bullet trains is second to none.
in fact you'll be better without a car. you can get one for a day just in case you want to go to the pyrenees confortably but absolutely useless in the city. You'll walk a lot tho
I am from Barcelona and last year went to Madrid by train and was surprised only took me 3 and a half hours haha, with a stop in Zaragoza even that took 15 minutes.
Barcelonian guy here. How did it go? Public transport is great here.
DART is really good if you like visiting different parking lots.
Having ridden the DART system, that is nothing but accurate. Maybe with the exception of visiting highways or gas stations.
The Red Line (north of downtown) actually takes you to fair amount of usual locations with walkability, but other than that…yeah
@@MahootI've ridden the Red Line up until the line nearest Richardson, and let me tell you it's better than anything south of downtown or somewhat west of downtown. It's still not great at all.
And see the wonderful crackheads of Dallas
Land use around DART stations is a really mixed bag. Almost all of the stops on the Silver Line have planned TOD around them, and Las Colinas was basically saved by the DART, but then the rest of the stops on the Orange Line are parking lots and really inaccessible
The entirety of the Netherlands: Am I a joke to you?
Netherlands is so top tier.
When everything is flat and under sea level, topography and public transportation doesn't stand a chance
@@thesharinganknight9859 At least the Netherlands is doing something about the rising sea levels
@@altacalifornia2580 Ah yes I remember in 2006 when they said half the world would be under water in 10 years lmao you still believe these liars ? sad.
@@chuggynation8275 Who said half the world would be under water in 10 years? No one, you’re making up a scenario to get mad at scientists
Ildefons Cerda planned the city in the mid 1800s specifically so that this would be possible. Possibly the greatest urban planner in history.
Cerdà was so good he planned a city for cars and it is still better than any american city
Cerda > Haussmann
@@user-cc32vcg811 actually, he though that everyone would have steam locomotives... and he thought about it BEFORE THE CAR WAS INVENTED!!!!!!! He was truly a genius
It's a rip off of ancient greek cities.
All the hispanic american cities were projected the same centuries before Cerdá.
Not original, but it worked, though
Cerda was an engineer.
As an urban planning enthusiast, I cannot but pay my respect for the design of Barcelona. That said, Amsterdam is the golden standard!
So if a country wanted to replicate one or the other from scratch (like empty or undeveloped land) would you say they should go with the plan of Amsterdam over Barcelona?
Tokyo has an incredibly good public transportation system too. Hong Kong builds a railway station, then builds services around it, then builds residential areas.
I think the greatness of Barcelona is the nice equilibrium they have managed to achieve between how compact (Tokyo isn't) the city is while keeping a good standard of living and pleasant lifestyle (HL doesn't)
@@abelsuisse9671 The reason why you think Tokio isn't "compact" is because of how insanely big actually Tokyo is. 36.000 sq kilometers (10% of Japan's total land area and bigger than the whole Catalonia) with a population of almost 40 million people.
Each of the major suburbs of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, like Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, or Yokohama, is pretty compact by itself.
The reason commute is rather long in Tokyo is because family members have their workplace/school in completely different places of the metropolis.
@@basti6643 that's precisely the point, Tokyo is huge. Even inner Tokyo's population density is much much lower than Barcelona's. If Catalonia had the same density as the city of Barcelona, the country would have over 500 million inhabitants.
But population density is always terribly difficult to compare due to different land sizes, so admittedly my appreciation is based purely on anecdotal evidence from when I visited Tokyo and was surprised by how much of the city is built with houses or small 2-3 floor apartment buildings. Barcelona is insane in this regard, as there is no transition between high rise appartment blocks and the end of the city, a bit like Hong Kong.
I'm not sure if there's any objective way to measure this urban concept of 'compactness', I would be keen to correct my perception.
@@abelsuisse9671 Definitely you got a point, I currently reside in Tokyo and have been several times to Barcelona, and the difference you pointed out between both cities infrastructures is clearly noticeable.
Most people think Tokyo is just a huge bunch of skyscrapers, but it's true that it has many residential zones between its central areas.
However what I was pointing out is that even subdivisions in Tokyo are so incredibly huge and populated that they could be considered cities by themselves (actually some of them are by the Japanese legislation). In fact what we know as the "Tokyo Metropolitan Area" (in Japanese, the Shutoken), with 40 million inhabitants, is never stated to be a city of its own by the Japanese Authorities.
