Thought he was gonna say Houston I was gonna be appalled

Barcelona is missing a 15 lane highway running through the middle and lots of massive parking lots which are almost empty

He had us in the first half 😂

As someone from Barcelona, I'd like to add that public transport is very well planned and all the cities next to Barcelona are included in a sort of "zone" that allows you to go anywhere inside that zone in just a few minutes. It's very nice honestly.

I lived in Chicago for 8 years, didn't have a car and loved it. People who have never lived in a walkable city have absolutely no idea how shitty it is to spend your life driving around in a car.

Barcelona’s only real issue is its overcrowding in the summer. Since it’s an already very dense city, when toutists flocks to the city in the heat, it is not for everyone. But it all in all makes for an as car free metropolis of its size as it can get. All in all it’s doing amazingly good with its urban planning, especially considering 5 million people live there

Barcelona was so cool when I visited. Was really impressed with the urbanism aspect and how well they’re developing their land. Certainly a leader in livable cities

I lived in Houston and I can attest it is the worst traffic up there with L.A. I will be in Barcelona next month and when my friend said I don't need to rent a car I didn't believe her at first but after downloading some apps like AMB and TMB and after buying a monthly city transit ticket, it looks like Barcelona and Spain with its bullet trains is second to none.

I think alot of European cities are like that, Amsterdam uses lots fo bikes and very good public transport, London still has lots of cars but the tube system is great, all of france in general is very well connected, same situation with Switzerland

The entirety of the Netherlands: Am I a joke to you?

Tokyo has an incredibly good public transportation system too. Hong Kong builds a railway station, then builds services around it, then builds residential areas.

DART is really good if you like visiting different parking lots.

As an urban planning enthusiast, I cannot but pay my respect for the design of Barcelona. That said, Amsterdam is the golden standard!

Ildefons Cerda planned the city in the mid 1800s specifically so that this would be possible. Possibly the greatest urban planner in history.

Of all the cities I've visited in the world, Barcelona is still my number one. It's just perfect everywhere you go. The city design must have played with my experience too.

Lost me at “to fully grasp the greatness of this place” as soon as you zoomed in on Houston 😂

A minor detail I like about Barcelona is that each square block has a "cut corner" with parking spaces and stuff, so everyone doesn't have to parallell park along the length of the sidewalk

Dutch cities: hold my wooden shoe

As someone from Barcelona, the city would be much better without so many tourists. I appreciate people liking our city, but mass tourism drives prices up and makes our dense city even denser.

Hell yeah but the people who did the most of Barcelona's good layout and planning have been dead for a long time

I lived in Barcelona and I have to agree so hard! Barcelona is amazing

I love your channel. You have a great eye for urban planning. I really think people need to know what happens in their cities.

I’m from Barcelona No other city I’ve been you can use the bike or rollers to go to the beach and then to the mountain and see the city Center , old new tall or small buildings all styles , you can see everything (from cheap to mansions) and the weather it’s nice , 20 degrees on December 15th. But became to expensive 😅

I live in Madison, Wisconsin. The outskirts are pretty typical for American planning, but the central city and areas around, since they are on an isthmus, are very walkable and have a wonderful bus system. A look at that city, as it is a small city but functions in many odd ways to a larger or more dense city, could be interesting.

Really appreciate the love to our city, you're welcome whenever. Greetings from Barcelona!

My cityyyyyy Disnt know my city was like a live museum until i travelled the world

"Amsterdam left the chat"

As an American, when I visited Barcelona, I was absolutely in love. I can’t brag enough to people about how much I honestly enjoyed Barcelona. I am certain that in addition to the food and the sights, the incredibly planned city had a subconscious influence on how much I enjoyed the city while I was there. I wish the states designed cities in even 1/100th of the way they designed Barcelona.

Barcelona is a great city. Beautiful parks. Lots of action. Just be careful out there, especially if you're a woman alone going home at night. Like many cities since the pandemic began, Barcelona has seen an uptick in crime. I never had an issue with the much hyped pick pocketing. Paris probably has the most aggressive pick picketers in Europe. Barcelona is a piece of cake compared to that. Plus, the food is excellent and priced just right!

True. New York City has been looking at it and already started reconfigurating and it started cutting most wide 4 roadlines avenues in half. Adding bike lines parking and outdoor dining. It's getting way better.

Barcelona is what great city planning looks like, people who are hired to be city planners should be required to have knowledge of how transit works and have common sense for effective and efficient commuting...sure seems like in America we have city's all over the place that total idiots laid out the roads and building zones..

Problem is good urban planning doesn't generate copious amounts of sales from fossil fuels and motor vehicles so the US will never do it with our current structures in place.

