Why Madrid is Insanely Well Designed
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- A lot of cities are praised for their well-rounded transit systems, urban design, and livability (think Amsterdam - Paris - Tokyo). But, one city that doesn't get a lot of attention is Madrid. But, it should.
So, what makes Madrid special?
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
04:57 *59% 🤦
Chapters:
00:00 - 00:49 Salamanca
00:50 - 01:44 Urban Planning in Spain
01:45 - 02:38 Comparison to the US
02:39 - 03:56 How Madrid Expanded
03:57 - 04:21 Dallas
04:22 - 05:04 Madrid Metro System
05:05 - 05:43 Outro
#madrid #urbanism #design #urbanplanning #metro #spain
as a resident of dallas i can confirm that nobody knows life outside of their private vehicle here
Most US cities are unviable without a car
Do you have a net of urban buses? Can you go from downtown to the suburbs by bus?
I used to live in Dallas and can confirm. Your life is your car. In Dallas TX who you are is your car.
Aqui termine vendiendo los vehiculos privados y motos, porque no los usaba, si a 3 minutos de mi casa tengo tren que pasa cada 4 minutos en hora punta, o menos, tardo 18 minutos a Chamartin, esta a 24 km creo de distancia, el abono mensual que vale para tren, metro, bus y tranvia vale 30€ al mes puedo usarlo todas las veces que quiera, ademas Madrid por el centro esta muy mal para estacionar y se termina tardando menos en el transporte publico. czcams.com/video/xjgoEJr1yJc/video.htmlsi=By3TSyU62oLX2tkd&t=1
Madrid would welcome anyone who wants to live here!!!!!!!!!
This design is true of all Spanish cities, and even many towns. Living in flats, sharing the stairs and the streets, meeting your neighbours everyday (even if you do not know them by name) creates a kind of social commonwealth that you could never get in a society that lives driving everywhere.
I love that term social commonwealth.
Well, that depends a lot on the region. Galicia has a really bad urban planning, for example. Meanwhile Andalusia has one of the best.
@@theurbanspokesman Just made it up, but it's good ain't it? Feel free to use. ;-)
@@diogorodrigues747 True, that's why I said cities. Galicia is more rural, right? Never been there, but it's what I get from reading maps.
@@joseantoniodepilares6509 Actually that's a wrong perspective, Galicia has a way bigger population density than Castille or Andalusia for example, and way above the Spanish average. The reason why urban planning in Galicia is so bad is a bit complicated and it has a lot to do with how the land was traditionally divided ("minifundio" vs "lactifundio" or direct control from the Church or State) and also culture.
I lived in many cities, including Mexico City (8 years) Madrid (4 years) and London (5 years and counting) and I can say what I miss the most is that you can walk to any part of it if you live in the center or close to it, essentially all the important places are in a walkable distance which makes you healthy and happy... I miss that city
Still unaffordable for most people though
@@Elbombisima That is true as well, cheaper than London though
@@jcasstudio getting closer :(
@@miguelcarvajal6768 Actually quite the opposite, London is sky rocketing in prices... 7 pounds for a beer
@@miguelcarvajal6768 not yet lol, but I get your point. Living in some of the dense neighborhoods just outside M-30 can still be a good balance between affordability and having great access to trains (just one train away from the city center, typically in 25 minutes or less).
To go more in depth about Ildefons Cerdà and his Eixample in Barcelona: He is considered the founder of modern town planning as a discipline, having coined the word "urbanización"...urbanization! In the 1850s, Barcelona was on the verge of collapse. It was growing at an extreme rate, but it couldn't expand because of medieval walls. When they demolished the walls, they needed a plan to suddenly redistribute an overflowing population. Enter Ildefons Cerdà. His plan consisted of a grid of streets that would unite the old city with seven peripheral villages. He did a comprehensive study of how the working class lived in the old city. He calculated the volume of atmospheric air one person needed to breathe correctly. He detailed professions the population might do, and mapped the services they might need, such as marketplaces, schools and hospitals. He concluded that, among other things, the narrower the city’s streets, the more deaths occurred.
He created a plan where the rich and poor had equal access to the same services. The Eixample's iconic octagonal blocks (with gardens to hang out) was his unique idea to deal with traffic, allowing drivers to see more easily what was happening to the left and right! And that last part was during a time cars weren't a thing yet! When he learned about trains, he knew there would be some sort of steam machine that could run on the streets! Even today, this design makes traffic circulation infinitely easier in Eixample. He was a visionary! However, he wasn't who Barcelona originally selected. Barcelona chose Antoni Rovira, but the Spanish government intervened and suggested Ildefon instead, and this tainted Ildefon's vision, and many didn't like his plan because of the government. He died in 1876, fittingly in an Eixample-themed tomb. Decades later, Barcelona and the world recognizes the need to carry on his legacy!
One of the best thing about the density in Madrid is that you can almost always walk on a 1-2 lane street between 6-story buildings well sheltered against cold winds in Winter or unbearable sunlight in the Summer. Unfortunately the newer neighbourhoods like Sanchinarro or Ensanche de Vallecas have some overwidened streets that discourage walking, negate the shelter from the elements and encourage vehicles to speed leading to less safe streets. Still, Madrid has a lot of transit and parks making it very livable, and even the places that aren't very good are still fine.