Therefore, it's weird to say that "Tokyo isn't a compact city" when it isn't even a city in the first place.
@@basti6643 okay, so maybe I didn't understand you. Although you provide the same anecdotal evidence as me... which subdivisions of Tokyo are geographically comparable in size to an European city, have a high content of residential areas, and are built mostly or completely with high-rise appartment blocks?
Lost me at “to fully grasp the greatness of this place” as soon as you zoomed in on Houston 😂
All these urbanists channels love to joke about Houston, because it's basically "how to make things as wrong as possible". Little to no public transportation, gigantic areas of surface parking downtown and freeways big enough for aircraft carriers.
As someone in San Antonio who occasionally uses the bus after work because my dad, my family's only driver, is busy from work. I low key feel sad knowing that if I get to a bus late, I would have to wait for 1 hr just for the same bus to eventually come around. You really have a hard time surviving here in the US without cars
Fact....spittin truth
A minor detail I like about Barcelona is that each square block has a "cut corner" with parking spaces and stuff, so everyone doesn't have to parallell park along the length of the sidewalk
Do you mean chaflán? Haha, actually urbanists here (in Barcelona) hate it.
Considerate to pedestrians AND drivers!
Those corners were designed so that "personal steam locomotives" (what the urbanist Cerdà though would be cars before their invention), as well as trams, could make turns without too tightlt corners! :)
*He also used that then to add parking lots, terraces, kiosks, etc to those corners :)
Edit: we still have lots of places with parallel parking though
Of all the cities I've visited in the world, Barcelona is still my number one. It's just perfect everywhere you go. The city design must have played with my experience too.
Dutch cities: hold my wooden shoe
Ironically those are called clogs, even though their city traffic isn’t clogged at all 🤣
Do Dutch really have wood shoes?
@@TheAnnoyingBoss usually only for historical reenactments, modern day Dutch people do not wear clogs on a daily basis.
@@thatoneguy7191some do, they're sturdy and grant great protection.
Hell yeah but the people who did the most of Barcelona's good layout and planning have been dead for a long time
Not true. The current government invests a lot in markets, transport, bikes, making streets pedestrian, etc
The city's area has been mostly built for a long time. Obviously any new layout will be a modification and comparably small.
@@ula517 are you aware of what "layout" means? because Barcelona's most famous urban planning was laid out by Ildefons Cerdà i Sunyer who has been dead since 1876
According to car shills, Barcelona must be billions in debt due to their public transport. The people must also live in a dystopian home where your every move is controlled by the government.
The goal of public transit isn't to make a profit; the goal is to improve the access to transportation, services & economic opportunity for more people. Arguing that the public transit is putting Barcelona in debt is just something that rookies who know nothing about urban planning say.
They are
As an American, when I visited Barcelona, I was absolutely in love. I can’t brag enough to people about how much I honestly enjoyed Barcelona. I am certain that in addition to the food and the sights, the incredibly planned city had a subconscious influence on how much I enjoyed the city while I was there. I wish the states designed cities in even 1/100th of the way they designed Barcelona.
It sucks, it's anti car and anti freedom
@@aledso freedom is not having to pay car insurance, fees, and spending less time having to get to work and back
@@aledso well, yes. Lately our mayor has run a superagressive campaign against cars, but apart from that, the urbanism itself was desinged to make cars able to share spaces with people.
Now tell me, apart from recent times, why is our urbanism anticars? Why are nowadays anticars policies bad? Why cars=freedom?? Please develop with arguments
@aledso , being forced to drive everywhere because every other method of transportation is virtually ignored isn't freedom. Parking minimums that take up valuable space that could be used for other things sucks. Highways that need to be continuously widened and still fail to ease traffic sucks. Subsidizing the automobile industry at the cost of public health, our environment, and our land use sucks. Where is the freedom in all of that?
Not to mention commuting on foot in Barcelona doesn't just keep healthcare costs down by keeping the populace healthy but also would feel like a vacation from the lack of Brutalist architecture.
As someone from Barcelona, the city would be much better without so many tourists. I appreciate people liking our city, but mass tourism drives prices up and makes our dense city even denser.
