Alessandro Busà - Urban Research 

ACADEMIC CURRICULUM VITAE  

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EDUCATION

 

▪ Ph.D. (Dr. -Ing.), Theory of Urban Planning, Technische Universität Berlin (January 2014)

▪ DFG Fellowship, Center for Metropolitan Studies, Transatlantic Research Program Berlin/New
York (January 2008-2010)​

▪ Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia
University in New York, Department of Urban Planning, invited by Prof. Peter Marcuse (September
2006- February 2009)​

▪ Doctoral Degree Program in Urban Planning, Technische Universität Berlin, advised by Prof.
Enrico Gualini (ISR, Berlin) and Prof. Robert Beauregard (GSAPP Columbia University, New York)
(January 2008-present)​

▪ Research Project of the CNR (National Research Council) “The Renaissance of the European
Shopping Arcade”, Florence (2006-2007)​

▪ Research Project of the Wüstenrot Stiftung, Zürich / Ludwigsburg (2005-2006)​

▪ Research Project of the University of Florence and CNR (National Research Council) "The
evolution of consumption patterns and its influence on the architectural landscape of major Italian
cities", Florence (2004-2005)

▪ Master Degree in Architecture "summa cum Laude" (with distinction), (MArch, Dipl.-Ing.)
at the Technische Universität Berlin.
Title of the Master Thesis: "Endstation Berlin Mitte: Die neuste Definition des Berliner
Zentrums " (2001- 2004)​

▪ Bachelor Degree in Architecture (BArch), University of Florence (Florentina
Studiorum Universitas) (1998-2001)

 

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FELLOWSHIPS, ACADEMIC HONORS, GRANTS

▪ DFG Fellowship, Center for Metropolitan Studies, Transatlantic Research Program Berlin/New
York (2008-2010)​

▪ Erwin Stephan Preis of the Technische Universität Berlin, Academic Year 2003/04

▪ Goethe Institut Educational Development Fellowship, Academic Year 2003​

▪ DAAD (Deutsches Akademisches Austausch Dienst) International Program Fellowship, 2001

 

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RESEARCH AREAS

Critical urban theory; urban planning; architectural history; global and comparative urban,
metropolitan, suburban and regional development

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PUBLICATIONS

▪ BOOKS

Alessandro Busà,  "The Creative Destruction of New York City - Engineering the City for the Elite". New York City: Oxford University Press, 2017

▪ BOOK CHAPTERS

Alessandro Busa', "Rezoning Coney Island: A History of decline and revival, of heroes and villains at
the “People’s Playground”, in De Sena, Judith and Shortell, Tim eds., The World In Brooklyn:
Gentrification, Immigration, and Ethnic Politics in a Global City. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books,
2012, 147-185.​

Alessandro Busa', "New York City, New York", in Robbins, Paul, Cohen, Nevin and Golson, J.
Geoffrey eds., Green Cities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers, 2010.

Alessandro Busa', "City of Memory", in Ray Hutchinson ed., Sage Enclyclopedia of Urban Studies.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers, 2009, 158-161.​

Alessandro Busa', "The New York World's Fair (1939/40)", in Ray Hutchinson ed., Sage
Enclyclopedia of Urban Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers, 2009, 561-562

Alessandro Busa', "The City Beautiful Movement", in Ray Hutchinson ed., Sage Enclyclopedia of
Urban Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers, 2009, 152-156

Alessandro Busa', "The City Re-Invented: Confronting Urban Strategies in the Entrepreneurial Era",
in 11th Planet Congress Warsaw 2007 ed., Top Down/ Bottom Up. Warsaw, 2008, 43-36.
Polish Translation: "Miasto Odtworzone: Konfrontacja Miejskich Strategiii w Erze
Przedsiębiorczości", in 11th Planet Congress Warsaw 2007 ed., Top Down/ Bottom Up. Warsaw,
2008, 43-36.

Alessandro Busa', “Vita e Morte delle Gallerie Commerciali Italiane“ / “The Death and Life of Great
Italian Shopping Arcades“, in Giandomenico Amendola ed., La Città Vetrina. Milano: Liguori
Edizioni, 2006, 38-56.

Alessandro Busà,“Der Weg zu einer modernen Architektur in einem Land, das von einer
fortschrittlicher Pädagogik geprägt ist: Bauen für Kinder in Italien“, in Wüstenrot Stiftung ed.,
Bauen für Kinder. Stuttgart + Zurich: Karl Krämer Verlag, 2005, 200-242.

