Jordi Borja was born in Barcelona and he studied there Law and Political Sciences. He lived in Paris during the 60’s (he went into exile 1962 due to his political activism) and he graduated in Sociology and Geography and he received a master in town planning.

He has been professor in the Universitat de Barcelona, the UPC; the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and in universities abroad: Institute Français de Urbanisme in Paris; universities in Buenos Aires, Mexico, New York, Santiago de Chile, etc. Nowadays he is responsible for the area of Gestió de la Ciutat i Urbanisme in the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC).

He joined the PSUC in 1960, he was member of Bandera Roja and once he was back in the PSUC-PCE he was responsible of Local Government and of Movimiento Popular during the 70s. He is linked to the al local citizen movement in Barcelona since the late 60s until now. He was one of the founders and promoters of the CEUMT (Centre of Urban Studies) between 1972 and 1987, coauthor of different handbooks and regular contributor in his magazine.  The CEUMT developed a very important task in the elaboration of municipal programmes and in the formation of technicians until the middle 80s. 

He has had several political functions, and the most important are: member of the Parlament de Catalunya (1980-84) and he was Deputy Mayor of the Ajuntament de Barcelona in the area of Decentralization and Participation (1983-87), vicepresident of the Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona (1987-1991) and Delegate for External Relations and Cooperation in the Ajuntament de Barcelona (1991-1995). 

In the last twenty years he has worked as consultant or professor in the main cities of Latin America. 

Among his publications are: Estado y Ciudad (Ediciones Universidad de Barcelona 1988); Las grandes ciudades en la década de los 90 (Sistema 1991) in collaboration with Manuel Castells; Barcelona: Un modelo de transformación urbana, editor and coauthor (1996);  Local y Global (Taurus, 1997) in collaboration with Manuel Castells;  Gestión y control de la urbanización en América Latina (2000, report for the European Commission);  La ciudadanía europea (Península, 2001); Espacio público y ciudadanía (Diputació 2002, Electa 2003);  Urbanismo en el siglo XXI: las grandes ciudades españolas (UPC, 2003); La ciudad conquistada (Alianza Editorial 2005); Urbanisme de Barcelona: llums i ombres (Edicions 62-Empúries 2010, and in Spanish Editorial UOC, 2010). In preparation: Revolución urbana y derecho a la ciudad (Alianza Editorial). Some of the works have been translated into French, English and Italian. He is a regular contributor in the Catalan press since the 70s. He was a frequent columnist of La Vanguardia (1999-2006) and El País (2006-2009). Nowadays he collaborates in Público.