The quantity of lanes implemente in newers partes of the Ensanche are crazy and don't make any sense. They even surpass the lanes the highway M45 has.
As a “madrileña” (born in Madrid) I thank you for sharing this positive information, so well explained! Here, in Spain, to tend to be overcritical. 😅
Eres gata entonces
Against Madrid. Everybody talks great things about other cities that are far worse than Madrid, but...
We Spaniards have really bad case of inferiority complex towards the rest of developed countries.
@@XanderVJ🇪🇸 has many good things like its architecture and high speed rail, no need to feel a complex anymore 🙃
@@oldskoolmusicnostalgia I agree. I've lived in multiple countries, and Spain has little to envy to other nations.
However, keep in mind this complex doesn't come out of nowhere. Spain was behind the curve for nearly two centuries. It wasn't until pretty much the 1980s that we managed to begin to catch up with our peers in any meaningful way. You can't turn around the pessimism born out of 200 years of decay in just 40 years, specially with the 2008 recession, the 2011 Eurozone crisis AND COVID stalling the whole thing.
This is what I love about Madrid, and Spain in general. Even in the most outer suburbs there is still great density. Most things are still within walking distance and it means Spain preserves its countryside for nature rather than sprawl. Spain has some of the emptiest countryside in Europe too
I wonder if that empty countryside has something to do with the dense network of the capital...
In Spain there's a defined place for the city and another place for the countryside. They don't get mixed. And for @JustinSh.: Actually no. The density of Madrid is the same in almost every Spanish city greater than 50.000 inhabitants. It's a matter of urban legislation across the country mixed with the Spanish culture of enjoying living surrounded by your neighbours in order to socialize and with everything (work, school, services, etc) in a walkable distance.
A culture brought by the very planning that happened.
@@JustinSh. As soon as the 3.2 million Capital city ends within its limits, then there are lots of small 50k -200k people towns that follow the same pattern. Paris is similar, yet bigger.
@@JustinSh. Density is the same in every town (not the same in villages, though there are more individual houses). The buildings and urban design is like that because the roman empire's and arab culture's urban designs
The spanish cities are made for walking to any place. Obviusly Madrid is a big city where the people can't go walking to long distances, but this make many sense of home in your neighborhood where you can go walking to the market, the medical center, the shops, the park, etc. The neighborhoods are little systems where you have all that you need and you know the people.
We have a spanish friend living in Dallas, and when we was in this city to visit we feel like in another planet: she lives in a house miles away from the downtown, in a neighborhood of thousands of identical houses, in the middle of many identical areas, and have to take the car for anything! (school, doctor, gym, supermarket, to have dinner, etc etc). I don't see a bus in this area in all the days, are places building to live with a car, losing hours every morning to go to the job with no option to take a transport.
If also are cities with no historical buildings of more than 200 years or places to enjoy a walk.. what sense have to live in?
This is an amazing video!! I’ve always wanted to visit Madrid and check out their amazing metro network and connection to that beautiful high speed rail network
just keep in mind that a huge chunk of the local population leaves the city in August due to unbearable heat (despite good overall shade on streets and parks). so perhaps visit in August if you don’t mind extreme heat, and to take advantage of the quiet, or visit in the fall to get a more realistic feel of the city.
@@johnnysecularPlease don’t come in August. The heat is unbearable for a reason. Lots of things will be closed too, because madrileños indeed flee the city during the summer. The nicest thing about Madrid is to calmly stroll around and discover every corner of the city. You won’t enjoy doing that in August of July.
@@lioneliv3195 You'll be least bothered in July and August, and you can stay inside the Museums and transit (or a restaurant) during afternoon (to take advantage of the AC) and walk, bike and explore the city before noon or after 7PM. The sun is unbereable, but you can avoid it and the heat is manageable as long as you keep hydrated, since the air is very dry sweting is very efective and isn't unconfortable.
Anyway, I'd recomend visiting in Autumn since it is cheaper and you get to see a more actual version of the cities and most of the typical food can be enjoyed in Autumn, or in Spring if you'd rather see some of the Easter cellebrations as well, want to enjoy more sunlight without the heat of Summer or as much rain as in Autumn.
@@johnnysecular I love Madrid in August, it's half empty, and if you have a/c at home the heat isn't
that bad.
@@fjp3305 Same here. The summer is my favorite time of the year in Madrid. Less people in the commercial streets and the metro, no need for reservations in good restaurants and no queueing for finding a place at the nicer terrazas. But of course, I do have an A/C at home 🙂
It’s a pretty good video, I just have to say one thing, Madrid city not the same as Madrid CA(Comunidad Autónoma) has a population of 6,3M but it’s served also by 356 lines of buses, you only mentioned EMT buses Empresa Municipal de Transportes (municipal agency of transport) which has more or less 200 lines, but that only serves the City of Madrid, the CA of Madrid is served by roughly 560 lines of buses, the other 356 lines comes from the CRTM buses, Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (it’s something like regional aggrupation of transports of Madrid)
This is just a little mistake but if you include Cercanías and say that it has a population of 6,4 M people I thought you should count CRTM in the equation
And also it’s served by 4 light rail trains
ML1
ML2
ML3
And Metro Parla
Thanks
I've seen a lot on twitter about the interesting high-density norm of suburbs in Spain, it's great to see a video about it, and so well-produced too!
