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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

No, they don’t. They have underground garages for cars of course, but inside is just tall apartment buildings and a huge courtyard. For example this is the place I used to live:

UHN International Village

https://goo.gl/maps/gJq8kLHckHBygWXK7

It is a huge complex that absolutely has no vehicle traffic. It is very unlike the older places next to it (as you can see on the map, they actually have roads).

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One of the benefits of car-free superblocks is that outdoor spaces within the block become much safer for pedestrians.

Where in a modern city would you find an area 400 meters across with zero motor vehicle traffic? Maybe in a large park. Car-free superblocks bring that park right to your doorstep. It's even better than a real park in the sense that when you actually need a car, it's only an elevator ride away. It's an absolutely fantastic proposition for parents of young children or people with impaired mobility, especially in a country where drivers aren't known for being gentle.

Superblock development has many other pros and cons, but I think the car-free aspect is a very strong argument in favor of it.

Oh ya, I’m not really complaining about that part. Just that the traffic flow is exactly broken up into huge arterials around huge blocks as the article reported (which is accurate). I do prefer more urban apartment living if I don’t have kids, meaning smaller apartment complexes that are more integrated into a diverse urban environment around them (Beijing is a bad example for that, but say an older stand alone apartment building in Shanghai Puxi).

> One of the benefits of car-free superblocks is that outdoor spaces within the block become much safer for pedestrians.

Much safer for everyone.

Some super blocks have internal roads, some don’t. Shengshinianhua in Pudong has 35 buildings and an internal road[1]. Zhongyuan Liangwancheng is so big that it just wouldn’t work without internal roads. It has over two hundred apartment blocks[2].

[1]https://m.anjuke.com/sh/community/32/?from=m_community_list&... [2]https://www.google.com/maps/place/Zhongyuan+Liangwancheng+（W...

At 35 buildings, those internal roads are usually just for moving vans, and are otherwise huge pedestrian paths. At 200, sure.

Baidu gives a better idea of what this looks like.

Map: https://map.baidu.com/search/%E8%8C%82%E5%8D%8Euhn%E5%9B%BD%...

Satellite: https://map.baidu.com/search/%E8%8C%82%E5%8D%8Euhn%E5%9B%BD%...

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