I lived in Barcelona and I have to agree so hard! Barcelona is amazing
I love your channel. You have a great eye for urban planning. I really think people need to know what happens in their cities.
Barcelona is what great city planning looks like, people who are hired to be city planners should be required to have knowledge of how transit works and have common sense for effective and efficient commuting...sure seems like in America we have city's all over the place that total idiots laid out the roads and building zones..
Cities built before the car was invented are easy to get around on foot! Wow!
99% of cities were built before the car, even in the US. The problem is that many cities have been rebuilt to accommodate cars.
Well that doesn’t really explain a robust public transit system
Barcelona's grid was actually thought for what the planner, Cerdà, thought cars would be before they were invented: personal steam locomotives.
But the key was to make a city both for cars and pedestrians, and also investing in public transportation. For example, one of the main streets here is the Diagonal, which has at some points 3 lanes of traffic per direction. But, as it also has wide sidewalks, trees, shops and resudential areas, etc, it makes for a great walkable place :)
I’m from Barcelona
No other city I’ve been you can use the bike or rollers to go to the beach and then to the mountain and see the city Center , old new tall or small buildings all styles , you can see everything (from cheap to mansions) and the weather it’s nice , 20 degrees on December 15th.
But became to expensive 😅
Reminder that the rail map is not “the public transit” map. In almost every city in the USA the vast majority of transit rides are on the local bus network, where experiences can vary widely from city to city due to network design, reliability, and frequency. Also, length of rail does not equal usefulness of rail. Houston’s rail network is shorter, but generally gives better access to denser areas than the network in Dallas. These two aspects are big reasons why Houston actually has higher per capita transit ridership than Dallas.
Barcelona has them both totally beat though of course! But they almost certainly have an excellent bus system underlying this rail network and the much denser development needed to make it all work. We need those things first, lest we end up with lots of empty trains!
Exactly ! Buses are an extremely important part of public transport in most cities. Unfortunately they are somehow ignored, especially by people who have vested interests in metro construction.
Actually YES!!! Barcelona's buses are great, only problem is that drivers are a bit crazy lots of the times, and if you don't get a sit, you could go flying xd, that's why I prefer the metro :)
Apart from buses to neighbouring cities, which have their own categories, there are 3 types of buses in Barcelona's municipality and main area:
1. Neighbourhood bus: van-sized buses for short circular trips within neighbourhoods. Used specially by elderly, and in some places it is on demand with an app (that's a pilot experiment they're doing)
2. Traditional buses: most lines are heritage from what were before tram lines dismantled on the 60s-70s. They cover main direct corridors to the center and some corridors to newely built places.
3. The Orthogonal Bus Network: Following Barcelona's grid, there are buses that cover Horizontal routes, Vertical routes and Diagonal routes. You can get anywhere in the city with just one transfer :)
Burgerland is just DISGUSTING
Problem is good urban planning doesn't generate copious amounts of sales from fossil fuels and motor vehicles so the US will never do it with our current structures in place.
I live in Madison, Wisconsin. The outskirts are pretty typical for American planning, but the central city and areas around, since they are on an isthmus, are very walkable and have a wonderful bus system. A look at that city, as it is a small city but functions in many odd ways to a larger or more dense city, could be interesting.
I love how Americans think public transport is a "poor people" thing and here in Europe is better to take the subway or a bus in a city than have a car: you travel faster, spend less money and don't have to worry about where you leave your vehicle. The next best thing is bicycles and motorbikes. Having a car is not expensive itself but is a pain in the a*s.
True. New York City has been looking at it and already started reconfigurating and it started cutting most wide 4 roadlines avenues in half. Adding bike lines parking and outdoor dining. It's getting way better.
My cityyyyyy
Disnt know my city was like a live museum until i travelled the world
I loved Barcelona. Sevilla was also like a live museum.
Barcelona is a great city. Beautiful parks. Lots of action. Just be careful out there, especially if you're a woman alone going home at night. Like many cities since the pandemic began, Barcelona has seen an uptick in crime. I never had an issue with the much hyped pick pocketing. Paris probably has the most aggressive pick picketers in Europe. Barcelona is a piece of cake compared to that. Plus, the food is excellent and priced just right!
