Learning from Barcelona

Having just returned from the second Global Smart City Expo/Congress where he was a speaker, Toderian offers some envy worthy photographs from his travels through the city along with a bevy of "steal-able" lessons for urbanists. In his observations and recommendations, Toderian champions holistic city-building, moments of creativity within larger city patterns, room for multi-modal infrastructure, the importance of scale in creating urban rooms, and strategically locating tall buildings.

Says Toderian: "I've often remarked that the eight most frustrating words in the English language are 'we could never do that in our city.' You may think that Barcelona, like many great European cities, is just too different to teach us anything. Many lessons though, are transferable, scalable, and universal."