Geographer and urban planner
A sociologist and urban planner, director of the City Management and Urban Planning Department at the Open University of Catalonia, he has been engaged with mass-based civic initiatives in Barcelona since the 1960s and was also head of Municipal Policy and Mass Movements in the PSUC (Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia). From 1980 to 1984, he was a member of the Catalan Parliament and, three years later, deputy mayor for Decentralisation and Participation in the Barcelona City Council. He has taught Sociology and Urban Geography at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and at the Technical University of Catalonia as well as in universities abroad, for example in Paris, Buenos Aires, Mexico and New York. He has also worked as a consultant for some of the main cities of Latin America. He regularly writes for the dailies El País and La Vanguardia and has recently published the book Urbanisme de Barcelona: llums i ombres (Urban Planning in Barcelona: Lights and Shadows), which has appeared in Catalan (Edicions 62-Empúries, 2010) and Spanish (UOC 2010). Notable among his earlier works is La ciudad conquistada (The Conquered City – Alianza, 2005).
