I studied architecture at university and work in the field. From my perspective, superblocks are great, and we need them in a lot of cities. But it is important to note that they are not a "one size fits all" solution as is suggested here. You'll notice that they work very well when created within existing high density urban fabric (like Barcelona). But very few cities have pre-existing density approaching that of Barcelona. So the primary challenge in most sprawling cities is to get rid of separated zoning laws and increase healthy density. If you took a 1950s American neighborhood today and created a super block, it simply would not work as intended, as most distances are too far to walk and houses are separated from other uses. I don't mean to dunk on the superblock idea, it's a really great tool. I just want people to know that it is not fit for every context. These things are always very complex and what's right for one place isn't always right for another.
just what I was thinking, a lot of American cities are much too spread apart. In my mind, it's just creating a large tourist district that suburb people drive to and walk around for the weekend
Speaking as a rural American car owner (who would like to remain as such on both accounts), I think cities transitioning over to and planning around pedestrian life is actually a wonderful idea. Cars are convenient for the area I live in, and even make it convenient in the first place. Exhaust and occasional run ins with wildlife aside, cars don't have the same negative effects out here. Car traffic in cities is a different story. From the perspective of a visiting driver, driving in cities is tedious and annoying. I'd much rather visit a city and park safely in some allotted space for doing so and travel around the city itself by other methods.
exactly. keep the cars out of cities. there is a place for them in regions that cannot be served by transit, but in a dense area, then cars just make cities unlivable and dangerous
And a great way to solve this would be to essentially ban cars from cities by making large parking lots outside of the city, which are positioned near public transport that can take oyu basically everywhere within the city.
@@harrywoodman2988 god, hopefully some reasonable people on the east coast can make that happen. They might not be able to get the presidency, but with the right campaign they can win local and state elections, right?
Come to think of it this system or similars are pretty common in the historic centers of most cities in America the continent, with the exception of the US. I live in a small city in southwest Mexico and our zocalo is exactly like that, and the innermost streets are completely blocked to car traffic, its beautiful to walk at night there.
This is not logical but pretty stupid, or how do you think all those people will earn money? You sort of need a car to get to your work and possibly school. so that means at least 2 cars for each family if both people are working and they have to be parked somewhere next to your home. and every morning and evening it will be a rush hour as everyone is leaving and then coming back
@@priapulida That woud be a good solution to traffic congestion if only anyone was treating is as desirable solution. But if you don't own a car what you are going to do when zombie apocalypse happens? :) Or how do you go to the forest to pick mushrooms or somewhere to the nature to have nice BBQ away from civilization? so owning a car is pretty much a must thing unless you are ok with being totally in the hands of your government and agree to have a life of perfect consumer.
@@deltaxcd I don't own a car. I go by public transport pretty much everywere. Or walk. I live in the city. After 3 minutes walk I'm in the forest. It's not some kind of place without people at all but it's still a forest. You could probably find some mushrooms there if you're good at it. And we have public spaces where you could make a BBQ. (what's the point of having a BBQ away from civilization?)
@@deltaxcd You walk? Or take the bus? Pretty much everyone in my home town took the bus to school since they were like 9-10, or they cycled there. Not everywhere is a suburban hell.
@@riku3716 The walled-off neighborhoods in my city have either cul-de-sac roads or a number of non-thru street designs to hinder thru-car traffic, and prioritize resident car traffic only. Doing this allows those walled neighborhoods to become highly walkable and bikable. Although my open grid-pattern neighborhood doesnt have dense car traffic either... However, some of the walled off neighborhoods in central Tampa are not connected to bus stops, ( buses are the city's only useful public transport)
Step 5 : remove sealed ground as much as possible to turn your superblock into a sponge city : more green space less heat retaining asphalt. Trees are basically magic at this point lowering so much the temperature during heatwaves and they look cool
There might be a problem with this, as taking care of spread out green spaces in cities might be costly for upkeep (not just for funding, it might neccesitate additional pollution) and water, which could make it unsustainable. But more concentrated small parks and such could alleviated the problems I guess. I definetly hope tough that we get to have more nature in cities of the future.
@@votamlchar5930, water's more a problem during droughts or if you don't use native trees. Using trees native to the area, which are already well-suited to the rainfall of the area, negates that somewhat compared to the traditional method of ornamental trees from Timbuktu or wherever. That's not to say the trees never have to be watered, but governments like to use trees that are really poorly suited to their cities.
That's nice thinking, planting more greenery, but you're not considering storm water drainage. There's a reason to engineer lots of flat sloping concrete surfaces leading to gutters and proper drainage so you don't get your bike caught in a bunch of mud!
@@votamlchar5930 No I have to disagree. What you think a green space would look like is a park. Parks are artificial biospheres. They cannot exist in their form without ongoing maintenance. A real green space wouldn't have much grass in it but lots of bushes and trees. Those have the advantage that they can store a lot of water by themselves to overcome dry periods and they will relief a lot of stress off of the sewers during wet periods by refilling their inner reservoirs. Non-sealed ground can also hold a lot of water before puddles are formed. Of course people need resting places and therefore parks are still needed but conventional parks shouldn't be considered real green spaces. A good mixture of both is required to accommodate the needs of the citizens and cooling down the environment of the cities.
As far fetched as it may seem for super blocks to appear in America, most universities have a very similar design to that of the super blocks described. They are primarily areas where you can walk to classes and parking is meant mostly for the few commuters who got to class and residents living on campus. Of course every campus is different and some are more spread out or more self contained, but I think a lot of Americans have at least one point encountered this pedestrian friendly design at one point on these campuses.
Now we just need to attract conservatives into college campuses with majors on Cultural Marxism critique, courses on how Greeks & Romans were white and Pentagon-funded “pre-enlistment/commission” military pipeline programs.
People tend to forget that European cities like Barcelona were built before there were cars. Also, people tend to forget that the urban form evolves over time, and that evolution is influenced by the technology and economy available. So the "superblock" idea is really just an idea for pre-car cities to roll back the clock to the 19th century: it's pretty much inapplicable in most modern environments. And no, you can't build a new "superblock" development, because the residential & commercial landscape has to evolve into its efficient form over decades or centuries.
@@Hastur876 Aside from Las Vegas, which cities of the USA were built after there were cars? American cities used to be very much like european cities: they were rebuilt for cars. They can be re-rebuilt back for people.
All of the great pedestrian cities like Venice, Italy, Lower Manhattan or Seville, Spain had little to no urban planning. The cities developed spontaneously and because of the value of the land developed at a high density. Unfortunately modern urban planning has led to the zoning codes and car dominated environment we have everywhere today.
Why did you specifically point out Lower Manhattan? Upper Manhattan (North of 96th East of Central Park, and North of 110th West of Central Park) is just as, if not more, walkable than Lower Manhattan (South of 14th), and actually the neighborhood with the highest car ownership rate in the Borough, Tribeca, is in Lower Manhattan. And Midtown, the UES, and the UWS are even denser and possibly more walkable than both.
Or maybe it's rather that those cities are hundreds of years old and there were no cars back then + American politicians are 90% incompetent hogs who care about corporate interest rather than quality of life for people. You tryna spin this to be some kind of a pro-ancap position
@@peachyjam9440 American cities were very compact in the early 1900s, but after WW2 they bulldozed much of their cities to make space for parking and highways. They made their cities unfriendly to walk in.
Umm yes they had urban planning,urban planning existed back in Europe since Roman times,Britain was completely rebuilt from scratch after the London Fire as a great example.Cities dont just spontaneous come to be,there are laws that make them look they way they do and policies,cause you know,we live in a society that consciously creates its own environment for the most part.This isn’t a problem of planning per say but what you plan for,most cities since 1930 have planned for massive car infrastructure and so look mostly ugly and doll,doesn’t have to be that way.This video is how some cities are rebuilding through planning to become more pedestrian friendly rn.
When it comes to getting things like this properly implemented, a key factor is spreading the word. If people don't know that current cities are a problem, they won't understand why a solution to them is necessary. Just make sure to do your best to tell the people around you that things could be better, and that you can all work towards making it that way.
@@mattmurphy7030 Definitely not! I've lived in Phoenix for five years without a car, first just using public transit and then getting an electric bicycle. It's been the worst experience and I'm leaving for Denver in a month.
I have an anecdote about noise pollution: In 1976 in Argentina under the military dictatorship the military junta did a vast campaign against noise pollution which, funnily enough, didn't contain any policy proposal but only consisted of a massive billboard campaign. Those billboards were everywhere. They even installed a rotating billboard around the Buenos Aires obelisk with the campaign slogan written on it, the obelisk being the massive monument to the independence which stands on the most transited roundabout of the city. What was this slogan? "SILENCE IS HEALTH". Weird how this sounds like a threat, am I right? Almost as if that was the real purpose all along. It kind of set the tone for what living in this era felt like. Here is a video of the obelisk rotating billboard if you are curious: ruclips.net/video/oWWomN-g-h0/видео.html
@@shift-happens It wasn´t exactly hilarious back then. You have to think that there were death squads driving around the city "disappearing" political opponents.
@@themroc8231 I didn’t know, thanks for sharing. At first glance it indeed made me remember a bit of the “Arbeit macht frei” from the Nazis… The “hilarious” was just to highlight the contrast between the noise level and the message on the obelisk
"How are we going to reduce noise pollution without drastically limiting citizens ability to use cars?" "Who cares just put up some propaganda" a part of me also wonders if it was unintentionally successful by having people avoid the signage therefore driving less or at least less packed
I don't speak spanish, but salud sounds a lot like "salut" in french wich means salvation. Silence is salvation is indeed a thing under a military dictatorship, shut your mouth or else....
Some suburbs near me have closed off their streets downtown to make room for outdoor dining areas per lockdown restrictions. Even when indoor dining reopened, the streets remain closed to allow for more pedestrian traffic and outdoor dining. I would be happy if it stays this way indefinitely.
Ahhhh, no. Living in Germany and not in Berlin or Singapore, I have to suffer the results of cityplaning that only follow the recomendations of this limited video. It is missing the key ingredient for superblocks to work, cheap, efficient, RELIABLE , omnipresent PUBLIC TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE. In my city non of the above exists, the result, the inner city is dying, Shops are closing and I have not visited it for the last 6 month.
Its good to have the city center itself as one big superblock but more must not be done before public transit infrastructure is built. When anti car ideologists push for superblocks and force flowerpots on lanes and parking lots they forget that their actions create resistance and when moderate green realists ask for a tram later they have to deal with results in form of Nimbys. If moderate green realists pull them and the car ideologists equally from their political thrones we may see trams beeing built like in France but sadly both extremes are leading the debate.
