Ode to Rob Mier: The Planner of our Time

Abstract

Robert Mier, activist and professor of urban planning and public administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago, died in February at the age of 52 as a result of exposure during the Vietnam War to the exfoliant Agent Orange. He founded the Center for Urban Economic Development at the university in 1978 to help communities help themselves through technical assistance and research. He served as Chicago's director of development under Mayors Harold Washington and Eugene Sawyer, and was the chief architect of the city's highly regarded 1984 Chicago Works Together development plan, which emphasized jobs, neighborhoods, and the equitable distribution of resources and opportunities to combat racism and poverty. Mier was a nationally recognized expert on urban economic development and equity planning, and served as a consultant for numerous cities, including Oakland and Los Angeles, California, and Belfast, Northern Ireland. He published several books, the most recent of which was Social Justice and Local Development Policy (Sage Publications 1993). In the years preceding his death, his interests turned to regional antipoverty coalitions and global networking of equity planners.