![City block](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/City_block.PNG)
A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of
urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
and
urban design
Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban de ...
.
A city block is the smallest group of buildings that is surrounded by
street
A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...
s, not counting any type of
thoroughfare
A thoroughfare is a primary passage or way as a transit route through regularly trafficked areas, whether by road on dry land or, by
extension, via watercraft or aircraft. On land, a thoroughfare may refer to anything from a multi-lane highway ...
within the area of a building or comparable structure. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, and form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric. City blocks may be subdivided into any number of smaller
land lot
In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A plot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property (meaning practically the same thing) in ...
s usually in private ownership, though in some cases, it may be other forms of tenure. City blocks are usually built-up to varying degrees and thus form the physical containers or "streetwalls" of public space. Most cities are composed of a greater or lesser variety of sizes and shapes of urban block. For example, many pre-industrial cores of cities in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East tend to have irregularly shaped street patterns and urban blocks, while cities based on grids have much more regular arrangements.
By extension, the word "block" is an important informal unit of length equal to the distance between two streets of a street grid.
Grid plan
In most cities of the
new world
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
that were planned, rather than developing gradually over a long period of time, streets are typically laid out on a
grid plan
In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid.
Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...
, so that city blocks are square or rectangular. Using the
perimeter block development principle, city blocks are developed so that
building
A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and fun ...
s are located along the perimeter of the block, with entrances facing the
street
A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...
, and semi-private
courtyard
A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky.
Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...
s in the rear of the buildings.
This arrangement is intended to provide good
social interaction
A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...
among people.
Since the spacing of streets in grid plans varies so widely among cities, or even within cities, it is difficult to generalize about the size of a city block. Oblong blocks range considerably in width and length. The standard block in Manhattan is about . In
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, a typical city block is , meaning that 16 east-west blocks or 8 north-south blocks measure one mile, which has been adopted by other US cities. In much of the United States and Canada, the
addresses follow a
block and lot number system, in which each block of a street is allotted 100 building numbers. The blocks in central
Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metropol ...
, are also , formed by splitting the square blocks in an
original grid with a narrow street down the middle.
Many
old world
The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...
cities have grown by accretion over time rather than being planned from the outset. For this reason, a regular pattern of even, square or rectangular city blocks is not so common among
European cities
This list ranks metropolitan areas in Europe by their population according to three different sources; it includes metropolitan areas that have a population of over 1 million.
Sources
List includes metropolitan areas according only studies of ...
, for example. An exception is represented by those cities that were founded as Roman military settlements, and that often preserve the original grid layout around two main orthogonal axes. One notable example is
Turin, Italy
Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. T ...
. Following the example of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, New York City adopted the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811
The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was the original design for the streets of Manhattan above Houston Street and below 155th Street, which put in place the rectangular grid plan of streets and lots that has defined Manhattan on its march uptown u ...
for a more extensive
grid plan
In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid.
Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...
. By the middle of the 20th century, the adoption of the uniform, rectilinear block subsided almost completely, and different layouts prevailed, with random sized and either curvilinear or non-orthogonal blocks and corresponding street patterns.
Structure variations
The concept of ''city block'' can be generalized as a ''superblock'' or ''sub-block''.
Superblock
A superblock, or super-block, is an area of urban land that is bounded by
arterial roads
An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below freeways/motorways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector roa ...
and the size of multiple typically sized city blocks. Within the superblock, the local road network, if any, is designed to serve only local needs.
Definitions and typologies
Within the broad concept of a superblock, various typologies emerge based primarily on the internal road networks within the superblock, their historical context, and whether they are
auto-centric or
pedestrian-centric. The context in which superblocks are being studied or conceived gives rise to varying definitions.
An internal road network characterised by
culs-de-sac is typical of auto-centric suburban development primarily in Western countries throughout the 20th century. The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture's definition is rooted within this typically suburban conception:
“Area containing residential accommodation, shops, schools, offices, etc., with public open space (e.g. a green), surrounded by roads and penetrated by cul-de-sac service-roads. It is linked to other super-blocks and a town centre by means of paths over or under the roads (e.g. in Radburn planning).”
