Leo Grebler; Expert on Housing Economics

Leo Grebler, revered as the father of modern housing economics and housing policy and a professor emeritus of urban land economics at UCLA, has died. He was 90.

Grebler died April 2 of a heart attack at UCLA Medical Center.

Among his 18 books was the landmark 1970 work titled “The Mexican-American People,” the first comprehensive study of that minority’s problems in the United States.

Los Angeles Times book critic Robert Kirsch criticized the writing as “starchy,” but said the book was important for its “effort to add significantly to the sum of information about the Mexican-American minority in America.”

“The study does break up stereotypes,” Kirsch wrote in his review, “points out the diversity of the population, its varying problems in urban and rural settings, its new-found activism, the changes in family structure, and acceleration of social mobility and assimilation.”

Even after his retirement from UCLA in 1966, Grebler remained active and co-authored three leading books in his field: “The Housing of Nations” in 1977, “The Inflation in Housing Prices” in 1979 and “The Future of Housing Markets” in 1986.

A native of Germany, Grebler began his career as an economics journalist in Berlin and Geneva. He and his wife, Annemarie, who survives him, came to the United States in 1937.

Frequently in government service, Grebler was an analyst with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board from 1939 to 1944, chief of the housing finance section of the National Housing Agency in Washington from 1944 to 1946, and senior staff member on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1955 to 1957. He also was a consultant to the United Nations, the Commission on Money and Credit, the President’s Task Force on Low Income Housing, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Committee for Economic Development.

As a Guggenheim fellow in 1954, Grebler traveled through Europe studying postwar urban rebuilding. He recorded his findings in two books: “Europe’s Reborn Cities” in 1956 and the follow-up “Urban Renewal in European Countries” in 1964.

Grebler’s avocation was music, and he delighted in playing Beethoven’s works for string quartet as a member of the Amateur Chamber Music Society.

In addition to his wife, Grebler is survived by a daughter, Jean.

The family has requested that any memorial contributions be made to the Leo Grebler Scholarship Fund for students in Urban Land Economics at the UCLA Graduate School of Management.