CUED

Memorial to Rob Mier

Rob Mier, activist and professor of urban planning and public administration at the
University of Illinois at Chicago, died in February, 1995, 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.

The Rob Mier Scholarship Fund has been established in his memory. A scholarship will
be awarded annually to a urban planning graduate student. Please send your contribution
with checks made payable to the University of Illinois Foundation to:

Rob Mier Scholarship Fund
University of Illinois Foundation
c/o Jodi White Jones, Assistant Dean for Advancement
College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, MC350
412 South Peoria Street, Suite 115
Chicago, IL 60607

For more information, please contact Jodi White Jones at 312.413.9127 or jmwhite@uic.edu.

This website is maintained by Cedric Williams, Manager System Services,
UIC-Center for Urban Economic Development