Though the aim of such superblocks is generally to minimise traffic within the superblock by directing it to arterial roads, the effect in many cases has been to entrench
automobile dependence
Car dependency is the concept that some city layouts cause cars to be favoured over alternate forms of transportation, such as bicycle, bicycles, public transport, public transit, and walking.
Overview
In many modern cities, automobiles are co ...
by limiting pedestrian and cyclist
permeability.
Superblocks can also contain an orthogonal internal road network, including those based on a
grid plan
In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid.
Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...
or quasi-grid plan. That typology is prevalent in Japan and China, for example. Chen defines the supergrid and superblock urban morphology in that context as follows:
“The Supergrid is a large-scale net of wide roads that defines a series of cells or Superblocks, each containing a network of narrower streets.”
Superblocks can also be retroactively superimposed on pre-existing grid plan by changing the traffic rules and streetscape of internal streets within the superblock, as in the case of
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
's ''superilles'' (
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
for superblocks). Each ''superilla'' has nine city blocks, with speed limits on the internal roads slowed to 10–20 km/h, through traffic disallowed, and through travel possible only on the perimeter roads.
In Soviet Union and post-Soviet states, a technical term out of construction industry is "residential massíve" (russian: Жилой массив, Zhyloi massiv). According to the definition, a residential massíve consists of several of residential quarters (city blocks) that are associated by one architectural design (concept). In a number of cities in post-Soviet countries, several city neighborhoods have names like ''massiv'' or ''masyv'' and appeared in the second half of the 20th century with the rapid expansion of cities. In Central Europe, which was once in the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
, several cities have residential areas filled with inexpensive housing of multi-story buildings known as
panelák
() is a colloquial term in Czech and Slovak for a panel building constructed of pre-fabricated, pre-stressed concrete, such as those extant in the former Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in the world. Paneláks are usually located in housing estat ...
(
panel building
Panel buildings may refer to buildings of one of the following types:
*Built of structural insulated panels
*Built of pre-fabricated concrete blocks, named differently in various countries.
*Large Panel System building, often called Plattenbau ...
s). Panel buildings of similar architectural type may be erected as one residential city quarter or bigger residential area as massíve.
History and usage
=Superblocks in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia
=
![Milton Keynes Sector](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Milton_Keynes_Sector.jpg)
Superblocks were popular during the early and mid-20th century auto-centric suburban development. They arose from
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
ideas in architecture and urban planning. Planning was then based upon the distance and speed scales for the automobile and discounted the pedestrian and cyclist modes, as obsolete transportation vehicles. A superblock is much larger than a traditional city block, with a greater setback for buildings, and is typically bounded by widely spaced, high-speed, arterial or circulating routes, rather than by local streets. Superblocks are often found in
suburbs
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
or
planned cities
A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...
or are the result of
urban renewal
Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...
of the mid-20th century in which a
street hierarchy
The street hierarchy is an urban planning technique for laying out road networks that exclude automobile through-traffic from developed areas. It is conceived as a hierarchy of roads that embeds the link importance of each road type in the netwo ...
has replaced the traditional grid. In a residential area of a suburb, the interior of the superblock is typically served by
dead-end or looped streets. The discontinuous streets served the automobile, as longer distances and the extra fuel required to go between destinations were not concerns, but at the pedestrian scale, the discontinuity of the roads added to the distance that must be traveled. The discontinuity inside the superblock forced
automobile dependency
Car dependency is the concept that some city layouts cause cars to be favoured over alternate forms of transportation, such as bicycles, public transit, and walking.
Overview
In many modern cities, automobiles are convenient and sometimes nec ...