In the historic centre of Florence (Italy) the sidewalks are so narrow that you have to walk down them single file. Yet the roads are always wide enough both for parked and passing cars. For a city that for a centuries thrived on prioritising pedestrian traffic, and built its urban fabric around that fact, it’s baffling that this is now the status quo.
I've noticed on Google street view that Italian cities very frequently have this problem, where they try to jam as many parking spaces onto a street as possible. And it's often done with perpendicular spaces, which IMO should never really exist on streets in urban areas, partly because they make cycling even more dangerous than it already is, where instead of the worst case scenario of a car hitting you at a slight angle, they can hit you head-on (or more accurately butt-on) and it will probably be at at slightly higher speed. The silliest part of it though is that, due to the high population density of Italian cities, shoving in all those parking spots will still not usually create enough parking for the majority of people in the neighborhood to even own car.
Marseille, 4 lanes for cars (including 2 for parked ones) and a sidewalk not large enough to walk side by side. Also fucking Tmax parked everywhere on said sidewalks.
Italian cities are an interesting mix of being both kinda overwhelmed with cars but yet also being friendly to pedestrians, in part of course due to the touristic value a city center like that offers. One little piece of convenience I like that I haven't seen much elsewhere is that if they have traditional cobble stone pavement in areas they tend to lay a "lane" of smoother stone through it, for bikes and similar. You'll know the difference that makes if for example you walk around the German city of Ulm. Also something I personally like but that's obviously unlikely to be adopted at this late stage: be like Bologna and have practically all sidewalks be arcades. Provides shade, gives extra space, is just kinda neat in general. Okay, not friendly for city greenery, but that's not unsolvable.
@@nunyabusiness1489 you’re so right. Some “smarter” solutions I’ve sometimes seen is that the city creates multi-storey parking underneath parks and other public spaces, primarily for residents. It should in theory remove parking while keeping the parks in tact, but there’s the side effect of the public spaces being marred by the entrance/exit ways plus the ventilation vents needed for the spaces below. But it’s at least preferable to the majority of a city centre just being an open air car park!
@@Sp4mMe love Ulm, used to stop in the city with my family when we were travelling down to Italy. The trams were super convenient and the city was really pretty
Closest i’ve been to super blocks (after leaving the US) is the city of Nantes in France. A few areas mostly for pedestrians, large flat spaces with only pedestrians with a few bicycles and tram. It felt LIBERATING to walk there. I don’t live there though, I live in another city in France, but it still has more pedestrian space than I’ve ever been accustomed to in the US.
You should try visiting the Netherlands sometime, like 90% of our streets are one way and it’s amazing. Kids play in the streets, people say hello to each other when passing, cats actually get to go outside.
@@shroomer8294 What if you don’t like people saying hello I personally would prefer a person passing by me to keep that mouth shut and keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves as I do the same. Not to be a party pooper but there’s just a lot of generally terrible people scattered or peppered into the mix that use hello’s as as an opportunity to rob or violate a person. It happens to the city I live in all the time.
@@nessesitoburrito8873 If you don’t like someone saying hello to you there’s an incredibly simple solution for that: just don’t respond. Your basically complaining about having to be a little polite to a stranger and then using a completely unrelated problem to justify that. If someone is going to rob you saying “hey” isn’t the deciding factor in that, that’s ridiculous.
This video made me realise i've been living in what is essencially a superblock almost my whole life. It's a residencial area designed during the communist era and has all the features that you've described. It's surrounded by major streets, has good public transport connections, all paths inside are mainly for people, not cars, there's tons of greenery and trees. Point is, this place was designed and built almost 40 years ago, so superblocks sound like a fancy modern spin on an old idea to me, which in this case is not bad, like, i've lived here and i can tell you it's lovely :)
Probably because individual car ownership wasn't a government priority, as it was in a lot of countries in the west. Turns out, the communists were right about that one.
@@SomePotato Communists (the original ones) were not ideologically opposed to car ownership at all compared to the modern ones. My town of ~15000 in communist Czechoslovakia used to have more free parking than it has now. The innability for many ordinary citizes to afford cars was due to the focus of the planned economy on heavy industry and weapons manufacturing instead of consumers.
@@laszu7137 I didn't say they opposed car ownership, I said they didn't make it a priority. In the west, since the 50s and 60s, car ownership was incentivised by the government.
@@laszu7137 Building your cities around the car and highways throughout the country and changing your laws for the benefit of cars does count as incentivising.
@@brhim5731 yes but let's not act like there aren't valid reasons to want car based city planning. The United States is huge compared to Europe with a ton of people who live rurally. While I think it works for some places especially along the east coast there are plenty of places where this wouldn't be the ideal.
During Covid my home town got sorta superblocked on the Main Street. The town realized nearly every resturaunt would die on Main Street with social distancing ordinances. So they closed down most of the streets that spurred off like 3 blocks of Main Street on the north side and used it for public gathering space and resturaunt patios which after most of the restrictions were lifted the streets weren’t taken back. It didn’t hurt traffic and it brought the town together and helped local businesses. From what I understand, until some idiot petitions the Main Street will remain slightly less car friendly
Having lived in Korea and soon moving to Japan, I feel like a lot of their cities already work partially like this. Significant portions of cities are comprised of groups of tiny streets with minimal road markings that are only really meant to be used by residents, so it'd be very easy to make a full switch.
I don't think just small streets would cut it. London also has small street, and are still jammed with drivers taking shortcuts through the areas. And that's why LTN (Low Traffic Neighborhood) schemes are being implemented. And that's something this video doesn't mention: superblock is only one out of many types of LTNs. London is using barriers instead of one-way systems to prevent through-traffic, either physical bollards or cameras. The Netherlands uses a combination of both, one-ways systems and bollards. Have you seen what Ghent has done? Watch the Streetfilms video on them. Do your residential streets circle back to the same main road?
@@C0deH0wler In Tokyo the traffic in this areas are super small and basically only people who live there or visitors and they drive very slow. I think this is because the major roads are fluid and work better than going though this areas. And also Japanese people are different in their behavior than western people. I noticed they drive much slower than people in the EU, despite having more relaxed traffic laws.
We have a few "home zones" in Bristol. They typically have a brick surface and planters to tactfully reduce traffic speeds, and they remove pavements to encourage pedestrians to utilise the street. There are plenty of narrow streets of Victorian terraces that could do with this treatment but funding is not forthcoming.
@@sunnyjim1355 when you have low enough traffic (ie essentially pedestrianised or near enough) you don't need a demarcation between road and pavement. You just have the street. You examples of these in non-explicitly pedestrianised areas a fair bit in Japan.
They're called "shared spaces", which involve removing the border between pavement and road, and reducing car speeds drastically. Everyone shares the same street. Studies have shown them to boost economic activity in nearby shops and make communities more cohesive. Negatives involve difficulties for people with sight difficulties, but there are ways around this, such as including tactically placed trees and benches to make an area inaccessible to cars for them to use.
We have these in Germany as well, but they are still quite rare. They are officially called "traffic calming area", or colloquially "play street". The English Wikipedia calls the concept "living street".
@@sunnyjim1355 When there's little to no cars, people can pretty much walk wherever they want in any direction. That includes on the actual road itself.
I'm studying ecology atm and I think a small point worth bring up is that car free areas of cities are also a massive help to wildlife in urban habitats! Less roadkill as an obvious start and also roads filled with cars (and there pollutants) fragment habitats inside of a city. I'd put money on super blocks having better biodiversity than the rest of the area they're in!
I would be interested in your thoughts on how different London boroughs have implemented what we call Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. The residents living inside them are relatively content, but they have enraged a group of people who used to enjoy driving through these areas and are now unable to.
I suspect Barcelona has avoided this to an extent (they definitely haven't avoided it completely from what I read when these first came about) because the relatively low levels of car ownership in the centre where these are being implemented. London and other UK cities, particularly in the areas where these are actually being implemented are lower density with higher levels of car ownership. When the Netherlands (where the density is more similar to UK cities) started to push back against cars in the cities and make things safe for cycling etc in the 70s it really looked so ridiculously similar to the opposition to LTNs and cycle lanes. I suspect most places when you get to smaller cities or lower density areas this fight will repeat everywhere again and again. Also because of the messed up way London is organised and the boroughs control this stuff the most obvious places for LTNs to start is in the centre and highest density areas and move outward. But Westminster and RBKC are rabid pro-car anti-LTN, anti-pedestrisation anti-cycle lane tory bastards. But Waltham Forest shows implement it properly with reallocation of space and realm improvement and it becomes immensely popular areas will start to ask for LTNs. Although there will be a few nutjobs on twitter who will never let it go even though 95% of residents approve etc. Also it has to do with where political control falls. Hidalgo has only been able to implement the major cycling and low car policies in Paris in part because she doesn't have to get elected by the parisian suburbs where car ownership levels are 60%+ she's elected from areas where car ownership levels are 30% or less.
@@SomePotato Well, that's one view. I'd recommend that in the construction of superblocks, we don't make it TOO difficult to drive in the city. That will generate a constituency against superblocks. Not too far from where I live in the US, we have a superblock that occurred organically. It's an area with main thoroughfare roads on the outside, small roads within, a train station in the middle, and a mixture of commercial and moderate density residential. It is one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the area. My own town is punctured by a major road, and that just ruins it.
@@incognitotorpedo42 Just as they did in Barcelona, or as they do in the Netherlands in general, there will of course be roads to go from superblock to superblock. But if you want to go from block A to block B, there is no need to drive through block C. You can drive around it. That's the whole idea.
Another solution for urban planning that can be applied on an even bigger scale is dividing a city into several districts where cars can't drive from one district to another. Instead, they need to take a ring road to get to the district eliminating through traffic which decreases noise and air pollution and journeys take much longer making people switch to alternative modes of transportation. Due to decreased car demand, even more space can be made free for pedestrians and cyclists. This takes superblocks to a whole new level. This has already been applied in Ghent, Belgium, Leuven, Belgium and Houten, Netherlands and has been proposed to be implemented in Birmingham and Paris.
For a low-density surburb, it will be hard to get most residents to use the bus. It is possible, but there will need to be public van network to get people to the bus stops, otherwise the number of people living within the service area of a bus stop will be so small that it will take more than 10 stops on a route to fill up the bus. With public vans, a bus should be mostly filled after one or two stops, and that should enable hub-and-spoke logistics.
@@ayoutubechannelname Yes, for that reason zoning codes need to be changed drastically so those suburbs can rebuild buildings with higher density so bus service gets more usable.