If you have any of them saved pass them along to me on twitter i'd love to read em 👍
LoL. In Spain we call them low-density car centric suburbs. And they are starting to be unpopular.
Great video! I spent the summer in Madrid last year for studying, and I'm about to move there in a couple months and I could not be more excited. Living in a walkable city is going to be so amazing
Note: there also are over 300 Intercity buses that are ran by different companies and others that can take you to other autonomous communities
Despite new neighborhoods in Madrid and spanish cities are dense, they all share the same problem: the low level have no shops or stores, so you have the feeling of being in a deserted city… having a dense city not only requires big blocks but also places to go, to walk, to buy, to drink something… and to live
Not all buildings have those in the new neightbourhoods, but enought of them do, and they tend to be concentrated is some streets turnong them into the most lively places of the neightbourhood, along with the parks.
There are shops on most of the ground floors of these blocks.
Madrid fun facts: The idea of the Madrid Metro originated in 1916 when a royal decree approved the 4-line plan for the creation of the metro of Madrid. The engineers who created the plan, Mendoza, González Echarte, and Otamendi then began the process of raising the 8 million pesetas to begin the first phase of the project, and the first phase was completed in 1919! Though not actually the first subway system in the Spanish-speaking world as the Subte in Buenos Aires first opened in 1913! When Philip II became king in 1556, he understood the importance of the city of Madrid and made it the capital of Spain. He moved his court there, solidifying the city as the de facto center of royal power in 1561. Before Madrid, Toledo was the capital! Madrid is among the highest cities in Europe, yet it is often overlooked when considering high-altitude cities. Surprisingly, Madrid is situated at an elevation of 667 meters above sea level, making it the highest European capital. The documented history of Madrid dates to the 9th century, even though the area has been inhabited since the Stone Age. Córdoba Emir Muhammad I commissioned the first construction in the late 9th century and involved the establishment of a citadel on the banks of the Manzanares River in Majrit/Mayrit village.
Similarly to other fortresses north of the Tagus, Madrid made it difficult to muster reinforcements from the Asturian kingdom to the unruly inhabitants of Toledo, prone to rebellion against the Umayyad rule. Extending across roughly 8 hectares, Muslim Madrid consisted of the alcázar and the wider walled citadel (al-Mudayna) with the addition of some housing outside the walls. By the late 10th century, Majriṭ was an important borderland military stronghold territory with great strategic value, owing to its proximity to Toledo. In 1739 Philip V began constructing new palaces, including the Palacio Real de Madrid. Under Charles III (1716-1788) that Madrid became a truly modern city. Charles III, who cleaned up the city and its government, became one of the most popular kings to rule Madrid, and the saying "the best mayor, the king" became widespread. Besides completing the Palacio Real, Charles III is responsible for many of Madrid's finest buildings and monuments, including the Prado and the Puerta de Alcalá.
At 5:00 either I'm dense or the math doesnt add up 39% of transit made by cars means that 61% (at most) of transit is car-free (and if we include motrobikes it will go down)
Also you spent 5 and a half minutes, but 30% of the video is about USA/Dallas.
The video doesn't explain Madrid's grid system, you dont acknowledge hot transit outside the city center is radial, most of the outside of madrid's centre is divided by "sectors" carved up by highways, moving across this highways in metro is tedious as most of the time you need to go to the city center grab a connection and go "out" again.
Only some buses lanes go across sectors, so most likely a trip of 10 min in car gets you across a sector, but it would take 40 min by train or metro.
Madrid is well designed to go in and out of the city centre, it lacks movility in any other direction that isnt radial
Maybe the figures are wrong. Last time I checked travels in Madrid where split aprox. 1/3 walking 1/3 transit and 1/3 car
Nope! Madrid does NOT lack mobility in any direction: neither radial, nor diagonal, nor tangential, nor sinusoidal, nor horizontal, nor vertical, nor circular or whatever...
I'm an American and I thought I hated large cities.
Until I moved to Spain.
Madrid (and BCN) is really livable. Every time I visit I am floored with how absolutely FRIENDLY everyone is. In cities in America, once you crest about 2.5 million people, friendliness goes out the window--it starts to feel frenetic and competitive. I think a combination of this design and the culture contribute to this. The quality of life everywhere I've been in Spain has been fantastic and unmatched by any of my other experiences.
There are, I'm sure, a lot of factors contributing to these different feelings, but I never thought I would consider living in a city of 7M people. But I consider Madrid often.
