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Lloyd Rodwin was the Ford International Professor Emeritus of Urban Studies and co-founder of the MIT-Harvard Joint Center for Urban Studies. Professor Rodwin began his career when the field was dominated by architects and emerged as one of the leaders of the urban planning profession, as it developed an intellectual base in the social sciences and humanities. He was renowned for his analyses of urban and regional problems in developing countries, which influenced development projects in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
Rodwin “was hugely influential,” Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan told the New York Times. “He redefined the study of cities, defined them in terms of the people who lived there rather than the buildings in which they lived. He was a great teacher of professors. He broke the iron hold of urban studies,” as it had been defined, in terms of “laying out a grand city, or a grand suburb.”
Born in September 14, 1919, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of an immigrant baker from Poland, Rodwin dedicated himself to improving life for the underprivileged. He attended City College of New York (CCNY), where he studied with and was deeply influenced by philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen. At CCNY, he was also inspired by the writings of philosopher George Santayana and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.
—By Kenneth D. Campbell, MIT News Office
Recommended Reading
The Profession of City Planning: Changes, Images and Challenges: 1950-2000 edited by Lloyd Rodwin
Click here to view Supplemental Reading to Lloyd Rodwin on Amazon.