Ans you end up with traffic jams and more noise and air pollution. You first need a good transport system ans when you start to see a decline in the use of cars you implement this car banning
@@jrotela This wouldn't ban cars though. And yeah, public transport is a necessity but there are also bikes. Also, since distances by cars would increase, it gets more convenient and quicker to use other modes of transportations like public transport and especially bikes
I'm from the Netherlands and I feel that quite some cities have implemented step 1-3 already in a lot of neighbourhoods, but then leave it at that. And while they are nice and quiet streets, although still sometimes used for cut-through traffic, they are still completely packed with parked cars from residents. Even if the city has good or even great public transport, there are still so many damn cars that even the quiet streets are packed. And then step 4 never happens and they stay regular streets.
It's certainly difficult as a car-owning resident to have to deal with too many limitations. After all, you paid for the car, pay monthly for the parking spot, and when you moved in everything seemed okay. Now the city starts effectively penalizing you -- and even though you'd gladly use more public transport, you already own a car and want to make use of it. But selling it is also not really an option yet, because there's always use cases for a car, however rare. If the city persists in its policy, over years the more car-oriented residents will move out, and year by year fewer cars should be around. It just takes time.
@@patrickgono6043 if you only use the car on rare occasions, why not just use a rental car whenever you need to drive longer distances and just ditch the car altogether? With the prices of insurance, fuel and maintenance, added with the devaluation of second hand cars, there's no financial sense to own one unless your job absolutely needs it.
I live in Barcelona, and I can confirm that superblocks are a huge improvement for the quality of life in the city. When you walk through them you feel like you are in a utopian city simulation, as there are children running around, people talking and playing chess, etc. It's something we have become unaccustomed to, but that's what a city should be like. Of course, there is a part of the population of Barcelona that criticizes the superblocks (mainly conservative people), but fortunately, we have had a socialist mayoress for a few years now, who little by little is taking land away from cars and giving it to the citizens.
I live in Barcelona and can say the "temporary" ugly trees and painted asphalt continues here after freaking more than 5 years. Only place they're doing that the right way, repaving streets at sidewalk level and planting a bit of greenery (it should be more in my opinion), oh surprise, the rich neighbourhoods at the Esquerra de l'Eixample. And car traffic at neighbouring streets of superblocks has skyrocketed. Without better public transit out of the city (the majority of cars come from outside BCN) this shit doesn't really work. PD: And superblockd are dirty af, clean the city a bit please, that's what we pay taxes for... Edit: Oh, and for the children playing blablabla part, haven't you been to a park?? Xd
@@solarsatan9000 Paris did that by mistake at one point. Tim traveler had the time to go check the impossible intersection: ruclips.net/video/acohr2rC74M/видео.html
Hey, this is an actual positive video I can send somebody to show them how we can improve the system without getting into the "right vs left" debate. Thanks!
@@inigo137 true, nothing really changes their minds, but to moderates, it's a much easier sell because, taken at a glance, it seems outside the realm of left versus right. Only once we really dig into it (car companies lobbying, etc.) do the political elements become apparent.
@@inigo137 it's really hard to convince people to think in a centrist-left/leftist way when every video feels either aggressive or catastrophic. I don't care about right wingers, they're a lost cause, but people who don't really have an opinion built in is the objective and this video could help open their minds.
And I never understand why this is considered a right vs. left issue in the first place. Superblocks is unarguably a great way to help local businesses thrive, so logically it should be cherished by right wing people too.
@@ramochai mostly because the mass media shows these things like "oppressive" to your "rights" or "government intervention". And, with the polarization in our current society, that's like a PTSD trigger for right wingers.
I hadn't really connected it before, but the ENTIRE city center in my town (Uppsala, Sweden) is basically a huge superblock. Almost every road in a 0.5km² area is either a one-way street, a half bike/half car street, a pedestrian street, a mixed traffic space, or a bus-only street. Driving through the city center is almost impossible, so all the traffic is delegated to a few main artery roads around it. I'm sure this isn't uncommon, and Uppsala is a relatively small town (pop. 200,000), but if traffic could drive through, I am sure that it would kill the city center here. Being able to walk across (or on!) almost any road at almost any time is surprisingly underappreciated.
It's crazy how different America is. I have only met one person in my life that didn't have a driver's license and atleast 1 car. Most have 2 or 3. I live in a pretty rural area and we don't really have any busses or public transport. We have trains but they only haul cargo. (I've never seen a passenger train IRL but I did ride a city bus once) cars are just required to exist here. Nobody delivers food and it's a 30min drive to the closest store or restaurant. Couldn't imagine living in the city being that close to people. There are downsides like no internet except dodgy cell service and if you need an ambulance, fire truck or the police your in for one hell of a wait but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I hope the city's get their problems fixed if anything just for the quality of life for people there but all in all I'd say just move and spread out a bit. Nobody has a genuine reason to live in a city. (In America where we have room at least)
Reasonable proximity to work? Reasonable proximity to necessary goods and services? Proximity to friends and or family for emergencies or pleasure? Access to recreational spaces? Socializing with people outside of your household? There are an insane amount of reasons to live in the city, especially in modern day lmao
You said "no internet" as if the internet is not the most revolutionary vehicle for information transfer ever and as if it is insanely close to being a necessity in society.
@@dugsbunnyog3544 I love distances, i like it when i have to travel to somewhere to get something or to go to work. Well i like driving so i like it when i have ti drive😂
I am an American and have a Masters in Political Philosophy. I study history, see where the world is going and can confidently say the US will not move in this direction any time soon. The gravestone of humanity will partly read: “Those darn Americans… never learnt to play nice with other nations, loved individually consuming too much and loved public goods too little.”
City planning is an issue that I am actually quite hopeful about, most of the solutions have already been devised and we pretty much have all the technology we need to construct beautiful, happy and green cities.
With how little parking is available when I drive to Chicago, it is hard to imagine that getting rid of more parking would be a good thing. And that is just for me when I visit from my town two hours away from Chicago. It would be an absolute nightmare for people who have to commute there from an hour away daily for work. The only solutions that I can think of just move the parking lots out of the city to Public Transportation hubs of some kind, which would likely have the issue of adding even more travel time from your home to your end destination. Let's say that you commute an hour per direction to get to your job, on a route or at a time that doesn't have major traffic issues (i.e. long traffic jams). With an 8 hour work day, and a half hour lunch, your time from leaving home to returning home is about 10 1/2 hours. Now we change that to a 45 minute commute each way to the public transportation hub and assume that there is always enough parking available. The leg of the trip on public transportation is slowed down by a multitude of train or bus stops, and possibly having to switch from one form of public transit to another. It would not be unreasonable to think that that the replacement for the 15 minutes of car driving would be replaced by 45 minutes or more of public transportation. Assuming that it is only 45 minutes, the total commute time increase is a full hour, making your previous 2 hour total commute time (already absurd) 3 hours or more, and a total of 11 1/2 or more hours away from home, just for 8 hours of work.
In Belgium we have a solution for that. It's called P+R (Park & Ride). Huge parking lots at the edge of the city, usually with a tram stop. Linkeroever is one of them. That one grew kinda naturally as it's, as the name suggests, located at the left bank of the river (Antwerpen is on the right). So people park their car, cross the river and visit the city. You have three options: tram, pedestrian tunnel or the "waterbus" ferry. Or if you like stress, you can take the infamous Kennedy tunnel to the city :-). P+R's are either free or €1 per day.
3:23 - I love how you included the "Shared space of doom" (Called so by our right-wing vice mayor) at Graz. It's on my daily route every morning, mostly by bike, and works for everyone great unless you have to drive a car through there. In general, Graz is mostly well-planned. Small mega blocks are a thing and bike infrastructure gets better every year. Also great video, best regards from Austria!
I've noticed this is actually already being implemented in the country I live in (Belgium). The city I live in (leuven) and many others are already setup this way. We call it making city centers "car-shy". In the city center of Leuven almost all streets are one way, though very easily accesible by public transport. I know there are a couple other main cities in Belgium that are using the same tactics, basically discouraging the use of cars in city centers. I think it's a great step forward :).
Here in Barcelona this so called 'tactical urbanism' was very critisized by the majority of the opposition parties. Some boomers still complain about stupid shit regarding these new urban policies, but time is starting to tell they made the right choice, and indeed the city has become a better place.
Honestly, my hometown is already slowly taking steps to become a kinda superblock. Recently they decided to put large parking areas outside the city for non-residents and if they wana park inside the city, they can only park for 2 hours at most. For residents they can park in certain zones for an unlimited amount if time. The city itself already had narrow roads soo the one way system thing had already been a thing where i'm from, sooo yeah.. Edit: they are also reducing the parking spaces around the city centre and replacing it with a more recreational area (the works for that have already begun)
the concept of the superblock reminds me of Beijing's Hutongs(胡同), where low density housing (most of them are one or two stories) is surrounded by major roads with six lanes. Inside the Hutongs, roads are about 2m wide and are barely possible for a car to go through, so even without the official traffic signs, drivers will avoid going into these Hutongs instinctively. Being outside the Hutongs you will feel the noisy and NOT pedestrian-friendly Beijing, but inside Hutongs, its residents are chilling on the roads, and it does bring you a peace of mind by simply walking into these superblock Hutongs..
The thing that concerns me about superblocks as described here is the pricing restrictions on local parking; it might push low-income populations out of their homes and accelerate gentrification if not carefully handled, by adding an additional cost on top of rent and whatnot (assuming that the people in question need cars, which depends on the city but is often the case in America). Essentially it sounds like superblocks could potentially become a sort of inner-city suburb or gated community, which the rich would flee to and leave the poor to deal with the loud, congested and polluted areas of the city.
Even then it would give mixed zoned places that are nicer to visit in the city, it is way more dense, efficiënt and with less commuters. And though areas might gentrify it would also spur new development so less mansion suburbs. So i'd still call it an improvement, you are right though affordable housing always needs to be taken into account.
@@Infected_Apple im com pletely agains the ideas in this video. but i will agree with you here, mixed zoning is a good idea. the one and only thing i'd like close to my house is places to eat. and maybe a small grocery store. i live in the city and loathe it. saving up to move out to a more rural area to get away from all these people. and i dont even live in a big city by US standards.
Hmm...I'm all on-board in principle. My issue with Barcelona's superblock design is just that I really don't like the idea of living in a grid-city, with a bunch of identical sub-units. Although Barcelona is still lovely, in most contexts it feels more than a little bit dystopic. I also just love meandering around my (old European) city and discovering hidden nooks and crannies, and seeing what people do with weird bits of space.
@@MaQuGo119 Pretty sure it's starving free (not the micro district, but the superblock). OR if you lived in Hungary during that era, you were very unlikely to be starving.
Parking for residents only won`t help. In Prague there is a blue zones and parking only for residents. Non residents pay 2 euro per hour. And every street if filled with cars. Only solution is to ban parking for residents and only leave parking for disabled.