Wow you mencioned my neighbourhood as an example, btw don’t forget about “el anillo verde” the green ring which is a 60 km bike like line that goes around the city
Una pena que se limite a eso, deberíamos de exigir una conectividad real dentro de la ciudad. Me encanta Madrid, pero es de las peores ciudades en las que he vivido en cuanto a carriles bici. Debería de tomar ejemplo de BCN
0:15 I’ve eaten at that restaurant on the corner (they have amazing gambas)! My ex used to live one block away from there, higher up in the Calle de Alcantara. It’s such an amazing neighbourhood, in which I dream to live if I move to Madrid one day 😊
Good Video, but a problem of the especially new neighborhoods is that the streets in them are WAY too wide, and often these neighborhoods arent that well connected to the city by public transit as you make it out to be, especially the cercanias (commuter rail) has a ton of problems with reliability
Its still one of my favourite cities in the world tho no doubt, but the newer parts could be better and it could be less car friendly, especially in the center, that the gran Via is not car free is really a disaster imo
Going with your private car through Gran Vía is already very restricted unless you have an electric car, so most vehicles you see in Gran Vía today are buses, taxis or "VTCs", and some cargo vehicles. Even though voices are claiming that Gran Vía should be fully pedestrian, I doubt that will ever happen, as the street was specifically planned to be an essential artery for traffic. Quite a lot of bus lines need to cross Gran Vía in order to make their itineraries efficient, and forbidding the rest of the vehicles (especially taxis) would significantly worsen a traffic that is already congested.
The Gran Vía, too? That would be a disaster.
I remember gran vía being “pedestrianised” ad hoc after Spain won the World Cup, and it was really nice :) there is still a lot of traffic in Madrid, hope there was more investment in public transport
Fortunately that's just your opinion & Gran Via is not car free...
Nicely done! You caught the essence of Madrid's desirability in a succinct manner. Keep it up!
I'm so excited for the extension of the Metro line 11 in Madrid. It's going to be amazing.
Y yo. Pero aún quedan años...
Madrid is extremely walkable, very nice
Great video, you have a new subsciber :D
I can see my house at 2:49 💀
Viva
Nice to see the video. I would like to watch a longer version with more information, thanks, form Madrid
Im Spanish and I live in Spain, in a nothern city. I don't really know how the thing is but In Madrid for example you can't even drive your private veichle or park your car in different centrical zones of the city.
A few years ago there was a plan of a law, the plan was that half of the veichles could be used in Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the other half on Tuesday and Thursday, or something like that, I think this was rejected, but those are the type of actions that the goverment takes. This was in order to reduce pollution i guess.
A video in english with good spanish pronunciation :o amazing
Cerdá though
Thank you for making more videos about Europe. Please make another video about Oslo and Norway 🇳🇴
Great video.
I think Madrid is a beautiful and walkable city. It’s been a few years since I was last there but plan on going back soon.
cool video! now i want to visit Madrid!
3:03 I live near that crossroads haha. Nice video!!
3:14 and 4:36 Same neighbourhood (Las Rosas)
Good video with a lot of potential! I would of loved to see a different ending as this one felt quite abrupt
Another amazing video!!!
Wow i like your video and the content
I don't fully agree. The neighborhood of Salamanca is very exclusive and expensive, precisely because it's so beautiful and well designed. Most people don't live there, as it's mostly dedicated to offices, high-end retail, and wealthy people - an apartment usually costs several million euros there when the average salary is below 50,000€ per year.
The M-30 motorway encircles the entire city core, making living outside of it undesirable. Many dense neighborhoods outside the city centre are poorer, worse maintained (dirtier), don't have enough trees or greenery, and, for the most, the connections by public transport are only to the city centre, not between neighborhoods in the periphery. Buses are unreliable as they depend on traffic flow.
Newer neighborhoods may look well designed if you look at them from above on Google Maps, but the reality is that they're merely dormitory neighborhoods, with little or no business activity. Walking around is as if you'd be in a ghost town, as everyone commutes to the business areas in the centre or North of Madrid. While the city core has beautiful, individual buildings, the outskirts are mostly made up of copy-paste blocks with no character or beauty, just functionality.
Thank you for the video though, it's insightful to see what the outside perspective is and appreciate what one has! :)
Bullshit, cliches and half-truths.
I wonder... are you living in Madrid?
What's more, I don't think you've ever been to any neighborhood in Madrid.
The average appartment in salamanca will reach from 200k to 500k, only terraced houses will be over that price
Recordemos que Salamanca no es un barrio sino un distrito, compuesto a su vez por seis barrios bastante diferentes entre sí. Si bien es cierto que los barrios de Castellana y Recoletos son muy caros y exclusivos, tanto Lista como Goya están más en la línea de otros distritos del centro como Retiro o Chamberí, y los barrios de La Guindalera y Fuente del Berro tienen una proporción vivienda-negocio y un ambiente de lo más normal (lo digo en el buen sentido, no me vaya a comer ahora algún hater).
I couldn't agree more👏
The fact that those 50 last seconds were the most interesting part. I hope there is a part 2 with the critique of these PAU neighborhoods
What surprises me (even though I understand the reasons) is how mild seasons are in Madrid compared to New York City which lies on the same parallel (between parallels 40 and 41). This of course has a lot to do with its livability.