▪ JOURNAL ARTICLES, ESSAYS (Selection)

▪ Peer-reviewed journal articles

 

Alessandro Busa', "After the 125th Street Rezoning: The Gentrification of Harlem’s Main Street in the Bloomberg Years", Urbanities Vol. 4 · No 2 · November 2014: 51-68

 

Alessandro Busa', "The Unsustainable Cost of Sustainability: PlaNYC 2030 and the Future of New York City". Critical Planning Journal  Volume 20 Summer 2013: 193-217.

 

Alessandro Busà, “Dirty Urban Landscapes”, Streetnotes, 22 (2014): 62-72.

Alessandro Busa', “La rinascita del Centro a Londra e Berlino: Book review of ‘Renaissance der
Mitte – Zentrumsumbau in London und Berlin”, Urbanistica, 136 (2008): 122-123.

 

▪ Other publications

 

Alessandro Busà, “Rezoning Coney Island: The crisis of routine-development and the struggles
over “The people’s Playground”, Hunter College Department for Urban Affairs and Planning
Depository, (2011).​
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Alessandro Busà, "A Manifesto for Coney Island", ABSTRACT – Magazine of the GSAPP of Columbia
University, 2008/2009 (2010): 261.​

Alessandro Busà, "Gli Ultimi Giorni di Firenze", FFF: Florence Fast Forward, 1 (2009): 11-19.​

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Alessandro Busà, "The Right to the City - The Entitled and the Excluded", The Urban Reinventors,
3:09 (2009).​

Alessandro Busà, “Palimpseststadt - City of Layers”, Mu.dot (Magazine for Urban Documentation,
Opinion, Theory), 8 (2008): 26-30.

“XX Secolo: Firenze“, d'Architettura, 36 (2008): 182-190.

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Alessandro Busà, “Celebrations of Urbanity“, The Urban Reinventors, 2:07 (2007).​
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Alessandro Busà, “Confronting Strategies of Urban Reinvention“, The Urban Reinventors, 1:07
(2007).​

Alessandro Busà, “Vita, Morte e Reinvenzione del Passage Italiano“, ARCH'IT-Rivista di
Architettura, (2007).

Alessandro Busa', “La Reinvenzione della Memoria: un’ Archeologia berlinese tra Politiche di
Rimozione e Strategie di Ricostruzione ideale della Memoria“, Gomorra – Territori e culture della
Metropoli Contemporanea, 10/06 (2006): 112-120.

Alessandro Busa', “Un' Archeologia Berlinese“, Liberazione (Newspaper), June 22, (2007): 14​

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Alessandro Busa', “Le Ricostruzioni di Alexanderplatz / The Reconstructions of Alexanderplatz“, L’Architettura Cronache e Storia, 573 (2005): 534-538

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Alessandro Busa', “Metamorfosi di un Mito lungo un Secolo: l’ex Tacheles Areal a Berlin Mitte da
Spazio di Sopravvivenza della Cultura Off a Luogo del Consumo della Nuova Urban Class“, Gomorra
– Territori e culture della Metropoli Contemporanea, 08/05 (2005): 110-119 

 

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CONFERENCE TALKS, LECTURES

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"Smart, Green and Pricey: New York and the Quest for Sustainability", Keynote speech, IQ Forum "Innovative City: Why Not Klaipeda?" in Klaipeda, Lithuania, May 24, 2017.

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"The Creative Destruction of New York City - Engineering the City for the Elite" Book presentation, ​International Conference on Development in the Face of Global Inequalities, to be held at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), Spain, May 11 – 13, 2017. 

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"The Creative Destruction of New York City - Engineering the City for the Elite". Keynote speech, International Conference on Urban Planning ICUP 2016, Niš, Serbia., November 18-20, 2016.

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"The Rezoning and Branding of New York City under the Mayoralty of Michael R. Bloomberg (2002-2013)", Forschungskolloquium am Institut für Stadt- und Regionalplanung (ISR), TU Berlin. Berlin, December 9th, 2013.

 

"The New Coney Island Between Development and Historic Preservation", History Department, Fordham University. New York, April 26 th, 2012.