California should have been planned like Barcelona especially by the coast. We can also build subways that are 1/10th the cost they do here
"Amsterdam left the chat"
@Fraser amsterdams metropolitan population is 2.4 million I can tell since I live in the netherlands
@Fraser search amsterdam metropolitan population 2022 and if not just search amsterdam population 2022 as I know that more than 1M people live there
The city has 1.1M the urban area 1.5m and the entries metropolitan area 2.3m
@Fraser the 830k source you checked was from a long time ago
@Fraser thats a source from 2015-2016 and the urban area has 1.5m
Really appreciate the love to our city, you're welcome whenever. Greetings from Barcelona!
Everytime I go through Houston I wonder why anyone would ever live there and deal with that traffic daily and Houston is massive and stretches far
It has other problems. It has the neighbourhood with the most population density in Europe. The original planning was designed by Idelfons Cerdà, a catalan urbanist, one of the first if not the only by the XIX century. Every square, or illa was supposed to have in the centera an empty space to walk, spend time, play..., and it had a complex planning of some sides taken down to facilitate walking traffic. It all was slowly undermined, just to make a few more apartments, which are horribly expensive. Socially, it's very diverse, although some ethnicities tend to not get along. It's main ethnicities are Catalan, Spanish, Moroccan, Romanian, Gypsy, Argentinian, etc.
Wait, romanian??? Since when there are a lot of romanians in barcelona?!?!?
I live in the first ring of cities in there and Barcelona it's really great. The square grid is part of something from the XIXth century called the Cerdà Plan. It originally would have been composed of open squares with public parks inside that allowed the air to flow in a very contaminated city. A fucking green and eco-friendly city before cars even existed.
However, greedy land owners thought there weren't enough houses to sell and rent, and pushed to make those actual squares without the public parks.
But yeah, transit wise, Barcelona is great. It's really well thought out. 12-ish subway lines (L12 is only 2 stations long for now), tens of bus lines not shown in the map and even a lightrail built in the 90s.
It could work better, though. Subway frequency works great at peak hours (2min) but it can be 5min during work days and 8 to 10min at night and weekends. The short distance train has an awful punctuality (there's tardies of more than half an hour) and is constantly in strike because of the lack of resources. These need to improve if we want to completely get rid of cars in the city.
ANY European city has this. America has the worlds worst big cities. Huston Texas for example. 70% of downtown is tall buildings between parking spaces. ZERO sidewalks.
doesn’t even come close to my old carpet that kind of looked like a road map
Guy just discovered european cities
When he hovered over texas i was ready for the worst take on city planinng. I was relieved when you panned over to spain
Dammnnnnnn, that shook me
Barcelona could be greener though.
Ayyy My home city thanks for this!!!
I salute you, Barcelona. I'd murder for a short bike or train commute.
Japan used slime mold for the Tokyo subway routes to make them most efficient. Barcelona used a guy named Gustavo… I rest my case.
The main problem with USA is the lack of mixed-use development, in most of other places you don't have to take a trip to the grocery store, school or work, you can either take a walk or use the public transport possibly a few blocks away of your home
Proud of our Barcelona ❤️💙
Thank you Messi..
#ViscaElBarca
what has to do Messi with the urbanization of Barcelona??
Pretty much every European city is like that
Nope
@@greenmachine5600 *refuses to elaborate*
not really specially in eastern Germany
@@Mainz_1901 Ok, that's my fault. When I say Europe I mean western Europe (except East Germany, it'd seem)
@@jonretolaza3238 Barcelona was remodeled with the superblock design, not many other cities use/implemented this design, even in Spain, so not every European city is "pretty much like that."
Netherlands be like...
He isn't lying people. Barcelona is very well thought out and planned for easy and quick commutes.
Curitiba-PR, Brazil: 'Hold my green.'
I thought Tokyo was one of the most well planned In the world. Like they used fungus to determine the most effective route for the high speed trains.
Oh it most definitely is Tokyo, but Tokyo's problem is that it is too big. It is the largest city on Earth after all and that makes moving around at rush hour a nightmare. The roads are blocked and the trains are crowded. In terms of just transportation though, Tokyo is definitely the best, though not as good for bicycles.