Madrid has milder winters, but summers here will alwars get really hot, it is not rare to have +40°C hear waves
@@Lucas24997 Sí, pero tampoco es para tanto, yo soy de Valencia y hasta se agradece la sequedad de Madrid. Jaén ya es otro cantar, se nota la meridionalidad y la reducción de altitud.
Interesting to see. I lived in Madrid and from all the European Cities I've been to, Madrid is definitely the most car heavy city I've seen.
Totally agree. There’s so much car infrastructure but then you also get a massive metro system and some dense enough areas where people walk. Very interesting combo
And what’s insane is that 70% of the cars on the road are taxis. I’ve never seen a city so full with taxis. Maybe NYC but that’s it
This "from all the European cities I've been to" is very relative. Maybe you've only lived in cities smaller than Madrid...
I've been to many European capitals and cities and in the largest ones there are as many cars on their streets as in those of Madrid.
Really interesting. Thanks! I write a blog about the history of Madrid called The Making of Madrid so I'd love to add a little extra info: suburban expansion was initially unplanned as the population swelled in the 50-70s creating shanty towns on the outskirts. Then, these "chabolas" were knocked down to create the planned estates you're talking about. Some displacement did occur but I agree, the estates are well planned - I live on one created in the 1960s. We sadly do have some estates that look like the ones shown in Dallas in the video. Built during the early 2000s, they were not made with the same care and lacked transport connections. In any case, some are now empty shells as the construction bubble burst and half-finished projects were abandoned as Spain sunk into an economic crisis. Anyway, hope this info is helpful to anyone interested in the topic.
Super interesting! I came across a lot of history relating to the areas of vallecas and how it was settled during the 50s and 60s. And also in the east of vallecas as you mention there’s a lot of cleared land where they wanted to expand but it has not been built. I’m going to check out your blog!
@@sensatovideos Thanks! I'm in Usera, which is adjacent to Vallecas and a similar vibe. If you search for the shanty towns post there's more info.
I live in Atlanta, I’m mostly stuck in a car. I can’t wait to retire and move to a place I can walk to run simple errands.
Tengo 5 supermercados a menos de 3 minutos andando, dos mercados tradicionales donde se compra producto fresco, tengo los trsnsportes muy cerca, para ir al hospital tardo 2 o 3 minutos a la parada y 10 minutos al hospital, puedo ver el horario por el smartphone y salgo cuando falta unos minutos para que pase el bus o el tren, ademas tengo a 5 minutos un parque grande y al lado de casa algunos parques mas pequeños, esta todo muy cerca, tambien en ese parque ponen un mercadillo los miercoles, los mercados tradicionales son estos, recomendado para fruta, verdura, carne y pescado de buena calidad y buen precio ademas el trato es mucho mas cercano que un supermercado, al ser cliente te recomienda productos de calidad. czcams.com/video/YcPURJxQlfk/video.htmlsi=bCfM4Aw50i-oafZB&t=1
cuando eres americano hasta Madrid parece una buena ciudad
No tengo ninguna duda de que Madrid sea una buena ciudad... y pues comparandola a cualquier ciudad grande en norte america la hace parecer aún mejor jajaja
Madrid es una de las mejores ciudades/regiones del mundo considerando sus 7 millones de habitantes.
Por qué es mala Madrid?
Eso es un chiste, frijoles?
Lo digo porque no tiene ni puñetera gracia, ni es verdad. Madrid es una fantástica ciudad sin importar de donde sea quien opine, excepto para los envidiosos como tú...
30 min extended version pls
In the newer districts on the outskirts you’ll find very much lifeless care centric zones. Quite the expanding urban hell in the hot summers.
An urban hell??? in the hot summers, full of parks, trees and green areas...
@@rsnankivell1962 I actually live in Madrid. Anyone who lives will agree that the summers here are HELL.
@@cianmcguire5647 So, without that question mark: An "urban hell" in the hot summers, full of parks, trees and green areas... And 15,000 swimming pools (140,000 in the Community of Madrid)
Not too bad.
You should study the planning of British city Milton Keynes. It is unique in the world. You probably wouldn't like it because they did not include a tram or a train so people drive, but because of the good planning, there are little traffic jams, as they use roundabouts, not traffic lights
Of course! Yea Milton Keynes is super interesting, I want to make it out there one day to check it out in person.
Good video!
An important thing for Madrid, and why it's so dense even in post-war years, is because of the rapid growth of the city after the war, and the Francoist Government's aims to provide affordable housing (to counter communism and anti-government forces).
Madrid didn't significantly industrialise until the 1950s, since industrialisation before had been disrupted by war and political chaos, and during the 1950s a lot of slums appeared in Madrid, especially to the south of the city.
An issue that I have is with the Urban highways, and preferably Madrid should demolish all their Autovias that aren't the outermost ring, since that can encourage a lot of car driving instead.
it would be nice if you could make a review of Madrid Calle 30
Also, newly built buildings in these areas usually have huge communal areas with swimming pool and stuff like that. This makes it almost impossible to create areas for shops on the perimeter. These buildings are creating walled streets with little room for local shops.
There are shops on most of the ground floors of these blocks.
Very informative!
Glad you think so!