Seriously WTF??? How about homeless Being number #1?? I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, with over 8 million people. NEVER EVER ONCE have I said “oh man the noise what ever will I do??” NEVER!!!! LACK OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING is #1 by a trillion miles!!
I'd like to be able to walk the 3 blocks to 7/11 without risking getting hit crossing the intersections with the light without crappy Denver drivers trying to hit me in the cross walk 3-4 times a WEEK.
I think we hugely underestimate the unconscious stress levels caused by noise. We evolved as creatures of the open savanna, where the wind, wild creatures, and human conversation formed the sound backdrop. Now we are barraged with noise in any urban or semi-urban environment, where most of us live. I don't think there has been much research on this subject, but I only have to get to a place where there is no urban hum to realise how tense the mechanised noise of daily living makes me.
remind me of Japan's cities: robust public transport + every necessary is accessible by foot = safe and lively streets that don't take a shit ton of space..
The most important aspect is the demographics. Japan is safe and clean because it has a homogenous Japanese population. Cities like that are only possible in a high-trust society.
@@HornetsNestRebel I live in the shithole crime ridden country, but it do have a lot of public transpo and necessary stuff is accessible by foot or public things,
Complete pipe dream, 95% of current cities would have to be bulldozed and rebuilt to make this even remotely applicable. Also, I'd be interested to know how a superblock is supposed to contain a large factory, power plant, or facility that creates large amounts of pollution. If they can't, how are people supposed to get to them? And how are you supposed to move large amounts of goods around a super block? I don't think a semi-truck is fitting down a city road turned faux college campus.
In America, the vast majority (~82%) of people own a car. It sounds great for a place where the majority of people do not own one but for places like the US with little-to-no public transit, there has to be parking zones or nobody would visit.
you forgot the underground parking and underground passing roads. i live in a huge block where all the cars go under the pedestrian zone straight to the parking.
4:04 It was interesting to note that every photograph showed hard paved areas with planting boxes. Without constant maintenance, planting boxes quickly become depressingly unsightly. Large areas of hard landscape settle, leading to poor drainage. (See the puddle in the central picture, in front of the cyclist.) Pavement art quickly wears and becomes disagreeable. In short the question is: "Who will bear the cost of maintenance required to keep these pleasant spaces from becoming an eyesore?" Excellent idea in principle but these are images of recently completed projects. The philosophy falls short in regard to the wear factor, I feel.
While I could boast "is this some sort of issue too American for me to understand?" I trully pity American urban planning for making people beg for reform against system that was rigged from the start, while the concept of superblocks is ordinary where I live despite heavy urbanization.
Not ideally, but it’s mandatory. By limiting cars with no public transportation alternative you’ve committed an atrocity that doesn’t let people go to work or shop.
I live in the 7th district Budapest which you show at your example. I can tell you it really works, less cars, more parking space for residentials and the overcrowded pedestrian areas can free up as you can walk on the road as well. The only downside is that I have to drive around the 6th-7th district superblock to enter from certain directions, making my trip 10-15 mins longer
abolishing parking minimums is a terrible idea. You have to end car dependency before you take away parking, otherwise people who are already dependent on cars will simply not have anywhere to park them: a total disaster.
Imagine how lovely this would be. I am in Australia our city planning is moronic at best. No party here is close to caring. Thank you for sharing Adam!
Let me give you a true inconvenient truth about my city's(Tampa,Fl)Downtown streets compared to its suburbs up north: -Downtown Tampa has about ~15 one-way streets that go North/South East/West only, there is a bus-only avenue(Marion st.), and no real superblock concepts anywhere inside. *Driving downtown is confusing as hell! even with experience!* -Suburbs north of Tampa, have only ~6 one-way major roadways, *but this is the catch:* -*Not even the walled-off, nor the cul-de-sac neighborhoods have one-way roads!* neither inside,neither outside!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The solution isn't "adding one way streets" per se. It's creating walkable liveable spaces by doing many things, one of which is adding one way streets to discourage driving. Can you really look at Amsterdam and other dutch cities and say with a straight face "that hasn't solved any problems"?
Why would not having cars make a place a slum? more people walking means more people walking into businesses, which means more sales, and a better local economy.
@@robbiealderton1361 I never said the lack of cars would do that. But I do believe everyone should have the right to be able to get a car if they can pass the legal tests. The freedom to go where you wish without relying on public transport and timetables is a wonderful thing. And limits government control of public travel. The problem is that many of these superblocks can fast if not looked after right or not policed become slums, If you moved all the poor into these areas and they can't find decent work and so turn to the normal methods of crime. They places could fast become slums. Like those seen in them sci-fi films but to a smaller scale of course. But these places could also take another route, and turn instead into gated communities where only the rich are allowed to live. And they become like their own mini elite clubs. The problem with superblocks is that they would need proper management and sensible governance. Issue is most governments national or local can't provide that. A lot of communities already end up like slums or gated communities only. It also depends on how superblocks are constructed as well.
@@RomanHistoryFan476AD I don't understand your thought, you are making it seem like people would not be able to leave. There would be the same amount of jobs, if not more (most likely added jobs would be service) and people can always go elsewhere in the city to find jobs. The only thing superblocks do is limit through-traffic. Its like a gated community, no through traffic, only residential.
@@robbiealderton1361 People could leave, depending on how the rest of the country is. These projects sound great and all but like with most grand ideas in reality they falter. Trust me these super blocks would turn into places to dump the poor or create special zones for the super rich. Certain blocks will get special treatment while others get left to rot. If no vehicles are allowed into the super block how are goods being transported to the needed stores, locations. And what if heavy equipment is needed somewhere in the super block for repairs or other tasks.
Super!
I love your videos!
Glad to see u around here.
Blocks!
Hi
Blocks
I studied architecture at university and work in the field. From my perspective, superblocks are great, and we need them in a lot of cities. But it is important to note that they are not a "one size fits all" solution as is suggested here. You'll notice that they work very well when created within existing high density urban fabric (like Barcelona). But very few cities have pre-existing density approaching that of Barcelona. So the primary challenge in most sprawling cities is to get rid of separated zoning laws and increase healthy density.
If you took a 1950s American neighborhood today and created a super block, it simply would not work as intended, as most distances are too far to walk and houses are separated from other uses.
I don't mean to dunk on the superblock idea, it's a really great tool. I just want people to know that it is not fit for every context. These things are always very complex and what's right for one place isn't always right for another.
just what I was thinking, a lot of American cities are much too spread apart. In my mind, it's just creating a large tourist district that suburb people drive to and walk around for the weekend
Thanks for the informative comment :)
+
Basically for all cities except american ones.
@@DroidVerse97 The comment said very few cities have that kind of density. Unless you mean the entire continent of America.
Speaking as a rural American car owner (who would like to remain as such on both accounts), I think cities transitioning over to and planning around pedestrian life is actually a wonderful idea. Cars are convenient for the area I live in, and even make it convenient in the first place. Exhaust and occasional run ins with wildlife aside, cars don't have the same negative effects out here. Car traffic in cities is a different story. From the perspective of a visiting driver, driving in cities is tedious and annoying. I'd much rather visit a city and park safely in some allotted space for doing so and travel around the city itself by other methods.
exactly. keep the cars out of cities. there is a place for them in regions that cannot be served by transit, but in a dense area, then cars just make cities unlivable and dangerous
And a great way to solve this would be to essentially ban cars from cities by making large parking lots outside of the city, which are positioned near public transport that can take oyu basically everywhere within the city.
Or...just have public transportation, trains and buses exist or can exist out in the rural countryside.
@@jojomaster7675 We kinda have that and it sucks, thats why i go to the city 1-2 a year when i really need to go there.
@@iirosiren5120 where?
Cause if you have it and it sucks, then that means the public transport isn't good enough and more is needed.
4:28 “vote for a political party that is pro-decongestion…”
Me, an AMERICAN: 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🙃 we don’t have those here!
It would be a hard sell on the west coast but one would think a super block could work in NYC, Boston, even Philly.
@@harrywoodman2988 god, hopefully some reasonable people on the east coast can make that happen. They might not be able to get the presidency, but with the right campaign they can win local and state elections, right?
I think US should be apart of Britain again. They can't run the country anymore, why no return back to Britain?
Don't you guys have the green party?
@@arolemaprarath6615 Implying that the UK knows how to govern themselves, hah.
Sounds suspiciously logical and easy to implement; no wonder this'll never happen in most countries.
Come to think of it this system or similars are pretty common in the historic centers of most cities in America the continent, with the exception of the US.
I live in a small city in southwest Mexico and our zocalo is exactly like that, and the innermost streets are completely blocked to car traffic, its beautiful to walk at night there.
This is not logical but pretty stupid, or how do you think all those people will earn money? You sort of need a car to get to your work and possibly school. so that means at least 2 cars for each family if both people are working and they have to be parked somewhere next to your home. and every morning and evening it will be a rush hour as everyone is leaving and then coming back
@@priapulida That woud be a good solution to traffic congestion if only anyone was treating is as desirable solution. But if you don't own a car what you are going to do when zombie apocalypse happens? :) Or how do you go to the forest to pick mushrooms or somewhere to the nature to have nice BBQ away from civilization?
so owning a car is pretty much a must thing unless you are ok with being totally in the hands of your government and agree to have a life of perfect consumer.
@@deltaxcd I don't own a car. I go by public transport pretty much everywere. Or walk. I live in the city. After 3 minutes walk I'm in the forest. It's not some kind of place without people at all but it's still a forest. You could probably find some mushrooms there if you're good at it. And we have public spaces where you could make a BBQ. (what's the point of having a BBQ away from civilization?)
@@deltaxcd You walk? Or take the bus? Pretty much everyone in my home town took the bus to school since they were like 9-10, or they cycled there. Not everywhere is a suburban hell.
"Phoenix, or Miami, or other affronts to God..."
Lived in both cities. Can confirm.
Tampa Florida has had walled-off neighborhoods identical to the superblock concept for over ~30 years, but they lack public transports though!
@@MainMite06 So nowhere near identical in concept or practice.
@@riku3716 The walled-off neighborhoods in my city have either cul-de-sac roads or a number of non-thru street designs to hinder thru-car traffic, and prioritize resident car traffic only.
Doing this allows those walled neighborhoods to become highly walkable and bikable.
Although my open grid-pattern neighborhood doesnt have dense car traffic either...
However, some of the walled off neighborhoods in central Tampa are not connected to bus stops, ( buses are the city's only useful public transport)
@@MainMite06 is that city center density or more suburban density
@@blanco7726 Suburban style "superblocks" in Tampa see minimal density, but the "apartment superblocks" can be as dense as a city core.
