>>1132187Barcelona's historical pioneering in urbanism has been greatly exaggerated. This is a city that tore down its walls in the mid-19th century. There are even photographs that show the city walls, pic related.
Also the famous Cerdà grid plan was staunchly opposed by Barcelona back in the day because a grid layout was considered "colonial", and the plan was imposed by the central government for just that reason, rejecting a more Paris-style approach of large boulevards presented by some other guy (don't remember who it was). It was just that eventually we learned that a grid works better, and that the Cerdà plan responds much better to modern needs than boulevards and small streets. And still, the "superilla" concept kind of goes in the direction of the boulevard-plan in that it establishes "primary" and "secondary" streets, traffic-wise that is, although it works even better since all streets are the same size and so the secondary streets are much larger and primary streets are much smaller than they would be.
Barcelona has rarely if ever been a pioneering city in urbanism, I don't know where that myth stems from. Barcelona is running quite late in most matters of modern urbanism. The "superillas" are just a big step to try and catch up with what other cities have been doing for the last 20-30 years.
