Richard Louis Meier, 86; expert on sustainable planning
Richard Louis Meier, 86, an urban scholar who was a pioneer in the study of sustainable planning for cities, died Feb. 26 of pneumonia and congestive heart failure at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley, UC Berkeley announced Wednesday.
For more than 35 years, Meier taught in UC Berkeley departments related to architecture and urban and regional planning.
“He was among the first ... to articulate the need for sustainable planning, to warn us of the threats posed by carbon emissions and to seek out ways to improve the lives of the poor in developing countries,” Robert Cervero, chairman of the university’s department of city and regional planning, said in a statement.
Meier was born in 1920 in Kendallville, Ind. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1940, and a master’s and a doctorate in organic chemistry from UCLA.
His first book, “Science and Economic Development: New Patterns of Living” (1956), predicted new forms of low-energy transportation, new technologies to replace scarce natural resources, the increased use of solar power and the growth of resource-conserving cities, according to UC Berkeley.
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