Maurizio Carta is an architect and PhD in urbanism and regional planning. He is full professor of urban and regional planning at the Department of Architecture of the University of Palermo.

In 1998 he was among the founders of the Degree in "Urbanism and Regional and Landscape Planning" of Palermo, which was inspired by the holistic vision of Adriano Olivetti and Giovanni Astengo about urban planning as a discipline capable of integrating different knowledge, interpretations and tools for planning and governing cities, rural lands and landscape.
He’s Academic Senator of the University of Palermo and Deputy Rector for Territorial Development and Cultural Affairs. From 2015 to 2019 he was the President of the Polytechnic School of the University of Palermo.
He was the Coordinator of the B.Sc in "Urbanism, regional and landscape planning" and of the M.Sc in "Urban and Regional Planning". He was Deputy Director of the Department of Architecture. From 2009 to 2011 he was Town Councillor of the Municipality of Palermo for Old Town Regeneration and Strategic Plan.
He is member of Italian Society of Urbanism (SIU) Steering Committee (2000-03 and 2014 to now), member of Italian Institute of Urbanism (INU) Steering Committee (2014 to now) and member of Urban Academy (AU) Steering Committee (2013 to now). He is member of the Scientific Committee of the international review TRIA. Rivista internazionale di cultura urbanistica (Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II). He is member of the Editorial Board of the international review Monograph.it (ListLab Laboratorio Internazionale di Strategie Editoriali, Trento-Barcelona). He is member of the Editorial Board of the international review EWT/ EcoWebTown. He is member of the Scientific Committee of the international review Portus Plus Six-monthly online review of RETE.

He is senior expert on strategic planning, urbanism, urban regeneration and local development and he was the author of several urban, landscape and strategic plans in Italy. The main are:
- Provincial Structural Plan of Agrigento;
- Provincial Structural Plan of Palermo;
- Landscape Plan of "Particinese, Corleonese and Monti Sicani";
- Masterplan of Central Waterfront and former railway stations "Sampolo e Lolli-Notarbartolo" in Palermo;
- Sustainable Mobility Plan of Provincia di Catania;
- Masterplan and Land Use Plan of the Palermo Port;
- Large-scale Strategic Plan of "Nord Barese-Ofantino";
- Risk Map and Guidelines for the waterfronts of Catania, Messina, Palermo, Siracusa and Trapani;
- Strategies and guidelines for the Regional Landscape Plan;
- Structural and strategic plan of the Provincia di Potenza;
- Large-scale Strategic Plan of the Provincia di Palermo;
- Large-scale Strategic Plan of the Provincia di Siracusa;
- Metropolitan Strategic Plan of Palermo.
He was a consultant to the Ministry of Infrastructure to prepare the National Strategic Framework and the Project Italy 2020 dealing with the general plan of infrastructure and urban systems for the competitiveness of the national economy.His work on the infrastructure platform in Western Sicily was awarded the 2012 Urban INU.

He is the responsible of the “Smart Planning Lab” for improving the smartness of cities and communities and for elaborating innovative planning tools. He is the responsible of the Augmented City Lab an international research agency dedicated to the regeneration and development of the cities and communities of the future.

He was Visiting Scholar at the Columbia University of New York (1998) and he was visiting professor or keynote speaker in several universities and institutions (Milan, Rome, Florence, Naples, Turin, Genova, Venice, New York, London, Paris, Newcastle, Dortmund, Madrid, Praha, Beijing, Barcelona, Valencia).

With the book L’armatura culturale del territorio he inaugurated a line of urban studies about the conservation and valorization of cultural heritage in the European mainstream about city planning fueled by cultural identity, considered both as identity’s matrix tools and sustainable local development. His studies about the “territorial cultural armature” have produced some applied research aimed at identifying qualitative and quantitative parameters for the formation of "local cultural systems" in Sicily.