Step 5 : remove sealed ground as much as possible to turn your superblock into a sponge city : more green space less heat retaining asphalt. Trees are basically magic at this point lowering so much the temperature during heatwaves and they look cool
There might be a problem with this, as taking care of spread out green spaces in cities might be costly for upkeep (not just for funding, it might neccesitate additional pollution) and water, which could make it unsustainable. But more concentrated small parks and such could alleviated the problems I guess. I definetly hope tough that we get to have more nature in cities of the future.
@@votamlchar5930 thats the one nice thing about living in the rust belt, we have the great lakes to provide us all the fresh water we could want.
@@votamlchar5930, water's more a problem during droughts or if you don't use native trees. Using trees native to the area, which are already well-suited to the rainfall of the area, negates that somewhat compared to the traditional method of ornamental trees from Timbuktu or wherever. That's not to say the trees never have to be watered, but governments like to use trees that are really poorly suited to their cities.
That's nice thinking, planting more greenery, but you're not considering storm water drainage. There's a reason to engineer lots of flat sloping concrete surfaces leading to gutters and proper drainage so you don't get your bike caught in a bunch of mud!
@@votamlchar5930 No I have to disagree. What you think a green space would look like is a park. Parks are artificial biospheres. They cannot exist in their form without ongoing maintenance. A real green space wouldn't have much grass in it but lots of bushes and trees. Those have the advantage that they can store a lot of water by themselves to overcome dry periods and they will relief a lot of stress off of the sewers during wet periods by refilling their inner reservoirs.
Non-sealed ground can also hold a lot of water before puddles are formed.
Of course people need resting places and therefore parks are still needed but conventional parks shouldn't be considered real green spaces. A good mixture of both is required to accommodate the needs of the citizens and cooling down the environment of the cities.
As far fetched as it may seem for super blocks to appear in America, most universities have a very similar design to that of the super blocks described. They are primarily areas where you can walk to classes and parking is meant mostly for the few commuters who got to class and residents living on campus. Of course every campus is different and some are more spread out or more self contained, but I think a lot of Americans have at least one point encountered this pedestrian friendly design at one point on these campuses.
Now we just need to attract conservatives into college campuses with majors on Cultural Marxism critique, courses on how Greeks & Romans were white and Pentagon-funded “pre-enlistment/commission” military pipeline programs.
People tend to forget that European cities like Barcelona were built before there were cars. Also, people tend to forget that the urban form evolves over time, and that evolution is influenced by the technology and economy available.
So the "superblock" idea is really just an idea for pre-car cities to roll back the clock to the 19th century: it's pretty much inapplicable in most modern environments. And no, you can't build a new "superblock" development, because the residential & commercial landscape has to evolve into its efficient form over decades or centuries.
@@Hastur876 Aside from Las Vegas, which cities of the USA were built after there were cars? American cities used to be very much like european cities: they were rebuilt for cars. They can be re-rebuilt back for people.
I thought there were going to be big parks in the middle of the buildings, like a giant shared backyard.
All of the great pedestrian cities like Venice, Italy, Lower Manhattan or Seville, Spain had little to no urban planning. The cities developed spontaneously and because of the value of the land developed at a high density. Unfortunately modern urban planning has led to the zoning codes and car dominated environment we have everywhere today.
American modern urban planning*
Why did you specifically point out Lower Manhattan? Upper Manhattan (North of 96th East of Central Park, and North of 110th West of Central Park) is just as, if not more, walkable than Lower Manhattan (South of 14th), and actually the neighborhood with the highest car ownership rate in the Borough, Tribeca, is in Lower Manhattan. And Midtown, the UES, and the UWS are even denser and possibly more walkable than both.
Or maybe it's rather that those cities are hundreds of years old and there were no cars back then + American politicians are 90% incompetent hogs who care about corporate interest rather than quality of life for people. You tryna spin this to be some kind of a pro-ancap position
@@peachyjam9440 American cities were very compact in the early 1900s, but after WW2 they bulldozed much of their cities to make space for parking and highways. They made their cities unfriendly to walk in.
Umm yes they had urban planning,urban planning existed back in Europe since Roman times,Britain was completely rebuilt from scratch after the London Fire as a great example.Cities dont just spontaneous come to be,there are laws that make them look they way they do and policies,cause you know,we live in a society that consciously creates its own environment for the most part.This isn’t a problem of planning per say but what you plan for,most cities since 1930 have planned for massive car infrastructure and so look mostly ugly and doll,doesn’t have to be that way.This video is how some cities are rebuilding through planning to become more pedestrian friendly rn.
When it comes to getting things like this properly implemented, a key factor is spreading the word. If people don't know that current cities are a problem, they won't understand why a solution to them is necessary. Just make sure to do your best to tell the people around you that things could be better, and that you can all work towards making it that way.
@RedJoker Would it... be too random to recommend you a science-youtube-channel?
I mean, just for the simple reason that the learning never ends?
@RedJoker we also need to learn how to create compelling messaging for us to be effective. You can convince people of anything if you're good enough.
@Failed Society from socialist republic to conservative state, what a horrible transformation
@@MrTaxiRob In many places, conservatism is a leftover of socialist occupation, not a change.
@@fellinuxvi3541 socially? Yes I suppose so, generally speaking. But I was referring to the Bavarian Soviet Republic specifically.
“The silent majority: non-drivers”
*cries in phoenix*
The silent majority is not in a car at any given moment.
Phoenix is so dreadful to live in, now that I know how terrible it is lol
@@MemberHomei but factually most (ie more than half in the western world) families own cars. it cant be a majority if its less than 50% :)
@@mattmurphy7030 Definitely not! I've lived in Phoenix for five years without a car, first just using public transit and then getting an electric bicycle. It's been the worst experience and I'm leaving for Denver in a month.
@@tarateom Nearly all families own a car. Even in the biggest cities.
Right when you introduced the point safety, a cyclist in front of my window on the street was almost run over by a car. What a coincidence.
I have an anecdote about noise pollution:
In 1976 in Argentina under the military dictatorship the military junta did a vast campaign against noise pollution which, funnily enough, didn't contain any policy proposal but only consisted of a massive billboard campaign.
Those billboards were everywhere. They even installed a rotating billboard around the Buenos Aires obelisk with the campaign slogan written on it, the obelisk being the massive monument to the independence which stands on the most transited roundabout of the city.
What was this slogan? "SILENCE IS HEALTH". Weird how this sounds like a threat, am I right? Almost as if that was the real purpose all along.
It kind of set the tone for what living in this era felt like.
Here is a video of the obelisk rotating billboard if you are curious: ruclips.net/video/oWWomN-g-h0/видео.html
That's hilarious! I can only imagine the sound levels at this roundabout lol
@@shift-happens It wasn´t exactly hilarious back then. You have to think that there were death squads driving around the city "disappearing" political opponents.
@@themroc8231 I didn’t know, thanks for sharing. At first glance it indeed made me remember a bit of the “Arbeit macht frei” from the Nazis…
The “hilarious” was just to highlight the contrast between the noise level and the message on the obelisk
"How are we going to reduce noise pollution without drastically limiting citizens ability to use cars?"
"Who cares just put up some propaganda"
a part of me also wonders if it was unintentionally successful by having people avoid the signage therefore driving less or at least less packed
I don't speak spanish, but salud sounds a lot like "salut" in french wich means salvation. Silence is salvation is indeed a thing under a military dictatorship, shut your mouth or else....
Some suburbs near me have closed off their streets downtown to make room for outdoor dining areas per lockdown restrictions. Even when indoor dining reopened, the streets remain closed to allow for more pedestrian traffic and outdoor dining. I would be happy if it stays this way indefinitely.
Ahhhh, no. Living in Germany and not in Berlin or Singapore, I have to suffer the results of cityplaning that only follow the recomendations of this limited video. It is missing the key ingredient for superblocks to work, cheap, efficient, RELIABLE , omnipresent PUBLIC TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE.
In my city non of the above exists, the result, the inner city is dying, Shops are closing and I have not visited it for the last 6 month.
Its good to have the city center itself as one big superblock but more must not be done before public transit infrastructure is built. When anti car ideologists push for superblocks and force flowerpots on lanes and parking lots they forget that their actions create resistance and when moderate green realists ask for a tram later they have to deal with results in form of Nimbys. If moderate green realists pull them and the car ideologists equally from their political thrones we may see trams beeing built like in France but sadly both extremes are leading the debate.
This new editing is amazing, makes the videos a lot better. Glad you hired them.
Him :P
In the historic centre of Florence (Italy) the sidewalks are so narrow that you have to walk down them single file. Yet the roads are always wide enough both for parked and passing cars.
For a city that for a centuries thrived on prioritising pedestrian traffic, and built its urban fabric around that fact, it’s baffling that this is now the status quo.
I've noticed on Google street view that Italian cities very frequently have this problem, where they try to jam as many parking spaces onto a street as possible.
And it's often done with perpendicular spaces, which IMO should never really exist on streets in urban areas, partly because they make cycling even more dangerous than it already is, where instead of the worst case scenario of a car hitting you at a slight angle, they can hit you head-on (or more accurately butt-on) and it will probably be at at slightly higher speed.
The silliest part of it though is that, due to the high population density of Italian cities, shoving in all those parking spots will still not usually create enough parking for the majority of people in the neighborhood to even own car.
Marseille, 4 lanes for cars (including 2 for parked ones) and a sidewalk not large enough to walk side by side. Also fucking Tmax parked everywhere on said sidewalks.
Italian cities are an interesting mix of being both kinda overwhelmed with cars but yet also being friendly to pedestrians, in part of course due to the touristic value a city center like that offers.
One little piece of convenience I like that I haven't seen much elsewhere is that if they have traditional cobble stone pavement in areas they tend to lay a "lane" of smoother stone through it, for bikes and similar. You'll know the difference that makes if for example you walk around the German city of Ulm.
Also something I personally like but that's obviously unlikely to be adopted at this late stage: be like Bologna and have practically all sidewalks be arcades. Provides shade, gives extra space, is just kinda neat in general. Okay, not friendly for city greenery, but that's not unsolvable.
@@nunyabusiness1489 you’re so right. Some “smarter” solutions I’ve sometimes seen is that the city creates multi-storey parking underneath parks and other public spaces, primarily for residents. It should in theory remove parking while keeping the parks in tact, but there’s the side effect of the public spaces being marred by the entrance/exit ways plus the ventilation vents needed for the spaces below. But it’s at least preferable to the majority of a city centre just being an open air car park!
@@Sp4mMe love Ulm, used to stop in the city with my family when we were travelling down to Italy. The trams were super convenient and the city was really pretty
Closest i’ve been to super blocks (after leaving the US) is the city of Nantes in France. A few areas mostly for pedestrians, large flat spaces with only pedestrians with a few bicycles and tram.
