Barcelona, Spain is testing out a powerful new weapon in the war on cars. It’s called the Superilla or, in english, the “Superblock.” Last October, Vox Media’s energy and environment reporter David Roberts spent ten days in Barcelona taking a deep dive into the city’s ambitious plan to reclaim more than half of its total street space from motor vehicles by creating five hundred Superblocks. In this one-on-one conversation, David sits down with TWOC co-host Aaron Naparstek and tells the inside story of Barcelona’s visionary car-fighting, air-cleaning and neighborhood-empowering strategy. Could Superblocks even be a solution for fixing dysfunctional liberal democracies? It’s so crazy it just might work.

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SHOW NOTES:

Barcelona’s Radical Plan to Take Back Streets From Cars is David Roberts’ must-read five-part series at Vox. Seriously, it’s great.

The Vox team produced a video about Superblocks as did Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson.

BCNecologia is the organization behind Barcelona’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan and Superblocks project.

Rethinking Manhattan’s Grid at CityLab.

Follow David on Twitter .

This episode was edited by Matt Cutler. Eilís O’Neill recorded David Roberts in Seattle.

Find us on Twitter: @TheWarOnCars, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1, Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek.

Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com