Barcelona — A triumph in city planning
Barcelona has everything that makes a city great — amazing food, beautiful architecture, interesting history, friendly people, and great public transit. It's no surprise Barcelona is one of the most visited cities in Europe. I was especially excited to visit Barcelona because of all the things I have read regarding its city planning practices — superblocks, plazas, and initiatives to prioritize pedestrians over cars. I really wanted to see these city planning schemes in practice, an eye-opening alternative of what our cities could be.
Amazing Food
I typically get turned off by the idea of tapas in the U.S because they are normally expensive, small portioned, and not necessarily that good. Every other new restaurant opening these days is some kind of fusion tapas place trying to charge more for the same mediocre food. Barcelona taught me what tapas should be and permanently raised the bar for Spanish tapa restaurants in the U.S.
First of all, tapas in Barcelona were not expensive, their smaller portion size is reflected in the price, typically €3–10 per plate. This is great for us since we love trying new things, so we were able to order 5–6 tapas for the two of us and be able to sample various dishes without getting full off a single dish. Our favorite dish was the seafood paella, the amount of flavor absorbed by the rice is ridiculous, so good! An interesting thing we noticed while in Barcelona is the difference in meal schedule in Spain. We are used to 12 pm lunches and 6 pm dinners in the U.S, but in Spain, people typically have lunch between 2–4 pm and dinner after 8:30 pm. This worked in our favor since we would be arriving for lunch and dinner ‘super early’, and we were able to avoid a wait in a few popular places.
While visiting the Fisherman’s Quarter, a seaside neighborhood of Barcelona, we sat down and ordered some drinks and snacks from a local restaurant. It was here that I had the first olives that I actually enjoyed. Every olive that I have ever tried was always bitter and herbal, but the ones that came with our snacks actually tasted delicious, looks like I will be giving olives another chance after all. In addition to snacks, we also ordered a couple of glasses of vermouth while resting. We learned after our second day that drinking vermouth straight is common here, there are vermuterias throughout the city that specialized in serving vermouth, we took a liking for vermouth drinking after the trip.
Lively Streets
One of the first things I noticed upon our arrival in Barcelona was how lively the streets are. The city is full of public parks, plazas, and social spaces for the city residents. Cars are banned in many areas, especially in the Gothic Quarter. During our 2-hour walking tour in the Gothic Quarter, we didn’t have to worry about cars at all. The availability of all these public spaces really spurs lots of organic social interactions within the local community, the result is a city full of life and laughs. Contrasting this to most U.S cities, where cars dominate the streets, and pedestrians have to constantly avoid cars when crossing streets. Large parking lots cause the city to sprawl outwards, the enemy of population density. The cost of this type of city layout, where cars are prioritized over people, is the scarcity of human interactions. People drive around going from parking lot to parking lot, the opportunity for chance encounters is minimal, and organic social interactions are nonexistent. This is especially prevalent in newer west coast cities that expanded after the highways and the automobile became ubiquitous. As a result, west coast cities tend to have better road infrastructure but require car ownership to live in.
Superblocks
Strict zoning practices in the U.S tend to segregate commercial and residential zones, leading to long commute times between houses and stores. In Barcelona however, mixed-use spaces are the norm, and blocks are much larger than normal blocks in the U.S. These superblocks take up an area roughly the size of 3x3 regular blocks, where the center block is reserved for community uses such as playgrounds or swimming pools. I thought this is pretty ingenious because not only does it turn each block into a community, it’s also much more space efficient than having small blocks being divided up by streets. The first level of each block is typically reserved for businesses, while the remainder of the building is for residential use. This mixed-use scheme means that on any given block, you will likely find a lot of things that you typically would have to commute for in the states. Imagine having a grocery store, restaurant, bar, barbershop, and convenience store on every block! Instead of getting in your car every time you need milk, it's just a 2 min walk for most of your day to day needs, the best kind of transit is not needing it at all 😃. Another benefit of having superblocks is less street crossing, instead of crossing 8 streets to walk 9 blocks, you only need to cross 2 streets to cover the same distance. Having such local access to your daily needs also means you can build relationships with your local butcher, florist, or barista, further strengthening the sense of community.
Organized Chaos
Barcelona is a great example of the beauty of organized chaos in architecture. On the same block, you might see dozens of different styles of buildings, some Victorian, some gothic, some glass and steel, all organized by their uniform height. Without needing to impose strict architectural or style standards, simply having a height standard alone can lead to such interesting and varying streets. We really enjoyed walking around the city and observing buildings from different time periods, there was something interesting to see wherever we were. On top of that, there are many interesting looking buildings by famous architects such as Gaudí that really give the city some unique architectural character. Unfortunately, we did not make it inside Sagrada Familia during this trip but will definitely make the effort to visit it next time we visit!
Conclusion
Barcelona beat my expectations on every front, from the amazing tapas to the interesting architecture. It is refreshing to experience an alternate city planning paradigm that brings with it a plethora of direct and indirect benefits. In an age where loneliness is increasingly becoming a major psychological and health risk factor, perhaps the solution can be found in more thoughtful city planning, and Barcelona has shown us a possible implementation that I have fallen in love with.