I do agree with some of the points made here, and I do love some aspects of Madrid's urban design. However, the new neighbourhoods aren't as good as you might think. Many of them lack basic public services like schools, doctors, etc. Also the transit network hasn't been planned accordingly with their development leaving many of them disconnected from the centre and very reliant on cars. While overall transport is very good, there's still a lot of progress to be made.
Really? If you say so...
crying because im in america and not spain this summer
Nice video but I wished instead of comparing it to Dallas so much you spoke more about the topics that you missed
Madrid is the bomb!!! I ❤Madrid!!!
05:00 nice
Great video! But while i agree that spanish (mediterranean) urbanism does a better job in creating more sustainable and humane cities compared to the american way of urbanism, i would disagree in saying that madrid is well designed.
The Plan Castro, has many flaws, it was designed to have only one city centre, it has been proofed that a multiple centre city works better. In its origin, it was designed to have neighbours divided by class, it is classist, and this decision affects Madrid even today.
I think that you have picked up on the fact that our way of doing urbanism (creating high/medium densities and leaving street level building spaces for shops and offices) favours a more sustainable and lively way of life. But that is practically all of Spain.
Madrid hasn’t had a very good urban planning, it might seem good because in general Spain has good urban planning.
From an urbanist perspective, the city needs to be less car-dependent, investing in cycling mobility; and as you have pointed out the outskirts are not that well-connected or well designed. This new developments need to have more economic activity and more access to public transport. Madrid cannot have its entire public service system in the city centre.
I love Madrid and have lived in this city for years. But it hasn’t worked in improving itself. This city needs to work in many ways to create a more sustainable and egalitarian place to live.
Por favor, deja a un lado la ideología "commie" cuando opines de Madrid... apesta.
Además de apestar creas un relato bastante sesgado de la realidad.
Cycling is very tough in Madrid because of its topology! The highest neighbourhoods in the north are circa 825 metres, and the river (obviously the lowest) districts are about 640 metres high. There are 10 kilometres between them, but there's a slight but steady raise that can be really tiring when you go walking or cycling. Madrid is a rollercoaster.
I lived near Madrid Rio park for 2 years, and agree that it's comfortable to walk anywhere if you live in right neighborhood.
Public transport is great there too, but still there are a lot of places designed primarily for cars - especially big shopping centers. There was Plaza Río 2 shopping center near our home, which covered most of our needs, but sometimes we had to go elsewhere and wished I had a car like other people there.
It's also a terrible city for cycling: bike lanes are almost nonexisting, and often you have to ride in the middle lane between buses/taxis on the right and private cars on the left - I never felt safe and can't imagine my girlfriend doing this.
Another bad thing for me that with this density it felt overcrowded. Literally there is no place where you can walk without seeing anybody. As for someone who value privacy and comes from much less dense eastern european city it was a problem and one of the reasons we left. But maybe someone from London or New York won't have issues with it.
Please don't come, too many people here already. There are very many beautiful and well designed places in Spain besides Madrid and BCN, take for example Valladolid, Salamanca, León, Logroño, Toledo, etc. Those places need people and the quality of life is better ;)
Some of those places are very boring compared to Madrid tho
@@cocazade7703 That's why big cities keep getting bigger 😂 Many have urged people to go to and live in and develop the small cities (to keep them from dying) but seems it hardly works.
Too many people and Too Gentrified.
my house is in the video hahahahha im shocked
Madrid is the best city in the entire world!
I have to add that the recent expansions shown in this video are nothing like older ones. Areas like Sanchinarro, Las Tablas, Montecarmelo or Valdelasfuentes have almost nothing in common with Barrio Salamanca or Chamartin and are more car-oriented, creating almost deserted areas.
These areas have much wider avenues with sparcer commerce with lots of isolated appartment complexes or "urbanizaciones" as we call them, creating areas where you will only see people walking their dog and not much else, because of the lack of activities and the unbearable heat during the summer due to the lack of shade. It doesn't help that the architecture is usually modernist, boxy and devoid of personality (not that older expansions were better tbh), which makes some people call these complexes "pisos soviéticos".
IMO peak Madrid can be found inside the M30, altghough there are some great planned cities in the outskirts that followed the old design principles and are great places to be, Alcobendas and Tres Cantos often come to mind but Majadahonda and Pozuelo are also great.
Comentario prejuicioso e ideológico...
Serán barrios muy desagradables según tú, pero miles de madrileños quieren vivir allí y viven allí maravillosanente bien.
Se te ha olvidado decir que esas "urbanizaciones" tienen parques y zonas verdes, decenas y decenas de piscinas e instalaciones deportivas privadas y comercio... y centros comerciales.
I live in Madrid and don't have a car, I don't need it. I have a motor scooter; if it rains, or if it's cold in the winter I
take a cab.
Sadly, the USA model is the main reference for the suburbs of Madrid since the 90's: car dependant and only for residential use based areas
If you say so...
Omg thats my street
Us Spaniards living in the provinces REALLY get shocked at how messy and inconvenient it is to live in Madrid or Barcelona (though some have no choice but to move there, due to there not being enough jobs where we were born). Many people living in those two cities long to come back home, where it's less messy and less stressful.