As someone in San Antonio who occasionally uses the bus after work because my dad, my family's only driver, is busy from work. I low key feel sad knowing that if I get to a bus late, I would have to wait for 1 hr just for the same bus to eventually come around. You really have a hard time surviving here in the US without cars

California should have been planned like Barcelona especially by the coast. We can also build subways that are 1/10th the cost they do here

I love how Americans think public transport is a "poor people" thing and here in Europe is better to take the subway or a bus in a city than have a car: you travel faster, spend less money and don't have to worry about where you leave your vehicle. The next best thing is bicycles and motorbikes. Having a car is not expensive itself but is a pain in the a*s.

It has other problems. It has the neighbourhood with the most population density in Europe. The original planning was designed by Idelfons Cerdà, a catalan urbanist, one of the first if not the only by the XIX century. Every square, or illa was supposed to have in the centera an empty space to walk, spend time, play..., and it had a complex planning of some sides taken down to facilitate walking traffic. It all was slowly undermined, just to make a few more apartments, which are horribly expensive. Socially, it's very diverse, although some ethnicities tend to not get along. It's main ethnicities are Catalan, Spanish, Moroccan, Romanian, Gypsy, Argentinian, etc.

Everytime I go through Houston I wonder why anyone would ever live there and deal with that traffic daily and Houston is massive and stretches far

doesn’t even come close to my old carpet that kind of looked like a road map

Guy just discovered european cities

Burgerland is just DISGUSTING

I live in the first ring of cities in there and Barcelona it's really great. The square grid is part of something from the XIXth century called the Cerdà Plan. It originally would have been composed of open squares with public parks inside that allowed the air to flow in a very contaminated city. A fucking green and eco-friendly city before cars even existed. However, greedy land owners thought there weren't enough houses to sell and rent, and pushed to make those actual squares without the public parks. But yeah, transit wise, Barcelona is great. It's really well thought out. 12-ish subway lines (L12 is only 2 stations long for now), tens of bus lines not shown in the map and even a lightrail built in the 90s. It could work better, though. Subway frequency works great at peak hours (2min) but it can be 5min during work days and 8 to 10min at night and weekends. The short distance train has an awful punctuality (there's tardies of more than half an hour) and is constantly in strike because of the lack of resources. These need to improve if we want to completely get rid of cars in the city.

Visited Barcelona last year. Learned the transit system in 10 minutes it was so easy. Did not need to use a car once to get around. Was truly impressive.

ANY European city has this. America has the worlds worst big cities. Huston Texas for example. 70% of downtown is tall buildings between parking spaces. ZERO sidewalks.

Dammnnnnnn, that shook me

Barcelona could be greener though.

The main problem with USA is the lack of mixed-use development, in most of other places you don't have to take a trip to the grocery store, school or work, you can either take a walk or use the public transport possibly a few blocks away of your home

When he hovered over texas i was ready for the worst take on city planinng. I was relieved when you panned over to spain

I salute you, Barcelona. I'd murder for a short bike or train commute.

He isn't lying people. Barcelona is very well thought out and planned for easy and quick commutes.

Proud of our Barcelona ❤️💙 Thank you Messi.. #ViscaElBarca

Reminder that the rail map is not “the public transit” map. In almost every city in the USA the vast majority of transit rides are on the local bus network, where experiences can vary widely from city to city due to network design, reliability, and frequency. Also, length of rail does not equal usefulness of rail. Houston’s rail network is shorter, but generally gives better access to denser areas than the network in Dallas. These two aspects are big reasons why Houston actually has higher per capita transit ridership than Dallas. Barcelona has them both totally beat though of course! But they almost certainly have an excellent bus system underlying this rail network and the much denser development needed to make it all work. We need those things first, lest we end up with lots of empty trains!

Cities built before the car was invented are easy to get around on foot! Wow!

Barcelona is simply amazing. It is so easy to navigate.

You already have similar grids in many USA cities, just make roads narrower, pedestrian friendly and build denser mixed use with parking spaces underground.

Netherlands be like...

Japan used slime mold for the Tokyo subway routes to make them most efficient. Barcelona used a guy named Gustavo… I rest my case.

Okay, to be fair, that isn't Houston's public transit map, that is just the rail map. Here in Seattland, we have three streetcars and two light metros, and two commuter rail lines which seems sparse but we also have an incredibly strong BRT, local; and all day regional express bus network that doesn't show up on the Google overlay

Curitiba-PR, Brazil: 'Hold my green.'

Comparing any world class city to American cities is like putting Mike Tyson in the ring with a toddler. It's just not fair.

According to car shills, Barcelona must be billions in debt due to their public transport. The people must also live in a dystopian home where your every move is controlled by the government.

Bro started in America and I was like bro there’s not fucking way.