It felt LIBERATING to walk there. I don’t live there though, I live in another city in France, but it still has more pedestrian space than I’ve ever been accustomed to in the US.
You should try visiting the Netherlands sometime, like 90% of our streets are one way and it’s amazing. Kids play in the streets, people say hello to each other when passing, cats actually get to go outside.
@@shroomer8294 What if you don’t like people saying hello I personally would prefer a person passing by me to keep that mouth shut and keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves as I do the same. Not to be a party pooper but there’s just a lot of generally terrible people scattered or peppered into the mix that use hello’s as as an opportunity to rob or violate a person. It happens to the city I live in all the time.
@@nessesitoburrito8873 If you don’t like someone saying hello to you there’s an incredibly simple solution for that: just don’t respond. Your basically complaining about having to be a little polite to a stranger and then using a completely unrelated problem to justify that. If someone is going to rob you saying “hey” isn’t the deciding factor in that, that’s ridiculous.
This video made me realise i've been living in what is essencially a superblock almost my whole life. It's a residencial area designed during the communist era and has all the features that you've described. It's surrounded by major streets, has good public transport connections, all paths inside are mainly for people, not cars, there's tons of greenery and trees.
Point is, this place was designed and built almost 40 years ago, so superblocks sound like a fancy modern spin on an old idea to me, which in this case is not bad, like, i've lived here and i can tell you it's lovely :)
Probably because individual car ownership wasn't a government priority, as it was in a lot of countries in the west. Turns out, the communists were right about that one.
@@SomePotato Communists (the original ones) were not ideologically opposed to car ownership at all compared to the modern ones. My town of ~15000 in communist Czechoslovakia used to have more free parking than it has now. The innability for many ordinary citizes to afford cars was due to the focus of the planned economy on heavy industry and weapons manufacturing instead of consumers.
@@laszu7137 I didn't say they opposed car ownership, I said they didn't make it a priority. In the west, since the 50s and 60s, car ownership was incentivised by the government.
@@SomePotato Just because you allow producers to freely choose what product to make hardly counts as incentivisation.
@@laszu7137 Building your cities around the car and highways throughout the country and changing your laws for the benefit of cars does count as incentivising.
North American Cities: "Write that down!"
NIMBY's: "I'm going to end this man's career"
Bold of you to assume North American cities - for the most part - would want this.
@@Mirach84 Like he said, NIMBY's will shoot down anything good, in the name of "property values".
@@startreking people like cars? There is a saying that for Europeans an hour walk is no big deal. For Americans an hour drive is no big deal
@@brandywales8200 but one is infinitely worse for the planet, you, and society as a whole.
@@brhim5731 yes but let's not act like there aren't valid reasons to want car based city planning. The United States is huge compared to Europe with a ton of people who live rurally. While I think it works for some places especially along the east coast there are plenty of places where this wouldn't be the ideal.
During Covid my home town got sorta superblocked on the Main Street. The town realized nearly every resturaunt would die on Main Street with social distancing ordinances. So they closed down most of the streets that spurred off like 3 blocks of Main Street on the north side and used it for public gathering space and resturaunt patios which after most of the restrictions were lifted the streets weren’t taken back. It didn’t hurt traffic and it brought the town together and helped local businesses. From what I understand, until some idiot petitions the Main Street will remain slightly less car friendly
you better form a party to preemptively strike down any said idiot
Damn what city? Or country at least?
Wording is important. They not car unfriendly but livable for pedestrians
Having lived in Korea and soon moving to Japan, I feel like a lot of their cities already work partially like this. Significant portions of cities are comprised of groups of tiny streets with minimal road markings that are only really meant to be used by residents, so it'd be very easy to make a full switch.
I don't think just small streets would cut it. London also has small street, and are still jammed with drivers taking shortcuts through the areas. And that's why LTN (Low Traffic Neighborhood) schemes are being implemented. And that's something this video doesn't mention: superblock is only one out of many types of LTNs. London is using barriers instead of one-way systems to prevent through-traffic, either physical bollards or cameras. The Netherlands uses a combination of both, one-ways systems and bollards. Have you seen what Ghent has done? Watch the Streetfilms video on them.
Do your residential streets circle back to the same main road?
@@C0deH0wler In Tokyo the traffic in this areas are super small and basically only people who live there or visitors and they drive very slow. I think this is because the major roads are fluid and work better than going though this areas. And also Japanese people are different in their behavior than western people. I noticed they drive much slower than people in the EU, despite having more relaxed traffic laws.
@@cherubin7th Japanese will do anything in their power to not cross on a red light
We have a few "home zones" in Bristol. They typically have a brick surface and planters to tactfully reduce traffic speeds, and they remove pavements to encourage pedestrians to utilise the street. There are plenty of narrow streets of Victorian terraces that could do with this treatment but funding is not forthcoming.
How does removing pavements encourage pedestrians to utilise the street? 🤪
@@sunnyjim1355 when you have low enough traffic (ie essentially pedestrianised or near enough) you don't need a demarcation between road and pavement. You just have the street.
You examples of these in non-explicitly pedestrianised areas a fair bit in Japan.
They're called "shared spaces", which involve removing the border between pavement and road, and reducing car speeds drastically. Everyone shares the same street. Studies have shown them to boost economic activity in nearby shops and make communities more cohesive. Negatives involve difficulties for people with sight difficulties, but there are ways around this, such as including tactically placed trees and benches to make an area inaccessible to cars for them to use.
We have these in Germany as well, but they are still quite rare. They are officially called "traffic calming area", or colloquially "play street". The English Wikipedia calls the concept "living street".
@@sunnyjim1355 When there's little to no cars, people can pretty much walk wherever they want in any direction. That includes on the actual road itself.
I'm studying ecology atm and I think a small point worth bring up is that car free areas of cities are also a massive help to wildlife in urban habitats!
Less roadkill as an obvious start and also roads filled with cars (and there pollutants) fragment habitats inside of a city.
I'd put money on super blocks having better biodiversity than the rest of the area they're in!
Heck yeah! Glad to see your videos still got the old Something charm!
Damn, this channel has actual editing for once and not a blank picture. Good shit Adam Something, keep it up
Ooooh,so basically ZTL zone "Zona a traffico limitato" --> "Limited Traffic Zone". Nice
si in effetti è come la ztl
Sì l'idea è praticamente mettere tante ZTL adiacenti e separate da grandi vie per le auto
when I will move to Malta, I won't bother with new driving licence. for what? you can literally bike across the country in one day
Preach. I live in Bergen, Norway, and I don't have a driver's license. You can get everywhere by public transport, often faster than by car.
I would be interested in your thoughts on how different London boroughs have implemented what we call Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. The residents living inside them are relatively content, but they have enraged a group of people who used to enjoy driving through these areas and are now unable to.
Residents first IMO.
I suspect Barcelona has avoided this to an extent (they definitely haven't avoided it completely from what I read when these first came about) because the relatively low levels of car ownership in the centre where these are being implemented.
London and other UK cities, particularly in the areas where these are actually being implemented are lower density with higher levels of car ownership.
When the Netherlands (where the density is more similar to UK cities) started to push back against cars in the cities and make things safe for cycling etc in the 70s it really looked so ridiculously similar to the opposition to LTNs and cycle lanes.
I suspect most places when you get to smaller cities or lower density areas this fight will repeat everywhere again and again.
Also because of the messed up way London is organised and the boroughs control this stuff the most obvious places for LTNs to start is in the centre and highest density areas and move outward. But Westminster and RBKC are rabid pro-car anti-LTN, anti-pedestrisation anti-cycle lane tory bastards.
But Waltham Forest shows implement it properly with reallocation of space and realm improvement and it becomes immensely popular areas will start to ask for LTNs. Although there will be a few nutjobs on twitter who will never let it go even though 95% of residents approve etc.
Also it has to do with where political control falls. Hidalgo has only been able to implement the major cycling and low car policies in Paris in part because she doesn't have to get elected by the parisian suburbs where car ownership levels are 60%+ she's elected from areas where car ownership levels are 30% or less.
Quite frankly, you don't have a right to drive through my neighborhood. You're free to drive into my neighborhood, but not through.
@@SomePotato Well, that's one view. I'd recommend that in the construction of superblocks, we don't make it TOO difficult to drive in the city. That will generate a constituency against superblocks. Not too far from where I live in the US, we have a superblock that occurred organically. It's an area with main thoroughfare roads on the outside, small roads within, a train station in the middle, and a mixture of commercial and moderate density residential. It is one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the area. My own town is punctured by a major road, and that just ruins it.
@@incognitotorpedo42 Just as they did in Barcelona, or as they do in the Netherlands in general, there will of course be roads to go from superblock to superblock. But if you want to go from block A to block B, there is no need to drive through block C. You can drive around it. That's the whole idea.
Car companies dislike this video.
Another solution for urban planning that can be applied on an even bigger scale is dividing a city into several districts where cars can't drive from one district to another. Instead, they need to take a ring road to get to the district eliminating through traffic which decreases noise and air pollution and journeys take much longer making people switch to alternative modes of transportation. Due to decreased car demand, even more space can be made free for pedestrians and cyclists. This takes superblocks to a whole new level. This has already been applied in Ghent, Belgium, Leuven, Belgium and Houten, Netherlands and has been proposed to be implemented in Birmingham and Paris.
For a low-density surburb, it will be hard to get most residents to use the bus. It is possible, but there will need to be public van network to get people to the bus stops, otherwise the number of people living within the service area of a bus stop will be so small that it will take more than 10 stops on a route to fill up the bus. With public vans, a bus should be mostly filled after one or two stops, and that should enable hub-and-spoke logistics.
@@ayoutubechannelname Random question: Know Sci Man Dan?
@@ayoutubechannelname Yes, for that reason zoning codes need to be changed drastically so those suburbs can rebuild buildings with higher density so bus service gets more usable.
Ans you end up with traffic jams and more noise and air pollution. You first need a good transport system ans when you start to see a decline in the use of cars you implement this car banning
@@jrotela This wouldn't ban cars though. And yeah, public transport is a necessity but there are also bikes.
Also, since distances by cars would increase, it gets more convenient and quicker to use other modes of transportations like public transport and especially bikes
I'm from the Netherlands and I feel that quite some cities have implemented step 1-3 already in a lot of neighbourhoods, but then leave it at that. And while they are nice and quiet streets, although still sometimes used for cut-through traffic, they are still completely packed with parked cars from residents. Even if the city has good or even great public transport, there are still so many damn cars that even the quiet streets are packed. And then step 4 never happens and they stay regular streets.
It's certainly difficult as a car-owning resident to have to deal with too many limitations. After all, you paid for the car, pay monthly for the parking spot, and when you moved in everything seemed okay. Now the city starts effectively penalizing you -- and even though you'd gladly use more public transport, you already own a car and want to make use of it. But selling it is also not really an option yet, because there's always use cases for a car, however rare.