, discouraged errand walking, and forced more traffic onto the fewer continuous streets. That increased demand for through streets, which led ultimately to the streets having more travel lanes added for cars and made it more difficult for any pedestrian to cross such streets. In that way, superblocks cut up the city into isolated units, expanded automobile dominance, and made it impossible for pedestrians and cyclists to get anywhere outside of the superblock. Superblocks can also be found in central city areas, where they are more often associated with institutional, educational, recreational and corporate rather than residential uses.
The urban planner
Clarence Perry
Clarence Arthur Perry (1872 – September 6, 1944) was an American urban planner, sociologist, author, and educator. Perry devised the neighbourhood unit plan, a residential community scheme disseminated through the Regional Plan of New York and I ...
argued for use of superblocks and related ideas in his "
neighborhood unit
Generally the concept of the neighborhood unit, crystallised from the prevailing social and intellectual attitudes of the early 1900s by Clarence Perry, is an early diagrammatic planning model for residential development in metropolitan areas. It w ...
" plan, which aimed to organize space in a way that was more "
pedestrian
A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement, but this was not the case historically.
The meaning of pedestrian is displayed with ...
-friendly" and provided open
plaza
A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
s and other space for residents to socialize. Planners, today, now know that the street discontinuity and the multi-lane roads associated with superblocks have caused the decline of pedestrian and bicycle use everywhere with the "sprawl" pattern. The traditional urban block diffused automobile traffic onto several narrower roads at slower speeds. That more finely connected network of narrower roads better allowed the pedestrian and cyclist realms to flourish. The superblock, at the scale suitable only for automobiles, and not pedestrians, was the means for ultimate automobile dominance by the end of the 20th century. The same intention to facilitate pedestrian movement and socializing is captured by an influential 1989 conceptual design of a
Pedestrian Pocket
A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement, but this was not the case historically.
The meaning of pedestrian is displayed with t ...
(see diagram). It is, similarly, a superblock composed of nine normal city blocks clustered around a light rail station and a central open space. Its circulation pattern consists primarily of a dense pedestrian network which is complementary to but independent from the car network. Access by car is provided by means of three loops. This superblock differs from Perry's concept in that it makes it impossible for cars to traverse it rather than very difficult; it is car-impermeable.
In the 1930s, superblocks were often used in urban renewal
public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...
projects in American cities.
In using superblocks, housing projects aimed to eliminate back
alley
An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in the older parts of towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane ...
s, which were often associated with
slum
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...
conditions.
Superblocks are also used when functional units such as
rail yards
A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or u ...
or shipyards, inherited from the 19th and early 20th centuries, are too big to fit in an average city block. A contemporary function which reflects ancient practices that also requires larger than typical blocks is the sports
stadium
A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...
or arena. Just as the
Colosseum
The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world to ...
in ancient Rome, sports complexes require superblocks. The
Providence Park
Providence Park (formerly Jeld-Wen Field; PGE Park; Civic Stadium; originally Multnomah Stadium; and from 1893 until the stadium was built, Multnomah Field) is an outdoor soccer venue located in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. ...
stadium in Portland, for example, takes up four normal city blocks as does the equally large
Greensboro Coliseum
The Greensboro Coliseum Complex, commonly referred to as Greensboro Coliseum (the first and biggest building on the site), is an entertainment and sports complex located in Greensboro, North Carolina. Opened in 1959, the complex holds eight venu ...
in North Carolina. Other contemporary institutions, establishments or functions that use superblocks are:
city hall
In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
s like
Government Center, Boston
Government Center is an area in downtown Boston, centered on City Hall Plaza. Formerly the site of Scollay Square, it is now the location of Boston City Hall, courthouses, state and federal office buildings, and a major MBTA subway station, also ...
and
Toronto City Hall
The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Viljo Revell and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in ...
; regional general
hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...
s or specialized medical centres; convention and
exhibition center
A convention center (American English; or conference centre in British English) is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typica ...
s, such as
Exhibition Place
Exhibition Place is a publicly owned mixed-use district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located by the shoreline of Lake Ontario, just west of downtown. The site includes exhibit, trade, and banquet centres, theatre and music buildings, monuments ...
in Toronto and the
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center
The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC) is an exhibition center in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is among the largest exhibition centers in the Northeastern United States, with approximately 516,000 square feet (about 4.8 hec ...
