Building a better city
– superblocks in Barcelona
Updated: August 2026
By 2050, 68% of the world’s population will live in cities. We need solutions that redefine urban mobility and development strategy to prepare well for this. What are the views of Europe’s major cities? Today we will look at Barcelona and the ‘superblock’ model.
A city with clean air and a good communications infrastructure, where sustainable public transport is a priority, with dedicated bus lanes and an even more significant number of kilometres of cycle routes. Barcelona is clearly committed to promoting sustainable and healthy ways of getting around. According to data used in the city’s Urban Mobility Plan 2025–2030, more than 80% of journeys are already made on foot, by public transport, bicycle or other forms of micromobility. By 2030, the city aims to increase this share to 85%.
The classic superblock concept involves grouping several neighbouring city blocks – most commonly in a 3×3 arrangement – and moving the main flow of motorised traffic to the streets surrounding the area. Within the superblock, priority is given to pedestrians, cyclists and local traffic. The streets within the superblock become the neighbourhood’s public squares, and the few cars that are allowed to enter do so at a speed of 10 km/h, giving way to pedestrians. This creates a healthy, green, and safe public space that also engages the local community.
“Our computer simulations show that it would be enough to remove 15% of the cars from Barcelona to reclaim 60% of the public space,” says Salvador Rueda, the mastermind behind the superblock idea. “At the heart of the superblock model is the transformation of urban mobility. To meet this challenge, cities need efficient public transport combined with extensive cycling and walking infrastructure”.
LINK TO THE INTERVIEW WITH SALVADOR RUEDĄ:
Blueprint for the Green City of the Future? Interview with Salvador Rueda.
The challenge is daunting because, historically, the focus of urban design has been on motorised transport for decades. Materials accompanying the development of the programme indicated that around 60% of public space was dedicated to cars and that more than a million cars travelled through the city every day.
The superblock model changes this dynamic. It gives priority to pedestrians and sustainable forms of mobility, such as public transport, cycling and walking. The programme also included the goal of ensuring that residents would be no more than 200 metres from the nearest green space. Under plans announced by Barcelona’s previous city administration, streets undergoing transformation in the Eixample district were also intended to be at least 80% shaded by trees, with 20% of their surface remaining permeable. This represented a significant change in the approach to urban design, environmental protection and responding to the effects of climate change.
Today, Barcelona continues to expand green spaces and reclaim urban areas for residents, although these efforts are also being pursued through new programmes. In 2026, the city presented the first 25 of 40 planned projects which, together, are expected to create around 20 hectares of new green and neighbourhood spaces.
The idea seemed controversial when Barcelona began implementing the new ‘superblocks’ in 2016. However, the concept proved effective: reducing motorised traffic brought lower levels of pollution and noise and helped reclaim public space for residents. The green spaces helped mitigate the city’s ‘heat island’ effect. Young children gained new places to play, while former traffic lanes began to serve new purposes. In the following years, the superblock concept was developed on a larger scale, including through the creation of green axes and squares in the Eixample district. In 2025, the Green Axes and Squares of Barcelona’s Eixample project received a New European Bauhaus Prize in the ‘Reconnecting with nature’ category.
According to the city’s then deputy mayor, Janet Sanz, there were real improvements in pollution and noise levels in places where superblocks had been introduced. In Sant Antoni, for example, levels of atmospheric pollutants such as NO2 fell by 25%, while in Glòries, noise levels dropped by 9 decibels. All of this happened while local businesses saw their turnover increase and the number of cars in the superblock area and adjacent streets decreased.
Can Barcelona’s radical urban experiment be more than one city’s strategy and offer a model that could also be applied elsewhere? Nature Sustainability published a study analysing how a similar project could work in other cities equally challenged by the need to reorganise urban space.
“I think the biggest potential of superblocks is that they offer a vision for urban transformation that is not car-centric,” says Sven Eggimann, an urban infrastructure researcher at the Swiss research institute Empa, who authored the study.
Eggimann used an algorithm to analyse the potential of superblocks – or a smaller version of the concept he calls “miniblocks” – in more than a dozen other cities, looking at both traffic flow and population density in each neighbourhood.
The study showed that some other cities with similar structures could easily adopt a similar model. As an example, Eggimann cited Mexico City, where more than 40% of the city could be converted to superblocks with very little disruption to the existing transport system. The study also showed that superblocks are feasible in cities such as Tokyo, which does not have a regular network but is densely populated. In this case, efficient public transport is essential. “The superblock model is particularly interesting because it envisages large-scale change, going beyond the transformation of a single street, and this is where I see its greatest potential,” says Eggimann.
READ THE ENTIRE DOCUMENT:
The potential of implementing superblocks for multifunctional street use in cities,
Sven Eggimann, Nature sustainability.
Changing the approach to environmental sustainability in urban areas is more than just a fad. The increasingly visible effects of climate change are prompting city authorities to make long-term adjustments. The Superblock project in Barcelona is an excellent example of redefining urban mobility. Explore ideas from other cities, such as Tallinn.
In Oslo, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find an area of urban mobility that has not been touched by electrification. It is no longer just cars and a large share of electric buses, but also ferries, taxis and construction machinery. The Norwegian capital demonstrates that the transition to zero-emission solutions can extend far beyond road transport.
For years Vienna has been successfully combining transport policy, urban planning, and public health to improve residents’ quality of life. Moreover, Vienna not only reduces noise but also protects places that are already quiet.
After more than 45 years, trolleybuses have returned to Prague – this time as part of a long-term strategy to electrify the city’s bus network. Modern vehicles using In Motion Charging technology have increased capacity on key routes, reduced emissions, and demonstrated strong operational reliability.