You should check out the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Awesome city planning
The one time I've been in Barcelona I was amazed at how easy it was to move from place to place. You could cover really long distances quickly and safely and it was honestly so discouraging returning to my horrifically car centric, unwalkeable hometown. Honestly, we make Houston look like the pinnacle of urbanism.
here’s the thing tho, in barcelona i took the metro and was amazed at how clean and efficient it was. there was no mentally unstable homeless man threatening passengers, i didn’t feel like i’d be mugged (although pickpockets exist), and i never thought “wow i wonder if this seat was covered in human fluids”
that’s the difference between the US transit and spain. when in DC or NY, i’m worried about “if i get on a train does someone potentially have a gun” or “will a homeless person endanger my life because they are hearing voices saying ‘push him’”
LE WALKABLE CITY
8^0
Nearly every European city is like that
If only!
Cap
Bro started in America and I was like bro there’s not fucking way.
You already have similar grids in many USA cities, just make roads narrower, pedestrian friendly and build denser mixed use with parking spaces underground.
You can't judge cities like "less cars means better." That just isn't how it works. 😭
It is lol, increases quality of life massively. Why would you want to have to drive in a car for an hour every morning instead of walking for 2 mins and spending 10 mins on a train
Decreases noise pollution, decreases stress, decreases air pollution, increases space for humans, better for local businesses, higher levels of exercise etc.
Should I go on?
Cities that are not dependent on cars are more or less objectively better if your frame of reference is the standard of life in a city.
What @no says is true, but even if it wasn't, Barcelona is better because it gives you the options to CHOOSE. Want biking? Go on! Driving? Why not, streets are wide and there's no sharp turns! Bus, metro, walking, train (they could work better, but anyway...).
Isn't freedom what you, car lovers, say you like? So here you're MORE FREE than if your only option is driving a car :)
Comparing any world class city to American cities is like putting Mike Tyson in the ring with a toddler. It's just not fair.
Both Countries are first world countries, so it sounds reasonable
@@railwaystuff What I am trying to say is that American cities are so shitty, that comparing any city to theirs is setting the bar extremely low.
Tbh the houston metro is not limited to that red strip, or what else would that represent
I went to Barcelona a couple months ago and couldn’t agree more.
Here’s a story from my trip. I left the group of people. I don’t speak Spanish and a couple of hours later my phone died and I was lost. The sun light slowly diminished but I found a metro map and went to the main park. I got followed by a group of guys till I reached the park. Than asked a couple to use their phone. But when my phone had died and I was just waking I really appreciated all of the infrastructure. It accommodates all forms of transportation. Side note the people of Barcelona are fast walkers.
Look at Berlin
Berlin has great public transport but terrible overall planning with a lot of very wide urban roads and massive corporation buildings that make many areas of the city bad for walkability and loud bc of the traffic noise pollution. There are some notable exceptions tho, Mitte and some of the old neighborhoods are great, but still can be improved by adding car-free zones for pedestrians, something which Berlin truly lacks.
@@_qw3rtyXxYz_ I don't think it's fair to say that since half of the city was build from scratch... by the soviets.
Well, hate soviets and their commie blocks all you want, but in my opinion they had amazing urban planning. High density neighborhoods with schools, stores, kindergartens, pharmacies, cinemas, medical clinics all within walking distance. Most of the time, living in a soviet-style city meant you didn't need to walk more than 5 minutes to meet your daily needs. People only had to travel to other neighborhoods for their jobs and soviets generally accounted for that and provided good public transport, mostly trolleybuses or trams that were of course fully electric and non-polluting. Their cities were much more livable and sustainable than most cities built nowadays and I would even personally claim East Berlin is much, much better than West Berlin if you only compare the urban planning itself.