; and downtown enclosed
Shopping Malls
A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...
such as
Eaton Centre
Eaton Centre is a name associated with shopping centres in Canada, originating with Eaton's, one of Canada's largest department store chains at the time that these malls were developed. Eaton's partnered with development companies throughout ...
in Toronto, echoing the large
gallerias of the 19th century. Cultural complexes, such as the
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...
in New York City, often occupy a superblock achieved through the consolidation of regular city blocks. A recent superblock user is the merchandise
distribution centre
A distribution center for a set of products is a warehouse or other specialized building, often with refrigeration or air conditioning, which is stocked with products (goods) to be redistributed to retailers, to wholesalers, or directly to con ...
, which can range in area from one to ten city blocks.
![Stuyvesant Town - NY](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Stuyvesant_Town_-_NY.jpg)
Most notably, however, the largest superblocks in contemporary cities are used by university and college campuses such as
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
,
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, the
University of Illinois at Chicago
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...
, the
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...
, and the
University of Alberta
The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...
in Edmonton. The "campus" impact on the city block structure is quite prominent particularly in small university towns such as
Waterloo, Ontario
Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (formerly Waterloo County, Ontario, Waterloo County). Waterloo is situated about west-southwest of Toronto. Due to the c ...
or
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...
where the university superblock counts for a sizeable portion of the total city area. Campuses, in general, are fully walkable and sociable environments within the superblock structure. On some university campuses the extensive and exclusive pedestrian path network at grade is supplemented with below grade paths. New Urbanists would argue that separating circulation modes effectively kills the social interaction that bolsters urban areas.
Additional users of the superblock concept are large national or multinational corporations who constructed campuses in the late 1900s and 2000s. Examples of superblock campuses include
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
in Mountain View, California; and
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
and
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
in San Jose, California. Another well-known commercial superblock is the
World Trade Center site
The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground zero#World Trade Center, Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounde ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where several streets of Manhattan's downtown grid were removed and de-mapped to make room for the center.
![Troeschina](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Troeschina.JPG)
Social and housing agencies in the U.S., Canada and the UK used the superblock model for large
housing projects
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...
such as Regent Park in Toronto and Benny Farm in Montreal, Canada. In New York City, the
Stuyvesant Town Stuyvesant may refer to:
People
* Peter Stuyvesant (1592–1672), the last governor of New Netherland
* Peter Gerard Stuyvesant (1778–1847), lawyer, landowner and philanthropist.
* Rutherfurd Stuyvesant (1843–1909), socialite and land developer ...
private market, residential development superblock takes up about 18 normal city blocks and provides a large green amenity for its residents and neighbours. It uses crescent (loop) rather than
dead-ended streets inside the superblock and an extensive network of paths that provide excellent connectivity within the block and to the neighbouring areas (see drawing).
Where the superblock is used for housing projects like Stuyvesant Town, the advantages sought are an improved separation of vehicular and pedestrian circulation, enhanced tranquility and reduced accident risk within the neighbourhood. In 2003,
Vauban (a rail suburb of Freiburg, Germany) was constructed with similar goals. Its layout consists mainly of a superblock with a central pedestrian spine and a few narrow looped and
dead-ended streets. The British
new town
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
of
Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...
is built around a grid of one-kilometre square superblocks (see drawing).
Superblocks have been proposed as a potential solution to road space prioritisation and increased pedestrian flows in the CBD of
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, Australia. The City of Melbourne's 2018 ''Transport Discussion Paper: City Space'' suggests, based on the example of Barcelona's ''superilles'', that “‘Superblocks’ could be applied in Melbourne to make streets in the central city safer, greener, more inclusive and more vibrant.”