“Where Utopia was born, and died: The Struggles for Coney Island and the Death of Utopia”, The
Utopia of Tradition”, 12th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Traditional
Environments (IASTE). Beirut (Lebanon), December 15th-18th 2010​

“New York’s City Producers, the Global Crisis, and the Green Way Out”, Confronting the Challenges
of the Post-Crisis Global Economy and Environment, Royal Geographical Society-Institute of
British Geographers Annual International Conference. London (UK), September 1st-3rd 2010

"Rezoning Coney Island: the Crisis of Routine-Development and the Struggles over the People's
Playground", Revitalising Built Environment - International Symposium IAPS CSB Housing
Network. Istanbul (Turkey), October 12th -16th 2009

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Discourses and Practices in Regeneration Policies and Anti Gentrification Efforts In London and New York, with Loretta Lees (King’s College London) and Tom Angotti (Hunter College, New York). Workshop.  Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technische Universität Berlin, July 6th, 2010.

"New York’s Routine-Development in Times of Crisis", Conference of the Royal Geographical
Society-Institute of British Geographers. Manchester (UK), August 26th -28th 2009

"Visions for Florence", Visions 9th International Conference for Architecture and Media. Florence
(Italy), July 9th -17th 2009

Chair, "Responses to Environmental Catastrophes in Urban Settings", in "The City and The State of
Exception - 5th Annual Conference of the Transatlantic Graduate Research Program Berlin-New
York. Berlin, June 4th -6th 2009

"City Producers, City Consumers and the Representation of the City in Bloomberg's New York",
Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). Las Vegas (Nevada), March
22nd -27th 2009

"A Manifesto for Coney Island", project presentation, "Imagine Coney: Bold Ideas for Coney
Island's Future", Metropolitan Art Society - Urban Center Galleries. New York (New York),
February 4th -March 12th 2009

"Rezoning New York City: Stadt-Produktion und Stadt-Konsum in Bloomberg's New York".
Forschungstag des Institut für Architektur (IfA). Berlin (Germany), May 27th 2009

"The Production and Consumption of Urbanity in Bloomberg's New York: The Rezoning Plan for
125th Street in Harlem", Mid-Atlantic Popular American Culture Association Conference. Niagara
Falls, Ontario (Canada), October 20th – 26th 2008

"Urbanity Sells, and Comes from Above: Rezoning, Rebranding and Auctioning Harlem's Main
Street", 4th Annual Conference of the Transatlantic Graduate Research Program Berlin/New York,
In Search of the Postfordist City: Concepts and the Meaning of Urban Space and Society, 4th Annual
Conference of the Transatlantic Graduate Research Program New York, Fordham University. New
York (New York), September 25th -27th 2008

" The Top-Down Production of Urbanity in Bloomberg's New York", BUKO Konferenz
(Bundeskoordination Internationalimus) 'The Right to the City: Soziale Kämpfe in der
Neoliberalen Stadt'. Berlin (Germany), April 11th -13th 2008

"The Production of a New Urbanity in Bloomberg's New York", Forschungskolloquium, Center for
Metropolitan Studies. Berlin, May 22nd 2008

"So Far, So Close: Similarities and Differences in Entrepreneurial Strategies of Urban Development
in Berlin and New York", Forschungskolloquium der Abteilung Politik , JFK Institut FU Berlin.
Berlin, January 29th 2008

"The Production of Urbanity in New New York", Forschungskolloquium der Abteilung Planungsund
Architektursoziologie, TU Berlin. Berlin (Germany), January 22nd 2008.

"The City Re-Invented: Confronting Urban Strategies in the Entrepreneurial Era", Top Down/
Bottom Up, 11th PlaNet Congress. Warsaw (Poland), September 24th 2007

 

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GUEST LECTURES, SEMINARS AND TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Lecturer, Patterns of Socio-spatial Restructuring in Bloomberg's New York, course "Planung als
Politischer Prozess” by Prof. Enrico Gualini, Institut für Stadt- und Regionalplanung der
Technischen Universität Berlin. Berlin, 2013

Chair, Seminar, Discourses and Practices in Regeneration Policies and Anti Gentrification Efforts In
London and New York, with Loretta Lees (King’s College London) and Tom Angotti (Hunter College,
New York), Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technische Universität Berlin. Berlin, July 6th 2010.