@@_qw3rtyXxYz_ you have described Barcelona but with trams instead of buses xd (or Barcelona on the 30s, which had lots of trams, you can choose xd)
Just look at any city in America. Drive down the street and just look at how much infrastructure is dedicated to cars. The road itself. Parking lots, gas stations, dealerships, repair garages, scrap yards, auto parts stores, oil change shops, tire sales shops, auto insurance companies, manufacturing centers, etc. It’s ridiculous how much of our lives are encircled around cars specifically, but somehow bicycles and public transit and sidewalks aren’t feasible. Sure. With that amount of resources in our economy being focused on building roads and keeping people in cars and keeping cars running, it’s no wonder that we are stagnant. That’s a lot of resources, money, and manpower being wasted on that rather than anything productive that actually improves quality of life and prosperity.
well said
I was about to write a dissertation on how Houston is the worst planned city in the world 😅
Okay, to be fair, that isn't Houston's public transit map, that is just the rail map. Here in Seattland, we have three streetcars and two light metros, and two commuter rail lines which seems sparse but we also have an incredibly strong BRT, local; and all day regional express bus network that doesn't show up on the Google overlay
I live close to LA and that skewed my views of cities. Got the chance to study abroad in Barcelona and I grew appreciate what great potential cities could have. There I felt independent and free to enjoy my life. Back in LA I don't drive and it's a living hell taking public transportation
Although barcelona is great and better then every american city it still has it's fair share of problems: overpopulation, Homelessness, poverty...
so does like every major city ever made
...uh every city in the world without exception has homeless people. Where they gonna beg for money and quick access to resources, the suburbs, the country side? You're talking about social economic issues not civil infrastructure issues.
@@katjerouac yep but many Americans hold on tight to their car centric model not understanding it is more expensive because now their transportation is tied to gas every day but also inefficient.
Clown
Dutch cities are better
I’ve been to Barcelona a few times. Like most European cities it’s very, very crowded people live one stacked on top of the other in cramped apartments. It’s claustrophobic.
Prefer to live where there’s a bit of space and I don’t have to go places on a bus and sit next to people with poor hygiene.
That's a way of seeing things. I personally prefer travelling on a metro with air conditioning where I can do my own business while travelling instead of spending hours in a car where I have to be comcentrated on driving.
But everyone can have their own options and choose what they want, that's why Barcelona's region is great: even if you want to drive, there'll be a place were you'll be able to (Barcelona itself was pretty car-friendly before 2020)
Barcelona is awesome, it's so easy to get around.
It is true. Cars are treated like how the US treat pedestrians lol
Nope, we also have highways and all that stuff for cars. Besides rush hour it's actually easy to ride a car here, the only problem is finding a space to park it! Xd
I live in BCN. It's nice that it's very compact. I wish it was more runnable tho. The grid system makes it harder to jog. And they still have too much space for the cars on the road
You should check out Oslo, Norway
Barcelona may be on another level in terms of urbanism, but google maps transit layout for barcelona (or any city) is horrendously on another level.
Thought he was talking about Houston in the beginning and was boutta drop kick my grandma
Visit Barcelona and experience its beauty too. The beauty reflects the big hearts of the wonderful people.
Barcelona is simply amazing. It is so easy to navigate.
The thing about Barcelona is that it is probably one of the most car-friendly cities in Spain, therefore the most polluted in the country too. Streets are wide so you'll find that cars occupy a lot of the space. The public transit is phenomenal inside the small metropolitan area, but the connections to the very populated outer region where most of the Barcelona workers and students live, are poor. So you have a city with a massive car use, where 90% of the cars are from people that come from the outer region to work in the city.
Tell this to Renfe xd, that's their fault!!!!
PD: and it's one the areas with most cars/km² because it is also the densest urban area in Europe, so even with only 25%of journeys in the city done by car, they seem to take lots of space :(
You had me in the first few secs 😅
I love your content!! Im pushing for more infrastructure geared towards biking in NYC, make one of NYC if you can and it’s solutions
No go zones: allow us to introduce ourselves.
You had me for a second... I was about to burst a vein in my head when I heard Houston
Just subscribed to your channel!! I live in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area (metroplex) and I’m beyond frustrated with this areas public transportation/city planning. If you want to get anywhere you have to drive atleast 20 minutes and the public trains only run 4-5 lines mainly to city centers. Would love for you to do a video on this in the future if you could!
You almost zoomed my place😂. Greetings from BCN.
Wait until he hears about The Netherlands
It’s also one of the most expensive places to live 🤣
barcelona is the best city ever!! its just gorgeous!
Also to the people who work as urban planners in Barcelona: open a damn school for the rest of us already!
When he zoomed on the US, I was gonna lose it lmao
i loved their tram and underground.
Wait until he hears about Tokyo