In cities around the world, the difference between a vibrant neighborhood and a struggling one can come down to something deceptively simple: whether people feel connected to it. For urban planner Alexia Nazarian, that question sits at the heart of everything she does. Her work takes her from Lisbon to Newark to Guadalajara, but her focus is always the same. How do you create places where people want to build and belong?
Nazarian does not approach that question as a distant expert, rather as someone shaped by community from the very start. Born in New York and raised in New Jersey, she was surrounded by a rich Armenian diaspora where identity, culture, and service were embedded into her life. Her father, Levon Nazarian, arrived in the United States during the Lebanese Civil War. And her mother, Buenos Aires. Together, they shared values that would guide their daughter’s path in making cities more livable and vibrant. “Both my parents grew up in families that value service and [are] extremely dedicated to supporting Armenians in their community and all over the world,” she says.
Growing up in Bergen County, New Jersey, Nazarian was surrounded by Armenian families from across the Diaspora. It was a world where culture and tradition created a sense of belonging, even as she navigated the push and pull of growing up American. “Some first-generation Armenians go through a period where you just kind of want to blend in,” she recalls. “Despite going through maybe a period of that, I never, ever lost sight of my Armenian roots.”
I think a lot about what makes a place. How do we connect to it? What are the stories we tell?
Nazarian’s connection to AGBU runs deep, stretching back generations. Her grandfather, Garabed Nazarian, served as Chair of its Lebanon District, and she grew up with the organization as a constant presence in her life. But it was her own experience in AGBU’s Global Leadership Program that brought her even closer to her Armenian heritage. “It was extremely formative in my young adult life,” she says, reflecting on the internship’s profound professional direction and a sense of belonging. That same summer helped set her career in motion. While interning at a civil engineering firm, Nazarian was exposed to the inner workings of city development. She learned about large-scale initiatives that would reshape New York City’s waterfront, projects that, at the time, existed only as plans but are now central to public life. “That gave me an entryway into how stuff gets built,” she explains. “It made me ask: What is the process to go from a public policy visionary to actually enjoying public life?” During this time, then Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration were busy transforming industrial dead ends and expanding parklands in areas we often take for granted, like the East River and Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront.
The experience sparked a deeper curiosity. She pursued sociology at Wesleyan University, eventually gravitating toward urban sociology to focus on city impact on both opportunity and inequality. “I was drawn to urban sociology and how inequality manifests spatially and geographically,” she says. She studied immigrant communities and the environments they inhabit, from crowded tenement housing to neighborhoods that offer real pathways to success. “How are there also places designed to keep people locked in poverty?” For Nazarian, these questions were not just academic; they were personal. “Armenians have found success in cities that welcome people from all walks of life,” she reflects. “I was inspired to understand what makes some cities that way and not all.”
Today, she brings that perspective to her work at Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic consultancy that works with cities and is part of Bloomberg Philanthropies, where she focuses on economic development and civic innovation. Bloomberg’s services are pro bono, providing consulting to cities around the world, such as Newark, Guadalajara, and Lisbon. Her role centers on data-driven policy, a field that touches everything from small businesses to public spaces. She works closely with cities and city leadership to understand why certain areas struggle and how to revitalize them. And she starts by listening to members of the city: “A lot of my job is talking to people,” she says. “That’s the only way to [gain] an understanding of a place—through the people that live there.” Whether she is conducting interviews, analyzing data, or walking through a neighborhood, her goal is to uncover not just what is happening, but why.
Right now, she is working on a project in Baixa, Lisbon—a historic downtown neighborhood where contrasts are visible block-by-block. One street is lively and full of tourists. But a few blocks away, storefronts sit empty and buildings show signs of decline. The challenge is not just economic, but cultural. “I think a lot about what makes a place. How do we connect to it? What are the stories we tell?” she asks. Those questions carry particular weight for someone from a diaspora community. “I don’t want them to lose that story, because it’s not inevitable for them in the way that it was for us,” she explains. Preserving a neighborhood’s identity, she believes, is just as important as revitalizing its economy.
Nazarian brings a thoughtful, deliberate approach to her work. She often returns to a quote from Albert Einstein she finds grounding: “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” For her, understanding the root of an issue is what makes meaningful change possible. That philosophy has guided her across projects around the world, but some of her most meaningful work has been closer to home. In Newark, New Jersey, she helped design an $8 million economic strategy aimed at supporting local businesses and revitalizing neighborhoods. For Nazarian, the project carried personal significance. “I was really honored to be able to support them, and to bring prosperity to the residents there,” she says.
Her work may span continents, but it is grounded in the art of human connection. For Nazarian, the fastest way into a community is not through a report or a presentation, but through a shared table. “There’s nothing that can substitute sitting at a table and sharing a meal with someone.” Nazarian sees that openness as deeply tied to her Armenian identity. “Being Armenian allows me to very easily connect with people from all over,” she says. In a field where city progress depends on empathy and collaboration, she comes back to the same principle: building trust can start with an action as basic as breaking bread.