External Reviewer, Designing the City, Urban Design course by Jeffrey Schumaker, Urban Studies
Department at Fordham University. New York, May 3rd 2008

External Reviewer, Radical Urbanism course by Nina Rappaport, School of Architecture, Syracuse
University in New York Program. New York, May 5th, 2008

Urban Studies and Open Access Publishing, guest seminar at Pratt Institute, Center for Planning and
the Environment, Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment. New York, April 2008

Rediscussing Urbanity, guest lecturer at Fordham University, Law School. New York, October 2008
La Reinvenzione della Memoria: le Vicende del Palast der Republik a Berlino, seminar of the
European Community Educational Project. Florence, March 2006

Reinventing the New Berlin Downtown, guest seminar at Università Normale di Pisa, Facoltà di
Scienze Politiche. Pisa, May 2006

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INTERVIEWS

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"Kad sekme netaptu miesto prakeiksmu" / "When the success of a city can become its curse", IQ - The Economist, May 23, 2017

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“Berlino, la Mutante”, RAI Storia, Chiavi delle Città, March 3, 2012. ​

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"Is Trendy East Berlin losing its Edge?". CNN Edition: International, February 16, 2011.

 

"Gentrifizierung macht auch vor der TU nicht halt", TAZ Die Tageszeitung, Juli 8, 2010 ​

"Le Nuove Mura che Dividono. Ritorna il Castello degli Hohenzollern",  "Liberal", April
24th, 2009

"The Urban Reinventors: Reinventare la Città", "Il Giornale dell'Architettura", N. 61,
April 2008​

"Pochi gli stranieri nel Cantiere Milano", "Il Sole 24 Ore", 2-12-2007.

 

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EDITORIAL AND ADVISORY BOARDS AND COMMITTEES

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Editorial Board, Journal of Biourbanism (2010- present)​

Scientific Committee, International Society of Biourbanism (2010- present)

Founder and editor-in-chief, The Urban Reinventors (2007- present)

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ACTIVITY OF VISUAL DOCUMENTATION ON URBAN ISSUES​

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Book and direction of the documentary film "Ein Berliner Haus – Der letzte macht das Licht aus"
(English version: “Last Summer in Berlin Mitte”). Berlin, VISTA Visualisierungsstudio für
Stadtplanung GmbH Berlin and Condor Digital Media (2008).  ​

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FILM SCREENINGS

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2014  The CityPossible III Festival, Singapore, November 6, 2014

 

2012 Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Mimarlık Fakültesi, Istanbul, Turkey, September 12, 2012​

2010 Exhibiting Capitals: Berlin and Beyond, 41st Anniversay Convention NeMLA, Montreal,
Quebec, April 7-11, 2010

2009 Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften, TU Berlin, June 13, 2009

2009 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). Las Vegas, March
22-27, 2009

2009 "Lumpen-City: Discourses of Marginality | Marginalizing Discourses", Interdisciplinary
Conference at York University. Toronto, March 12-13, 2009

2009 Conference " Diversity in Place: Making Documentaries on the Multicultural City",
Globalization Research Center, Dept. of Urban and Regional Planning. Honolulu, Hawaii,
April 24, 2009

2009 "Warsaw-Berlin Cities in Transition", theatrical event, Urbanophil - Netzwerk für urbane
Kultur. Berlin, July 5, 2009

2009 Conference "The City from Below". Baltimore, US, March 27-29, 2009

2008 Panel Discussion, Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte. Berlin, July 4, 2008​

2008 Conference "BUKO31: Globale Ausschlüsse, Soziale Kämpfe, Utopien". Dortmund
(Germany), May 9-12, 2008

2008 Conference “The Right to the City: Soziale Kämpfe in der Neoliberalen Stadt”, BUKO
(Bundeskoordination Internationalimus). Berlin, April 11-13, 2008

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FOREIGN LANGUAGES

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▪ English language: excellent in reading, speaking and writing
- EPT Exam at Columbia University (grade 10x). New York, 2007.
- Advanced English Exam at the Center of English Studies. Level Advanced, grade A. Dublin, 2004
▪ German language: excellent in reading, speaking and writing
- Goethe Institut Placement Test. Level advanced: Note 1,0. Berlin, 2003
- Goethe Institut Intensivlehrgang (Oberstufe). Berlin, 2003
- D.S.H. Sprachprüfung ZEMS, Technical University Berlin, 2001
▪ Italian language: native language.