The City as a Political Pawn

Born in 1946 in Lund, Sweden, Bo Larsson is an architect, PhD and associate professor of urban planning with teaching, research and practical urban-planning experience. He has devoted special interest to issues concerning cultural heritage in urban development and planning, the quality of urban design and sustainable transportation and urban structural development, as well as to urban issues in the Nordic countries and in East and Central Europe. Dr Larsson has worked at the Institute of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, at the Department of Urban Planning at the Faculty of Architecture at Lund University, Sweden, and at the Centre for European Studies at Lund University. He also works as an expert for the European Commission. Published research projects include: The Language of the Town, Urban Form and Housing in Nordic Capital Cities from 1970 to 1990 (PhD thesis); Relations Between Nature and Culture in the Urban Planning of Lund 1950¿2000 (thesis presented for appointment to the position of docent, equivalent to associate professor); and Multi-Ethnic Built Heritage in West Ukraine and Moldova ¿ a Challenge for Urban Planning and Development. He is editor and co-author of the books Univer-City: The Old Middle-Sized European Academic Town as Framework of the Global Society of Science ¿ Challenge and Possibilities (2008) and Tankar om förstadens framtid (Thoughts About the Future of the Suburb), with My Laurell, (2005). He is currently working on books based on the results of the research projects The Memory of Vanished Population Groups in Today¿s East- and Central European Urban Environments ¿ Memory Treatment and Urban Planning in Lviv, ¿ernivci, Chi¿in¿u and Wroc¿aw, and Literature and Cityscape ¿ Urban Identity in East-Central Europe (on Brody, Buczacz and ­Drohobycz in East Galicia; together with the University of Vienna).