Post

It's not what France is known for, but French cities like Paris and Lyon are surrounded by leafy suburbs just like American cities. The proportions are different, but the basic dynamic is broadly similar.

17K

Matthew Yglesias

@mattyglesias

Jun 23

But check out Spain — the countryside is much emptier than non-Nordic Europe even as Madrid and Barcelona are the #2 and #3 metro areas in the European Union.

In Madrid, the basic urban form of walkable street grids, Euroblocks + courtyards, and metro lines extends all the way to the edge of the city at which point the city just stops.

In this outlying area of Madrid you can see the tendrils of three different Metro lines with their surrounding zone of urbanization. Then there's just a gap between them — the city expands (especially because Spain is so good at metro building) but it never "sprawls."

Matthew Yglesias

@mattyglesias

Jun 23

Spanish urban design is cool, but I'm not sure how practical it is. Does it make sense for there to be this wedge of farms between the urban areas of Barcelona and the airport? Isn't that a waste of useful space that could be low-density housing?

Even relatively small Spanish towns are like this. The urban area hits a hard stop and it's countryside. The freeway interchange is at a remove from the historic town, which is normal, but then nothing has been built over by the interchange.

A person who seemed like he knew what he was talking about told me this is the legacy of fortress settlements during the Reconquista but I'm not sure that really holds up as an analysis of a modern phenomenon.

He's asking why US sports stadia aren't in city centres. (Obviously loads are and plenty of European ones aren't.)

What is photographed under Barcelona is in fact half Barcelona and half l’Hospitalet. L’Hospitalet is the 37th most densely populated city in the world.

Is it really that crazy? The concept of having amenities outside cities feels much more Germanic (inc. anglos) than anything else

We can cherry pick some American stadiums too.

Camp Nou when it was just built, in 1954-57. arquitecturacatalana.cat/es/obras/camp-

I feel like the only acceptable answer to this is "because America is rich and spain is poor, so Americans want places to put the large cars that they drive to their large houses, so we have large parking lots. Spain has none of these things because it can't afford them."

Camp Nou is kinda on the edge of Barcelona proper. The Bernabeu is smack in the center of Madrid.

As a practical matter why shouldn't stadiums be out in low density areas? It makes parking easier and frees up urban land for more productive uses. You are at the stadium and you are basically stuck there while the game is on so it doesn't matter what is within a shirt walk.

All of the Anglosphere is very suburbanized. I'm not what is it about speaking english, or the protestantism movement or british colonization that led to that.

1.6K

@wastetime

Jun 23

The analog for camp nou is a college football stadium not in the tri-state

How many houses were torn down in Barcelona to build that stadium?

843

@awpwol

Jun 23

I wouldn’t call the Spanish economy advanced

There is a good Works in Progress piece by Harry law on the density of Spanish cities, which they attribute to late urbanism, and public/private planning efforts

worksinprogress.co

Triumph of the Spanish city - Works in Progress Magazine

The traditional European apartment city has declined almost everywhere. There is one big exception: Spain.