=Barcelona's ''super·illes''
=
![Vista aérea de Villanueva del Pardillo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Vista_a%C3%A9rea_de_Villanueva_del_Pardillo.jpg)
The superblock concept has been applied retroactively in Barcelona's
La Ribera
La Ribera (, 'The Shore') is one of the areas of the quarter of Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera of Ciutat Vella ("the old city") of Barcelona.
Overview
Many of the buildings date from late Medieval times. It was a well-to-do quarter duri ...
and
Gràcia
Gràcia () is a district of the city of Barcelona, Spain. It comprises the neighborhoods of Vila de Gràcia, Vallcarca i els Penitents, El Coll, La Salut and Camp d'en Grassot i Gràcia Nova. Gràcia is bordered by the districts of Eixample to th ...
districts, which both have a medieval street network with narrow and irregular streets, since 1993. In these two cases it resulted in an increase of journeys on foot (over 10%) and by bicycle (>15%) and in a higher level of commercial and service activity.
Superblocks, or ''super·illes'' in the native
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
, are being superimposed in the
Eixample
The Eixample (; ) is a district of Barcelona between the old city (Ciutat Vella) and what were once surrounding small towns (Sants, Gràcia, Sant Andreu, etc.), constructed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its population was 262,000 at t ...
District's famous
Ildefons Cerdà
Ildefons Cerdà i Sunyer (; es, Ildefonso Cerdá Suñer; December 23, 1815, Centelles – August 21, 1876, Caldas de Besaya) was a Spanish urban planner and engineer who designed the 19th-century "extension" of Barcelona called the ''Eixample ...
-designed late 19th century grid plan.
Each ''superilla'' comprises nine city blocks, or ''illes'', in which the internal traffic flows have been altered to disallow through traffic, and speed limits on internal roads reduced. After entering a ''superilla'' from a perimeter road, vehicles are only able to circumnavigate one city block and return out to the same perimeter road again, meaning that local access to garages and businesses is maintained, but making it impossible to cut through to the other side. Speed limits have also been reduced to 20 km/h initially. It was estimated that this could be implemented city-wide for less than €20 million, simply by changing traffic signals.
It is planned to further reduce speeds to 10 km/h and remove on-street parking by building more off-street car parks. This is intended to make the internal streets safer for pedestrians and create more space for playing games, sports, and cultural activities such as outdoor cinemas.
The concept was initially spurred by a redesign of the city's bus network that consolidated bus routes into a simpler orthogonal network, with more frequent services.
With many streets freed from buses as a result, and the idea was formulated to create the ''superilles'' in order to reduce traffic, cut the high levels of air and noise pollution in the city, and reallocate space to pedestrians and cyclists. The ''superilles'' have been met with criticism and resistance from some residents, who have complained about the dramatically increased distance for some previously short car trips, and the increased traffic on the arterial perimeter roads. The adaptation of the Barcelona superblock concept has been explored for other cities.
=Superblocks in Japan
=
Superblocks have been the prevalent mode of urban land use planning in Japan, even being described as the "''
sine qua non
''Sine qua non'' (, ) or ''condicio sine qua non'' (plural: ''condiciones sine quibus non'') is an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient. It was originally a Latin legal term for " conditionwithout which it could not be" ...
'' of Japanese urban design", present in all medium to large Japanese cities to a greater or lesser degree. Cities are typically arranged around a system of wide arterial roads, often approximating a grid and flanked by generous sidewalks, and an orthogonal network of narrow internal streets, normally operating as shared zones with no sidewalks. The grid plan layout of Japanese cities such as
Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...
and
Nara
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
dates back to the eighth century, which were in turn derived from Chinese grid models.
