The Eixample urban grid is responsible for Barcelona’s success as a model city. Contrary to what is often said, gentrification in Barcelona is much less severe than in other cities, largely thanks to the Eixample.
In terms of retail, the Eixample functions as a continuous carpet of ground-floor retail stores lining the four facades of each block. The Eixample we enjoy today is not the hygienic city or ville radieuse that Cerdà, and later Le Corbusier, proposed. Fortunately. Barcelona wouldn’t be “the best retail store in the world” without a four-facade, four-chamfered Eixample layout. With over a thousand retail stores per square kilometer, to find a similar commercial phenomenon to that of the Eixample you would have to go to Manhattan, where there is a similar density.