If the city persists in its policy, over years the more car-oriented residents will move out, and year by year fewer cars should be around. It just takes time.
@@patrickgono6043 if you only use the car on rare occasions, why not just use a rental car whenever you need to drive longer distances and just ditch the car altogether? With the prices of insurance, fuel and maintenance, added with the devaluation of second hand cars, there's no financial sense to own one unless your job absolutely needs it.
> Cries in German.
Living in Cologne, I can only dream of what you already have in the Netherlands.
@@mato8225 cars for passion projects. Stuff like classic cars, owners clubs and collectors
"While someone living in Phoenix or Miami or other affronts to God"
God that one hurt. Its not wrong, but its still painful.
I live in Barcelona, and I can confirm that superblocks are a huge improvement for the quality of life in the city. When you walk through them you feel like you are in a utopian city simulation, as there are children running around, people talking and playing chess, etc. It's something we have become unaccustomed to, but that's what a city should be like. Of course, there is a part of the population of Barcelona that criticizes the superblocks (mainly conservative people), but fortunately, we have had a socialist mayoress for a few years now, who little by little is taking land away from cars and giving it to the citizens.
I live in Barcelona and can say the "temporary" ugly trees and painted asphalt continues here after freaking more than 5 years. Only place they're doing that the right way, repaving streets at sidewalk level and planting a bit of greenery (it should be more in my opinion), oh surprise, the rich neighbourhoods at the Esquerra de l'Eixample.
And car traffic at neighbouring streets of superblocks has skyrocketed. Without better public transit out of the city (the majority of cars come from outside BCN) this shit doesn't really work.
PD: And superblockd are dirty af, clean the city a bit please, that's what we pay taxes for...
Edit: Oh, and for the children playing blablabla part, haven't you been to a park?? Xd
Option 3. Guerilla superblocking: buy one way signs online and put them up yourself ;-)
and make them all go to the same point trapping drivers
@@solarsatan9000 Make all of them point outwards and enjoy a car free space.
based
@@solarsatan9000 Paris did that by mistake at one point. Tim traveler had the time to go check the impossible intersection: ruclips.net/video/acohr2rC74M/видео.html
@@BlairdBlaird No they didn't. They used no entry signs, not one way signs!
The quality of your videos have improved insanely. Did you hire a new editor or did you learn After Effects?
Hey, this is an actual positive video I can send somebody to show them how we can improve the system without getting into the "right vs left" debate. Thanks!
You say that like right wingers would have no problems using more public transportation and less cars, lmao
@@inigo137 true, nothing really changes their minds, but to moderates, it's a much easier sell because, taken at a glance, it seems outside the realm of left versus right. Only once we really dig into it (car companies lobbying, etc.) do the political elements become apparent.
@@inigo137 it's really hard to convince people to think in a centrist-left/leftist way when every video feels either aggressive or catastrophic. I don't care about right wingers, they're a lost cause, but people who don't really have an opinion built in is the objective and this video could help open their minds.
And I never understand why this is considered a right vs. left issue in the first place. Superblocks is unarguably a great way to help local businesses thrive, so logically it should be cherished by right wing people too.
@@ramochai mostly because the mass media shows these things like "oppressive" to your "rights" or "government intervention". And, with the polarization in our current society, that's like a PTSD trigger for right wingers.
There is no political party in my country that supports this, sadly.
and I live in one of the worst "Car only" shit states too :/
I hadn't really connected it before, but the ENTIRE city center in my town (Uppsala, Sweden) is basically a huge superblock. Almost every road in a 0.5km² area is either a one-way street, a half bike/half car street, a pedestrian street, a mixed traffic space, or a bus-only street. Driving through the city center is almost impossible, so all the traffic is delegated to a few main artery roads around it.
I'm sure this isn't uncommon, and Uppsala is a relatively small town (pop. 200,000), but if traffic could drive through, I am sure that it would kill the city center here. Being able to walk across (or on!) almost any road at almost any time is surprisingly underappreciated.
"any step in the right direction, is by definition, a good thing." get out of here with your crazy non-extremist, common sense content!
It's crazy how different America is. I have only met one person in my life that didn't have a driver's license and atleast 1 car. Most have 2 or 3. I live in a pretty rural area and we don't really have any busses or public transport. We have trains but they only haul cargo. (I've never seen a passenger train IRL but I did ride a city bus once) cars are just required to exist here. Nobody delivers food and it's a 30min drive to the closest store or restaurant. Couldn't imagine living in the city being that close to people. There are downsides like no internet except dodgy cell service and if you need an ambulance, fire truck or the police your in for one hell of a wait but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I hope the city's get their problems fixed if anything just for the quality of life for people there but all in all I'd say just move and spread out a bit. Nobody has a genuine reason to live in a city. (In America where we have room at least)
Reasonable proximity to work? Reasonable proximity to necessary goods and services? Proximity to friends and or family for emergencies or pleasure? Access to recreational spaces? Socializing with people outside of your household?
There are an insane amount of reasons to live in the city, especially in modern day lmao
You said "no internet" as if the internet is not the most revolutionary vehicle for information transfer ever and as if it is insanely close to being a necessity in society.
Not insanely close*
@@dugsbunnyog3544 I love distances, i like it when i have to travel to somewhere to get something or to go to work. Well i like driving so i like it when i have ti drive😂
The based anti-car action continues
indeed comrade
Extremely based and real
Extremely based towards healthier and happier city life.
Pro car already has billions of PR for over a century.
Except it's not anti-car, but pro-people, pro-health.
It just happens to be the case that you can't achieve this with cars in a dense urban setting.
I am an American and have a Masters in Political Philosophy. I study history, see where the world is going and can confidently say the US will not move in this direction any time soon. The gravestone of humanity will partly read: “Those darn Americans… never learnt to play nice with other nations, loved individually consuming too much and loved public goods too little.”
Option 3 to get superblocks in your city: Make yourself some one way road signs and engage in vigilante urban planning!
"Vigilante urban planning" is when you decide where to put the Batsignal.
City planning is an issue that I am actually quite hopeful about, most of the solutions have already been devised and we pretty much have all the technology we need to construct beautiful, happy and green cities.
haha
how do we convince car polluted, sprawled out, Canada/ America to do this?
It's slowly becoming cultural as newer generations are getting sick of car dependency.
Almost like soviet city planners were onto something.
With how little parking is available when I drive to Chicago, it is hard to imagine that getting rid of more parking would be a good thing.
And that is just for me when I visit from my town two hours away from Chicago. It would be an absolute nightmare for people who have to commute there from an hour away daily for work.
The only solutions that I can think of just move the parking lots out of the city to Public Transportation hubs of some kind, which would likely have the issue of adding even more travel time from your home to your end destination.
Let's say that you commute an hour per direction to get to your job, on a route or at a time that doesn't have major traffic issues (i.e. long traffic jams). With an 8 hour work day, and a half hour lunch, your time from leaving home to returning home is about 10 1/2 hours. Now we change that to a 45 minute commute each way to the public transportation hub and assume that there is always enough parking available. The leg of the trip on public transportation is slowed down by a multitude of train or bus stops, and possibly having to switch from one form of public transit to another.
It would not be unreasonable to think that that the replacement for the 15 minutes of car driving would be replaced by 45 minutes or more of public transportation. Assuming that it is only 45 minutes, the total commute time increase is a full hour, making your previous 2 hour total commute time (already absurd) 3 hours or more, and a total of 11 1/2 or more hours away from home, just for 8 hours of work.
In Belgium we have a solution for that. It's called P+R (Park & Ride). Huge parking lots at the edge of the city, usually with a tram stop. Linkeroever is one of them. That one grew kinda naturally as it's, as the name suggests, located at the left bank of the river (Antwerpen is on the right). So people park their car, cross the river and visit the city. You have three options: tram, pedestrian tunnel or the "waterbus" ferry. Or if you like stress, you can take the infamous Kennedy tunnel to the city :-). P+R's are either free or €1 per day.
You can have a great city, or you can have great parking. Choose one.
“Vote for the right party” all parties worked together x) it’s just during the voting time that they play the “we are different “ cards.
This guy hates cars
And he’s right
And that's based
3:23 - I love how you included the "Shared space of doom" (Called so by our right-wing vice mayor) at Graz. It's on my daily route every morning, mostly by bike, and works for everyone great unless you have to drive a car through there. In general, Graz is mostly well-planned. Small mega blocks are a thing and bike infrastructure gets better every year.
Also great video, best regards from Austria!
When your right-wing vice mayor doesn't like it, you know you're on the right track! 👍
I've noticed this is actually already being implemented in the country I live in (Belgium). The city I live in (leuven) and many others are already setup this way. We call it making city centers "car-shy". In the city center of Leuven almost all streets are one way, though very easily accesible by public transport. I know there are a couple other main cities in Belgium that are using the same tactics, basically discouraging the use of cars in city centers. I think it's a great step forward :).
In Gent too. I've been in a 'Superblock'. It's like a maze of one-way streets and finding parking is hell. But the result is worth it!
Here in Barcelona this so called 'tactical urbanism' was very critisized by the majority of the opposition parties. Some boomers still complain about stupid shit regarding these new urban policies, but time is starting to tell they made the right choice, and indeed the city has become a better place.
Honestly, my hometown is already slowly taking steps to become a kinda superblock. Recently they decided to put large parking areas outside the city for non-residents and if they wana park inside the city, they can only park for 2 hours at most. For residents they can park in certain zones for an unlimited amount if time. The city itself already had narrow roads soo the one way system thing had already been a thing where i'm from, sooo yeah..
Edit: they are also reducing the parking spaces around the city centre and replacing it with a more recreational area (the works for that have already begun)
the concept of the superblock reminds me of Beijing's Hutongs(胡同), where low density housing (most of them are one or two stories) is surrounded by major roads with six lanes. Inside the Hutongs, roads are about 2m wide and are barely possible for a car to go through, so even without the official traffic signs, drivers will avoid going into these Hutongs instinctively. Being outside the Hutongs you will feel the noisy and NOT pedestrian-friendly Beijing, but inside Hutongs, its residents are chilling on the roads, and it does bring you a peace of mind by simply walking into these superblock Hutongs..
But car go vroom
Ps:love the videos keep it up
absolutely love the editing
I love my car more than myself
"All you need is a political leadership not made up of car-centric boomers"
So in other words, this isn't gonna happen. ='(
Might happen but not soon.