The system of superblocks were created mostly in the early to mid 20th century by physically widening arterial roads, superimposing the supergrid and superblock structure in a physical sense. This contrasts with the Barcelona model wherein the superblock model was imposed through changed traffic signalling rather than physical street widening. They further contrast to Western auto-centric models described above as they are typically characterised by highly
walkable
Walkability is a term for planning concepts best understood by the mixed-use of amenities in high-density neighborhoods where people can access said amenities by foot. It is based on the idea that urban spaces should be more than just transport ...
and cycle-able street networks, featuring high-density mixed use development and supported by highly effective and efficient
public transport
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...
systems.
Resulting largely from planning controls which link building height with street width, Japanese superblocks are typically characterised by a ‘hard shell’ of tall buildings with commercial uses along the perimeter arterial roads, with a ‘soft yolk’ of low-rise residential use in the centre.
The spatial structure of superblocks can also be analysed, per a taxonomy detailed by Barrie Shelton,
through the classification of roads as ‘global’, being the arterial roads which provide for cross-city travel, ‘local’ roads, which provide local access to buildings within the superblock, and ‘glocal’ roads, which may cross the entire superblock, allowing through travel, and in many instances into neighbouring superblocks. Glocal roads differ from global roads however, in that they are narrow, have lower speed limits, and do not form part of the ‘supergrid’ structure. Shelton also describes the sidewalks of the global arterial roads as functioning as streets in themselves, or ‘sidewalk streets’, operating in a similar manner to the local streets.
Sub-structure
![City-block2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/City-block2.png)
In a
geoprocessing
A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a br ...
perspective there are two complementary ways of modeling city blocks:
* ''with
sidewalks
A sidewalk (North American English), pavement (British English), footpath in Australia, India, New Zealand and Ireland, or footway, is a path along the side of a street, highway, terminals. Usually constructed of concrete, pavers, brick, stone ...
'': using a direct geometric representation of the usual concept of city blocks. Not only sidewalks, but also inner alleys, common gardens, etc. Some street parts, such as a street greenway, isolated and with no related lot, can be also represented as a ''block without sidewalks''.
* ''without sidewalks'': represented by polygon obtained by the external border of the union of a set of
touching land lot
In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A plot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property (meaning practically the same thing) in ...
s (illustration opposite).
Always a ''block without sidewalks''
is within a ''block with sidewalks''. The geometric subtraction of a ''block without sidewalks'' from ''block with sidewalks'', contains the sidewalk, the alley, and any other non-lot sub-structure.
Perimeter block
![Kone ja Silta sisäpiha - Marit Henriksson](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Kone_ja_Silta_sis%C3%A4piha_-_Marit_Henriksson.jpg)
A perimeter block is a type of city block which is built up on all sides surrounding a central space that is semi-private. They may contain a mixture of uses, with commercial or retail functions on the ground floor. Perimeter blocks are a key component of many European cities and are an urban form that allows very high
urban densities to be achieved without high-rise buildings.
Uses
As an informal unit of distance
In
North American English
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), v ...
and
Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Engli ...
, the word "block" is used as an informal unit of distance. For example, someone giving directions might say, "It's three blocks from here".
Online
There have been online innovations and websites such as msnbc.com-owned EveryBlock, which uses geo-specific feeds from neighborhood blogs, Flickr, Yelp, Craigslist, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other aggregated data to give readers a picture of what is going on in their town or neighborhood down to the block.
See also
*
Census block A census block is the smallest geographic unit used by the United States Census Bureau for tabulation of 100-percent data (data collected from all houses, rather than a sample of houses). The number of blocks in the United States, including Puerto R ...
*
Grid plan
In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid.
Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...
*
Manhattan distance
A taxicab geometry or a Manhattan geometry is a geometry whose usual distance function or Metric (mathematics), metric of Euclidean geometry is replaced by a new metric in which the distance between two points is the sum of the absolute differences ...
*
Urban design
Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban de ...
*
Urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
References
Further reading
* Jacobs, Jane (1961). ''
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'' is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the decline of many city neighborhoods in the United States. ...
''. Random House.
The Great American Grid: Block Size Dimensions
{{DEFAULTSORT:City Block
Urban studies and planning terminology
Urban design