Since early January, I have been living and studying in Alicante, Spain. Alicante has barely twice the population of Columbia, but immediately after getting off the train and into the city, I noticed that it felt much bigger than that. After some thinking over the course of my few weeks here, I’ve realized it’s because American and Spanish approaches to urbanism and city life are completely different.

In a Spanish city, nearly everyone lives in apartments. On the edges of the city, there are some row houses and townhouses, but almost no one lives in a detached, single-family house, as is the norm in most of the United States. This means the cities are a lot denser (Alicante takes up less space than Columbia despite its greater population). With this greater density comes a more vibrant urban environment and, most important of all, much greater walkability.

To get around in Spanish cities, you simply do not need a car. Anywhere that is too far to walk, you can take a bus or a train. Unlike Columbia’s buses, which only come every 90 minutes, the buses in Alicante come every 5–10 minutes and cost less than $0.50 per ride. By not having to drive everywhere, people in Spain save a lot of time and energy, and they get to live in more lively cities that are built for humans rather than for cars.

Of course, being accustomed to cities like Columbia, the Spanish plan of cities takes some adjustment. Everything is smaller — there is less personal space in public settings, especially in somewhere like a cafe. The city is not a quiet place — often, I can hear my neighbors above or below me, and solitude or large natural areas don’t really exist within the city.

Regardless, it has been an interesting change of pace to live in a city such as Alicante — I certainly hope Columbia can learn a thing or two about public transportation from the Spanish!

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: ALI Abroad: University of Alicante