When the city of Barcelona started rolling out new “superblocks” in 2016—nine-block grids that reclaim streets from cars and turn them into pedestrian-first zones—the idea was controversial. But, the ...

L'Eixample, the neighborhood Ildefons Cerdà created in Barcelona. He saw each block as a close-knit community. Most of us don’t think a whole lot about city blocks. They’re just there, part of the ...

A few years ago, a block on Sancho de Ávila Street in Barcelona looked like a fairly typical city block—a couple of lanes of traffic, a row of parked cars on one side, and a bike lane on the other.

Antananarivo, Madagascar. Unlike the centrally planned superblocks of Barcelona, those in the developing world emerge in a more piecemeal, bottom-up manner, responding to the needs of micro locales ...