But then I come to CZcams and there's dozens of videos about how well planned these cities are. I cannot fathom what living in Houston, or New York, feels like.
Madrid isn't even that big if you compare it with many cities outside of Europe
More expensive now due to the less educated (thick) people in the provinces (which have greater political clout per capita) voting for right-wing political parties which have a laissez-faire (corrupt) attitude to vulture funds and parasitic companies like Air BnB.
Im from the provinces, and I dont see how inconvenient is to live in Madrid. I would love to have their transport system and medical care in the provinces. ... there is 1 metro every 5 minutes!
when I studied abroad in Barcelona and it was literally life changing. I live in Tampa, but you can't beat walking to a grocery store less than a block away or plan in advance due to high car traffic. Yes, I've been to NYC and Chicago but nothing beats a city like Madrid or Barcelona.
Living in Houston must be the horror.
As a Spaniard I DONT CARE ABOUT THIS SHIT, I WANT TO LIVE IN SUBURBS
mi barrio debe ser la gran excepción
the problem Madrid is facing now is the rapid population growth not being followed by investment and development of the public transit. The subway is great but it is reaching max capacity and it's overloaded during rush hour.
I'm thinking... I wonder... Madrid must be the ONLY big city in the world that has its subway system overloaded during rush hour?... Really?
@@rsnankivell1962 It wasn't the case like 10 years ago.
@@doal92 Really? (again)
10 years ago, it was the case in quite a few stations in the city centre.
Then there is the other side. Highly populated neighborhoods with really old buildings with little insulation, where noise is a big problem in a country with crazy schedules.
Also, the reason why the neighborhoods are like this is not a decision of the population, but the result of a scam by government organizations allied with the construction sector to speculate on the price of housing.
That can only be applied to the ones built during the francoist era by developers, and some built in the 2000s in the metro area.
Places like Puente de Vallecas where originally a shanty town on the border between Madrid and Vallecas
If its so well designed should have much more green spaces ffs
04:58 59%?
Madrid has one of the best metro systems in the world... AFTER Moscow...
====> Moscow has a metro system that is by far unparalleled in terms of design efficiency and how to get around in a city.
Why It has to be compared to USA which is not center of the world to be so important
I've never been to Madrid but I lived in Spain for a year and a half (I'm moving back in two months) and have travelled a lot of it and most of the cities are so walkable with decent enough transport. Valencia has one of the best metros I've ever been on in my life. I lived on Sevilla which has pretty uneven and classist transport ie. only located in richer neighbourhoods but it has very good biking infrastructure, good buses, and is very very walkable. It is harder to get around Irish cities which are smaller than Sevilla or Valencia.
Also worth noting that during Madrid's expansion in the 40s and 50s, less than 2% of households owned cars and there was a constant famine throughout the 40s due to Franco's economic policies and chasing the idea of autarky. The inefficiency he caused in farming, labour, the inability to get oil during and post-ww2 due to isolationism, as well as car parts until post Madrid Accords in 1953 meant they had no choice but to develop in this way (as in avoiding the destruction of farmland) or else they would worsen the starvation and rebellion happening. The Civil War ended in 1939 but resistance did not. Rebels were invading from the North East and capturing towns in the North West well into the late 40s, and uprisings happened in the university of Madrid in the 50s resulting in its closure. Before any Francoists come at me saying he was actually great with economic policies - I have a history degree and studied in La Universidad de Sevilla which is famously quite fascist, and you can look at Paul Preston's work on this who documents the extreme drop in wages and rise in starvation which did not level out until 1960...and then a recession started in 1961. Franco was the dumbest and worst dictator post-WW2 hands down and he had a high pitched little bitch voice which is why he never spoke in public.
Franco diddnt chase any Autarchy idea. Spain was forced to due te international sanctions and blockade
Man check you sources, the Maquis movement was
Fascist University? you wont discuss anything? The only thing you can say about Franco is his pitch? The Maquis captured cities? come on man, you cant be take seriously…..
Biased and irrelevant comment that also has nothing to do with the topic of this video, full of cheap ideology, clichés, half-truths and prejudices.
Check your sources because it seems to me that your comment is very lacking in rigor, but very full of socialist ideology...
NOO!!!! It's NOT Plan Cerda! 0_0 (for people who don't speak Spanish "cerda" is a female pig, also used as a pejorative towards women)
It's Plan Cerdà! pronounced with stress on DA!!!! VERY IMPORTANT!!!!
I live in Madrid and I disagree with your video. It is true that some neighborhoods, such as Salamanca, are well designed; but there are many others densely built and without of green areas. Especially during the Franco’s regim, it was wildly urbanized, building poor quality and aesthetically horrible homes (mostly in working-class neighborhoods). Little by little, these problems have been corrected, such as the burial of the highway at the height of the Manzanares River. And other projects are planned, such as the surroundings of the Chamartín station. However, the lack of housing availability, the poor quality of most of the housing available and the absence of parks in many neighborhoods of the city continue to be a serious problem.
¿Donde hay un barrio de Madrid sin zonas verdes? No faltes a la verdad (no mientas) y deja la ideología.