He is the Italian theorist of the "creative city", on which he published the book Creative City. Dynamics, Innovations, Actions (Barcelona, ListLab, 2007) in which it is proposed a manifesto for the "second generation" creative cities, based on 3C: Culture, Communication and Cooperation. The scenario of the global crisis has led to the identification of a third-generation and elaboration of the paradigm of the "creative city 3.0", capable of generating new city and new cycles of life more creative, intelligent and sustainable eco-system, able to act as a driver of new urban policies to overcome the crisis.
On the themes of the waterfront regeneration he has developed some innovative methods and urban design experiments, which began in 2005 and synthesized in 2013 in the "paradigm of the fluid city", proposed as part of a project of international cooperation between Italy and Malta, and applied in the masterplan for the regeneration of Palermo waterfront. In 2015 the International Biennial of Architecture in Buenos Aires, he was awarded the prize for “academic investigation" for his studies on urban regeneration and creativity.

With the book Reimagining Urbanism (Barcelona, ListLab, 2014) he has investigated and interpreted the challenges of cities in the age of metamorphosisnot only as a powerful attractor of population, but also as a responsible subject of a new relationship with the suburban and rural areas, as activators of powerful creative eco-systems based on new digital/physical citymakers. The book proposes a urbanism capable of producing resources for a new urban metabolism that can be reconciled with environmental protection, with the reduction of consumption, with the consolidation of the welfare state, as well as the promotion of innovative startups can stimulate the intelligence and creativity, to extend urban agriculture and recycling, to manage climate adaptation and energy efficiency of the city of the future.

With the new book Augmented City. A Paradigm Shift (Trento-Barcelona, ListLab, 2017) he proposes a new paradigm for more sensible, open source, intelligent, creative and resilient cities, based on recycle for being more productive, fluid and reticular. The incoming paradigm is based on ten challenges/approaches that need a strategic urban planning more incremental and adaptive, based on a new protocol called "cityforming".

He is author of several publications, among the most recent:
- Pianificazione territoriale e urbanistica: dalla conoscenza alla partecipazione, Palermo, Medina, 1996.
- L'armatura culturale del territorio. Il patrimonio culturale come matrice di identità e strumento di sviluppo, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 1999.
- Teorie della pianificazione: questioni, paradigmi e progetto, Palermo, Palumbo Editore, 2003.
- Next City: culture city, Roma, Meltemi Editore, 2004.
- Creative City. Dynamics, Innovations, Actions, Barcellona, List, 2007.
- Governare l'evoluzione: principi, metodi e progetti per una urbanistica in azione, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2009.
- “Culture, Communication and Cooperation: The Three “C” of the Creative City”, in Aa.Vv., Piensa Madrid, Madrid, La Casa Encendida, 2009.
- “Culture, communication and cooperation: the three Cs for a proactive creative city”, in International Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol. 12, No.2/3/4, 2009.
- “Creative City 3.0. New scenarios and projects”, in Monograph.it, n.1, 2009
- “Città creativa 3.0. Rigenerazione urbana e politiche di valorizzazione delle armature culturali”, in M. Cammelli, P.A. Valentino (a cura di), Citymorphosis. Politiche culturali per città che cambiano, Firenze, Giunti, 2011, pp. 213–22.
- “Creative Cities in Italy: new scenarios and projects”, in Journal of Urban Planning International, n. 3, 2012.
- "The Fluid City Paradigm", in Waterfront Atlas. Visions, paradigms, policy and projects for the Sicilian and Maltese waterfronts, Palermo, 2013.
- Reimagining Urbanism. Creative, Smart and Green Cities for the Changing Times, Barcelona, List Lab, 2014.
- Urban Hyper-Metabolism (with B. Lino), Roma, Aracne, 2015.
- The Fluid City Paradigm (with. D. Ronsivalle), Berlin, Springer, 2016.
- Patrimoine et Créativité (Listlab, 2016).
- Re-cyclical Urbanism (con B. Lino e D. Ronsivalle, Listlab, 2016).
- Territories. Rural-urban Strategies (con J. Schroeder, M. Ferretti e B. Lino, Jovis, 2017).
- Augmented City. A paradigm Shift (Listlab, 2017).
- Dynamics of Periphery. Atlas for emerging creative resilient habitats (con J. Schroeder, M. Ferretti e B. Lino, Jovis, 2018).
- Futuro. Politiche per un diverso presente (Rubbettino, 2019).