Barcelona’s superblocks: governance lessons
Two years after the Eixample’s expansion of the superblock model, the most-asked question among visiting city-halls is no longer how, it’s how did the politics survive.

Politics, procurement, funding — how cities decide and pay.
// 4 stories · last updated June 2026
Two years after the Eixample’s expansion of the superblock model, the most-asked question among visiting city-halls is no longer how, it’s how did the politics survive.
From Lausanne to Lyon, four cities have lifted Zurich's whole-life-cost tender template. We tracked the document's spread, talked to the procurers who adopted it, and asked the original author if he expected…
A small contracting irregularity in 2024 became a year-long parliamentary inquiry, then became the most stringent municipal procurement law in central Europe. The before-and-after, with the names that matter.
A small directorate inside the European Commission is currently drafting the regulation that will govern how every capital in the bloc reports on heat adaptation by 2028. The lead author has never given an interview. …