Hay una estadística que dice que no hay una calle en todo Madrid que no tenga a menos de 300 metros un parque o una zona verde. DATO MATA RELATO.
@@rsnankivell1962 abre Google mapas y echa un vistazo a: Cuatro Caminos, Rios Rosas, Costillares, San Juan Bautista, Santa Eugenia… cuando hablo de zonas verdes no me refiero a una plaza con cuatro bancos y dos árboles. Sino un gran parque donde uno pueda pasear como Retiro, Manzanares, Parque de San Isidro.
Creo que esto no es cuestión de ideologías. Celebró el soterramiento de la zona de Chamartín para hacer un gran parque. Y ese es un proyecto en el que han participado desde PP a Carmena.
De la estupidez esa de afirmar que un dato mata un relato basándose en una supuesta estadística que hay por ahí ni comento.
From what spaniards have told me, Madrid is miserable in the summer. Probably less so than Texan cities but still too much asphalt.
61% not 69%
1:15 it's Cerdà, not Cerda.
A 'cerda' is a female pig, so very big difference here.
As with a lot of languages, the accent tells you to stress that vowel.
I don't think is that hard to make a minumum research on how to pronounce words that are not in your native language, specially considering you spent a lot of time and effort in reseraching about the topic of the video.
Also, 4:55, 34 + 25 = 59, not 69.
YES! and NO! Madrid has suffered of big sprawl after the 70s/80s... as well, following the Highways and Motorways so it combines that compact city 3million + 1 -2 million and the left 1-2 million to readch 6million lives suburban areas some of them like the US
Ya son 7 millones oficialmente.
"Throughout Europe and North America", as if South America didn't have that type of neighborhood. Ridiculous omission considering this is a video about Madrid.
It is not lol
Get out of the 19th century urban planning of Madrid and you'll see that Madrid is not at all well designed. The 20th century city plan is a bunch of uncontrolled growing with chaotic and improvised grids that don't maintain a homogeneous extension of the city. Every new extra neighbourhood added to the city looks like a new patch forming a frankenstein puzzle.
But they work better than most of the other European lower class neightbourhood thanks to the high density, walkability and mix use.
As a person with family members there, their biggest complain is the lack of parking spaces.
DENSITY IS SHIT AND MADRID NEW DEVELOPMENTS ARE EITHER
Ah Central Planning, wasn't Fascism wonderful.
Que fascismo? Fascismo es ahora con los Naziprogres nazional Sociolistos Sovieticos.
I live in Madrid, and it is absolutely not insanely well designed. Mainly it has has no room for expansion. Centre and Non centre are so strictly designated that house and rent prices in the centre rise and rise. Secondly, but less so, the Metro, although there is a lot of it, is illogical, there are lines that don't pass through the centre, there is no decent ring line, there is no connection from the centre to the airport. Also, there is a constrictive inner ring road, which is a nightmare to drive on and will restrict future growth. Madrid is a great city and it is booming at the moment, but it is no way well designed.
Are you really living in Madrid?? Cause all you just said its pretty wrong hahaha line 6 goes around the city, you have 3 ways of going to Barajas airport from the exact center directly (metro, cercanias and airport bus). You have 3 concentric ring roads (m30,m40 and m50). And about expansion there’s constantly expansion and new neighborhoods being developed (Pitis, Sanchinarro, Valdebebas). Of course you folks want all to live inside M30 so prices go higher and higher… As someone how has lived in some other major european cities I really came to appreciate what we have in Madrid, even so we have issues and stuff to improve.
@@samuelistillo84 You will have to explain to me how to get to the direct centre, directly from the airport without a change, because I don´t know how to. Considering that Nuevos Ministerios and Atocha are not the "direct centre", there is no way to get direct from the airport to direct centre (gran via, callao, opera, sol), there simple isn't. I didn't say there wan't a ring line, i said their wasn't a decent ring line, L6 doesn't join up places that need to be joined up, the ring line should be much more central. The places that you mentioned are soulless ensanches and that is not what I was saying regarding expansion.
WTF! Are you living in Madrid?
Bullshit and more bullshit and inaccuracies, man!
Deja la ideología y los prejuicios cuando opines de Madrid, por favor.
Prefiero las casas con jardín y con automóvil, como en USA.
Las prefieres hasta que te toca vivir en ellas
imagina tener que coger el coche para ir a por el pan
Claro y para ir " hasta para tirar la basura" una de dos o haces la Maratón o vas en coche 😂
Tú mismo... se nota que no has ha vivido en ninguna de ellas, yo sí.
Insanely well designed.... what a joke. Don'r compare American flaws with European normalities. It is horrendous to live in Madrid compared with other cities. It is either freezing cold or boiling hot. The city has way too many people to walk comfortably around. Change the title to "Why Madrid has become huge though being a small town during the Middle Ages".
Porque se hizo grande New York si no existia cuando Madrid era "pequeña", quiza hay tanta gente porque vienen muchos de fuera les gusta Madrid, por supuesto que el tema movilidad y transporte publico os da repaso y seguridad tambien, hay tanta gente en la calle porque se puede salir sin miedo a que te disparen.