In germany there was a recent voting were such partys had big losses
I need a car for my work
The thing that concerns me about superblocks as described here is the pricing restrictions on local parking; it might push low-income populations out of their homes and accelerate gentrification if not carefully handled, by adding an additional cost on top of rent and whatnot (assuming that the people in question need cars, which depends on the city but is often the case in America). Essentially it sounds like superblocks could potentially become a sort of inner-city suburb or gated community, which the rich would flee to and leave the poor to deal with the loud, congested and polluted areas of the city.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think its just a terrible idea in the US. We will fuck it up and make everything way worse
Even then it would give mixed zoned places that are nicer to visit in the city, it is way more dense, efficiënt and with less commuters. And though areas might gentrify it would also spur new development so less mansion suburbs.
So i'd still call it an improvement, you are right though affordable housing always needs to be taken into account.
you say that like its a bad thing?
im pro gentrification.
@@Infected_Apple im com pletely agains the ideas in this video. but i will agree with you here, mixed zoning is a good idea. the one and only thing i'd like close to my house is places to eat. and maybe a small grocery store.
i live in the city and loathe it. saving up to move out to a more rural area to get away from all these people. and i dont even live in a big city by US standards.
Hmm...I'm all on-board in principle. My issue with Barcelona's superblock design is just that I really don't like the idea of living in a grid-city, with a bunch of identical sub-units. Although Barcelona is still lovely, in most contexts it feels more than a little bit dystopic. I also just love meandering around my (old European) city and discovering hidden nooks and crannies, and seeing what people do with weird bits of space.
I am pretty sure this is simular to the "micro district" of the former Soviet Union (which, City Beautiful has already covered), but larger.
Hope it does not come with the starving
@@MaQuGo119 Pretty sure it's starving free (not the micro district, but the superblock).
OR if you lived in Hungary during that era, you were very unlikely to be starving.
Most of cities in Poland already have something like that
@@axo6604 ...are you Polish by any chance?
*note, silly question prolly.
@@robertbalazslorincz8218 Yes, why?
Parking for residents only won`t help. In Prague there is a blue zones and parking only for residents. Non residents pay 2 euro per hour. And every street if filled with cars. Only solution is to ban parking for residents and only leave parking for disabled.
This dude sounds like he could work for the Combine….
4:30 Number 3: *In Thanos's voice* "Fine, I'll do it myself." *joins elections*
"silent majority" bruh here in australia we love our cars its not a silent majority at all
Seriously WTF??? How about homeless
Being number #1?? I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, with over 8 million people. NEVER EVER ONCE have I said “oh man the noise what ever will I do??” NEVER!!!! LACK OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING is #1 by a trillion miles!!
I'd like to be able to walk the 3 blocks to 7/11 without risking getting hit crossing the intersections with the light without crappy Denver drivers trying to hit me in the cross walk 3-4 times a WEEK.
Am I supposed to WALK from place to place?! What tyranny is this?
Public Transport: Am I a joke to you?
No , you just have to take 3 buses and a train to get 4 blocks, oh and a half mile walk...lol! :)
@@Tonker_APS Where I live it totally is a joke. 2-3 hours to get across town in Charlotte N.C. if you don't get murdered...lol
@@CB7ism That is absolutely dreadful.
Can you do a video on Japanese Urbanism I think it's an interesting concept for more capitalist countries like America and Canada.
Air pollution is much worse than noise pollution.
Death from respiratory related disease is the second biggest killer.
No-one dies from noise.
I think we hugely underestimate the unconscious stress levels caused by noise. We evolved as creatures of the open savanna, where the wind, wild creatures, and human conversation formed the sound backdrop. Now we are barraged with noise in any urban or semi-urban environment, where most of us live. I don't think there has been much research on this subject, but I only have to get to a place where there is no urban hum to realise how tense the mechanised noise of daily living makes me.
Still not the solution for any Indian City🙂
India's a whole case study in itself
Indian Cities are the ultimate level on hardcore difficulty of urban planning
We were in Barcelona last October and it was really noticeable. There are a lot of trees and shaded places also.
remind me of Japan's cities: robust public transport + every necessary is accessible by foot = safe and lively streets that don't take a shit ton of space..
The most important aspect is the demographics. Japan is safe and clean because it has a homogenous Japanese population. Cities like that are only possible in a high-trust society.
@@HornetsNestRebel I live in the shithole crime ridden country, but it do have a lot of public transpo and necessary stuff is accessible by foot or public things,
More Public transport and dedicated streets that only allow resident parking are more important and easier to apply in smaller cities.
Complete pipe dream, 95% of current cities would have to be bulldozed and rebuilt to make this even remotely applicable. Also, I'd be interested to know how a superblock is supposed to contain a large factory, power plant, or facility that creates large amounts of pollution. If they can't, how are people supposed to get to them? And how are you supposed to move large amounts of goods around a super block? I don't think a semi-truck is fitting down a city road turned faux college campus.
You know they would not be build in industrial areas.
Never heard the term before but you're basically just describing Dutch cities
if you compare Barcelona and St. Petersburg, there is much more greenery in St. Petersburg, although it is located much north of Barcelona.
Anyone who's been on La Rambla in Barcelona knows how refreshing it is to be in a people centered city.
Anyone who's been to to La Rambla knows to avoid la rambla
@@Gewehr_3 On the plus side, you can easily access the very walkable districts Barri Gòtic and El Raval via La Rambla.
Consider that Las Ramblas is very touristic street and have few hundreds of residents in all the 1.3 km. Also the entire "Gotic" quarter have
In America, the vast majority (~82%) of people own a car. It sounds great for a place where the majority of people do not own one but for places like the US with little-to-no public transit, there has to be parking zones or nobody would visit.
What is Adam Somethings thoughts on underground parking?
call them "Hyperblocks" and you get funding immediately .
In London, we call them LTNs (Low Traffic Neighbourhoods)
Also 3:13, there's a typo, you spelt it "trafic" not "traffic"
you forgot the underground parking and underground passing roads. i live in a huge block where all the cars go under the pedestrian zone straight to the parking.
4:04 It was interesting to note that every photograph showed hard paved areas with planting boxes. Without constant maintenance, planting boxes quickly become depressingly unsightly. Large areas of hard landscape settle, leading to poor drainage. (See the puddle in the central picture, in front of the cyclist.) Pavement art quickly wears and becomes disagreeable. In short the question is: "Who will bear the cost of maintenance required to keep these pleasant spaces from becoming an eyesore?" Excellent idea in principle but these are images of recently completed projects. The philosophy falls short in regard to the wear factor, I feel.
While I could boast "is this some sort of issue too American for me to understand?" I trully pity American urban planning for making people beg for reform against system that was rigged from the start, while the concept of superblocks is ordinary where I live despite heavy urbanization.
I can't wait for the inevitable Adam Something vs City Beautiful faceoff on Cities: Skylines *TO THE DEATH!*
In Massachusetts, we have the worst public transit. No politician here has ever seen it, they are all pro car, no matter the party.
"ideally with a public transit link" oh no, that'll have to come second in most american cities, or third, or fourth. Still, good stuff.
Not ideally, but it’s mandatory. By limiting cars with no public transportation alternative you’ve committed an atrocity that doesn’t let people go to work or shop.
most neighborhoods in New Orleans already have bus stops just a few mins' walk from any given residential area. keep trying though
@@mnemonic5819 New Orleans and most of Québec in Canada have French style cities so they’re walkable. You’re the exception
Interesting ideas. I just realized that our cities have been designed for car owners only
I live in the 7th district Budapest which you show at your example. I can tell you it really works, less cars, more parking space for residentials and the overcrowded pedestrian areas can free up as you can walk on the road as well. The only downside is that I have to drive around the 6th-7th district superblock to enter from certain directions, making my trip 10-15 mins longer
Cheers from Barcelona!!!!
You will eat the bugs
You will live in pods
You will own nothing
You will be happy
abolishing parking minimums is a terrible idea. You have to end car dependency before you take away parking, otherwise people who are already dependent on cars will simply not have anywhere to park them: a total disaster.
Imagine how lovely this would be. I am in Australia our city planning is moronic at best. No party here is close to caring. Thank you for sharing Adam!
Im guessing that Aussie's coastal-based cities are far-spread than USA cities in general...
A US politician anti car will not surrive one term..
I've lived in a city with a tonne of one-way streets, and let me tell you, that doesn't solve any problems. It actually creates a great deal more.
Let me give you a true inconvenient truth about my city's(Tampa,Fl)Downtown streets compared to its suburbs up north:
-Downtown Tampa has about ~15 one-way streets that go North/South East/West only, there is a bus-only avenue(Marion st.), and no real superblock concepts anywhere inside.
*Driving downtown is confusing as hell! even with experience!*
-Suburbs north of Tampa, have only ~6 one-way major roadways, *but this is the catch:*
-*Not even the walled-off, nor the cul-de-sac neighborhoods have one-way roads!*
neither inside,neither outside!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The solution isn't "adding one way streets" per se. It's creating walkable liveable spaces by doing many things, one of which is adding one way streets to discourage driving. Can you really look at Amsterdam and other dutch cities and say with a straight face "that hasn't solved any problems"?
Good idea on paper, will turn into nightmare in reality, They will turn into little slum blocks fast, or a place for the super wealthy only.
Why would not having cars make a place a slum? more people walking means more people walking into businesses, which means more sales, and a better local economy.
@@robbiealderton1361 I never said the lack of cars would do that. But I do believe everyone should have the right to be able to get a car if they can pass the legal tests. The freedom to go where you wish without relying on public transport and timetables is a wonderful thing. And limits government control of public travel.
The problem is that many of these superblocks can fast if not looked after right or not policed become slums, If you moved all the poor into these areas and they can't find decent work and so turn to the normal methods of crime. They places could fast become slums. Like those seen in them sci-fi films but to a smaller scale of course.
But these places could also take another route, and turn instead into gated communities where only the rich are allowed to live. And they become like their own mini elite clubs.
The problem with superblocks is that they would need proper management and sensible governance. Issue is most governments national or local can't provide that. A lot of communities already end up like slums or gated communities only.
It also depends on how superblocks are constructed as well.
@@RomanHistoryFan476AD I don't understand your thought, you are making it seem like people would not be able to leave.
There would be the same amount of jobs, if not more (most likely added jobs would be service) and people can always go elsewhere in the city to find jobs. The only thing superblocks do is limit through-traffic. Its like a gated community, no through traffic, only residential.
@@robbiealderton1361 People could leave, depending on how the rest of the country is.
These projects sound great and all but like with most grand ideas in reality they falter. Trust me these super blocks would turn into places to dump the poor or create special zones for the super rich. Certain blocks will get special treatment while others get left to rot.
If no vehicles are allowed into the super block how are goods being transported to the needed stores, locations. And what if heavy equipment is needed somewhere in the super block for repairs or other tasks.
I stayed in the La Rambla area of Barcelona. It was amazing.