El Poblenou neighborhood, Barcelona

El Poblenou is a modern, revitalized neighborhood with glass highrise hotels and offices on the eastern outskirts of Barcelona City where locals go to eat. They stroll the Rambla del Poblenou, a good alternative to the touristy La Rambla. This is a tree-lined street with squares in the roundabouts where locals sit on benches to chat at the end of the day, and cafes with umbrellas in the middle of the walkway that runs down the median. The buildings are pretty, and not as rundown or covered in graffiti and dangling AC units as the rest of Barcelona. 

Joggers take the Rambla del Poblenou all the way from Ave Diagonal to Bogatell Beach, which looks like Venice Beach in California. Here it's nice to watch the ocean, walk out on the jetty, and take in the youthful vibe.
This sounds idyllic, but there are sewer smells that will literally knock you over in the El Poblenou neighborhood. You have to take a tentative breath and then shoot the air back out if it is too strong in poop, dank, and sulfur content!
If you can handle the sewer smells, the restaurants here are good. El Fornet is a classy (but unfriendly) bakery with gold decor and big windows. Two restaurants with the same owner, La Tavernicola and Alma Loca, have excellent food you will remember! Try the sweet potato fries with lime and parmesan at Alma Loca, which has a youthful, friendly atmosphere, much friendlier than most cafes in Barcelona. Balius Bar has live Jazz nights on Sundays at 8:30pm but you need a reservation to enter. The space is a bit small for loud music, but elegant. 
The Plane tree pollen in these tree-lined streets is beyond awful in April- don't come if you have tree allergies! You can literally watch it roll down the street in large balls, and feel it enter your eyes like daggers.
Glories Mall is an outdoor mall in El Poblenou with some good stores, like Hollister Co, a clothing store mostly for teen girls. They have a dark, indoor food court with healthy options like the cafe Honest Greens, where you can get salmon and salads. Es Bien Coffee (no seating), across the street from the northern end of Glories Mall, has the best matcha tea in Barcelona.
Glories Tower, glass and rounded, lights up in blue and red at night. You can take an elevator to the top, or drink at the rooftop bar halfway up, listening to thumping music that will dull all senses. I know, because my room at Novotel Barcelona City faced this atrocity for a few hours until I changed rooms!
Parents bring their kids to the Jardins De Ca l’Aranyo, a park that has more concrete than grass. Teens also hang out on the concrete benches that wrap around some plantings. The playground has an excellent spinner, playhouse structure with slide, swing, and plastic full-backed swing.
Many parents chat as their kids play at Superilla Sant Marti, at 122 Carrer de la Cuitat de Granada, a playground in the middle of a roundabout (seems like a treacherous idea!). There are bouncy circles to balance on, a spinner, a slide, and a disc swing that fits two, all shaded by canopies.
People love to workout outdoors at 835 Gran Via de les Cortes Catalans. In the wide pedestrian walkway is a large workout station (circuit de salut) for guys/girls to work on their muscles called Parc de Cal-listenia, just northwest of Glories Mall and bordering the tramline on the north side. The Kompan equipment, installed on a cushioned surface, has monkey bars, pull-up bars of varied heights, parallel bars, vertical bars, TRX suspension training stations, and instructions via QR codes.
People sit on the lawn at Gran Clariana at the end of the day, or stroll through Parc de les Glories, a huge mostly concrete park. Parc de les Glories has a kids playground with a wavy metal slide down the hill, a straight slide, a small slide, a spinner, and a metal tunnel to crawl through. Along the walkway is a fountain pool kids sometimes step into. Both parks have views of the modern skyscrapers around them, and even Sagrada Familia. 
There are two museums I wish I had found the time to visit in Barcelona: Museu del Disseny (closed Mon), a design museum with an excellent graphic design section, and Museu de la Musica (closed Mon), a museum of musical instruments with an audiotour that lets you listen to the instruments being played. The National Theater of Catalonia also looks like a nice concert hall with a glass exterior. La Monumental is a former bull ring with gorgeous Art Nouveau architecture and a bullfighting museum (closed Sun and Mon) where you are allowed to stand in the bull ring.

Directions

El Poblenou neighborhood is located on the east side of Barcelona City, near Bogatell Beach. Rambla del Poblenou is the main pedestrian artery with cafes, bars, and markets.

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