The one time I've been in Barcelona I was amazed at how easy it was to move from place to place. You could cover really long distances quickly and safely and it was honestly so discouraging returning to my horrifically car centric, unwalkeable hometown. Honestly, we make Houston look like the pinnacle of urbanism.

You should check out the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Awesome city planning

Pretty much every European city is like that

Just look at any city in America. Drive down the street and just look at how much infrastructure is dedicated to cars. The road itself. Parking lots, gas stations, dealerships, repair garages, scrap yards, auto parts stores, oil change shops, tire sales shops, auto insurance companies, manufacturing centers, etc. It’s ridiculous how much of our lives are encircled around cars specifically, but somehow bicycles and public transit and sidewalks aren’t feasible. Sure. With that amount of resources in our economy being focused on building roads and keeping people in cars and keeping cars running, it’s no wonder that we are stagnant. That’s a lot of resources, money, and manpower being wasted on that rather than anything productive that actually improves quality of life and prosperity.

here’s the thing tho, in barcelona i took the metro and was amazed at how clean and efficient it was. there was no mentally unstable homeless man threatening passengers, i didn’t feel like i’d be mugged (although pickpockets exist), and i never thought “wow i wonder if this seat was covered in human fluids” that’s the difference between the US transit and spain. when in DC or NY, i’m worried about “if i get on a train does someone potentially have a gun” or “will a homeless person endanger my life because they are hearing voices saying ‘push him’”

I went to Barcelona a couple months ago and couldn’t agree more. Here’s a story from my trip. I left the group of people. I don’t speak Spanish and a couple of hours later my phone died and I was lost. The sun light slowly diminished but I found a metro map and went to the main park. I got followed by a group of guys till I reached the park. Than asked a couple to use their phone. But when my phone had died and I was just waking I really appreciated all of the infrastructure. It accommodates all forms of transportation. Side note the people of Barcelona are fast walkers.

I thought Tokyo was one of the most well planned In the world. Like they used fungus to determine the most effective route for the high speed trains.

Nearly every European city is like that

Tbh the houston metro is not limited to that red strip, or what else would that represent

Barcelona may be on another level in terms of urbanism, but google maps transit layout for barcelona (or any city) is horrendously on another level.

LE WALKABLE CITY 8^0

You can't judge cities like "less cars means better." That just isn't how it works. 😭

Visit Barcelona and experience its beauty too. The beauty reflects the big hearts of the wonderful people.

Look at Berlin

I was about to write a dissertation on how Houston is the worst planned city in the world 😅

You had me in the first few secs 😅

Barcelona is awesome, it's so easy to get around.

Although barcelona is great and better then every american city it still has it's fair share of problems: overpopulation, Homelessness, poverty...

Dutch cities are better

I live close to LA and that skewed my views of cities. Got the chance to study abroad in Barcelona and I grew appreciate what great potential cities could have. There I felt independent and free to enjoy my life. Back in LA I don't drive and it's a living hell taking public transportation

I live in BCN. It's nice that it's very compact. I wish it was more runnable tho. The grid system makes it harder to jog. And they still have too much space for the cars on the road

When I was at Barcelona it was really cool to just walk. I remember when some spanish guys on a car were screaming on me for getting into their like private garden, but i took photos

barcelona is the birthplace of urbanism as a concept. saw a cool exhibit in their history museum detailing its conception in the late 19th century

I love your content!! Im pushing for more infrastructure geared towards biking in NYC, make one of NYC if you can and it’s solutions

I’ve been to Barcelona a few times. Like most European cities it’s very, very crowded people live one stacked on top of the other in cramped apartments. It’s claustrophobic. Prefer to live where there’s a bit of space and I don’t have to go places on a bus and sit next to people with poor hygiene.

barcelona is the best city ever!! its just gorgeous!

You almost zoomed my place😂. Greetings from BCN.

To be fair this video seems like American guy found Europe

You should check out Oslo, Norway

Barcelona and Berlin are my two most favourite cities in the world. Both for different reasons but both have fantastic public transport.

Thought he was talking about Houston in the beginning and was boutta drop kick my grandma

You had me for a second... I was about to burst a vein in my head when I heard Houston

Wait until he hears about The Netherlands

It is true. Cars are treated like how the US treat pedestrians lol

No go zones: allow us to introduce ourselves.

When he zoomed on the US, I was gonna lose it lmao

Just subscribed to your channel!! I live in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area (metroplex) and I’m beyond frustrated with this areas public transportation/city planning. If you want to get anywhere you have to drive atleast 20 minutes and the public trains only run 4-5 lines mainly to city centers. Would love for you to do a video on this in the future if you could!

Wait till he discover netherlands bro

It’s also one of the most expensive places to live 🤣