Oscar Oliver-Didier

Oscar Oliver-Didier is an urban designer and researcher who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and now lives in the South Bronx. His current research studies the role of fiscal incentives for urban development—and the nonprofit financial institutions that broker them—in fostering police-community developer partnerships.

Before arriving at NYU, he served as the Lead Urban Designer for the borough of the Bronx at the NYC Department of City Planning. In this role he was awarded the Michael Weil Award for Urban Design, a recognition of excellence in the pursuit of urban design in the public sector. He is a founding board member of the Shape of Cities to Come Institute (SCCI)—an initiative that seeks to bring together organizers, activists, thinkers, cultural workers, and artists to develop new theories and practices of urban life under a 15-month peer-to-peership program.

Oliver-Didier is also a member of the adjunct faculty at the Visual Arts Program at Fordham University and at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. Previously, he was director of the research collective CIUDADLAB; the Laboratory for Housing, Planning and Urban Studies at the PUPR; and was an Auxiliary Adviser on urbanism to the Governor of Puerto Rico.

He has published articles in Housing Theory and Society, Truthout, Urban Omnibus, CounterPunch, Revista Cruce, Planning Perspectives, and a chapter that was included in The Routledge Handbook of Henri Lefebvre, The City and Urban Society. Oliver-Didier has moderated or offered talks at The Shed, The New Museum, The Buell Center at Columbia University, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Puerto Rico, The Cooper Union, Penn Design, and The University of Puerto Rico. He has edited multiple journals such as ENTORNO, Polimorfo, and Planning Perspectives.