THE SUBJECT OF THE SUPERBLOCK. Gridiron construction effectively came to an end in the period following the Second World War. What succeeded the gridiron was the superblock. A superblock is an increase in the unit of urban aggregation beyond the characteristic of a conventional city block. This significant increase in economic, demographic or territorial dimension represents not only a change in size, but also a change in kind. This change affects the subjectivities constructed by the gridiron. The same circles representing social groupings can be drawn as they were in the previous diagram, but unlike the gridiron infrastructure, the groupings cannot be moved or resized independent of the superblock infrastructure that creates them. The circles still indicate a number of collective subjectivities such as formed by political or ethnic identities. The subjectivities of the superblock correspond precisely to the infrastructural form such that a ‘lock’ between program and structure is created. Besides being locked into the infrastructure, these subjectivities can also be more easily isolated as a result of a defined perimeter and the reduced number of entrances and exits that typically occur in superblock development. In other words, the same groups can be formed, but the dynamic between them is utterly changed. Superblocks are the organizational unit of such well-known projects as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City. They are also characteristic of the immediate postwar subdivision in North America. The superblock encodes another level of hierarchy within the urban infrastructure: BOULEVARD/STREET/DESTINATION.
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