RSAI is sad to report the death of Thomas Reiner, one of several graduate students who followed Walter Isard from MIT to the University of Pennsylvania in the mid-1950s, and later became a faculty member in the Regional Science Department. He died on March 3. An obituary is attached, with a picture.

Reiner taught and wrote about regional developemen, particularly with regard to developing regions. He is remembered for his caring manner in counseling students, especially ones from developing countries. During the 1960s he accompanied Walter Isard on several journeys to Europe, Japan and Latin America in efforts to establish the field of Regional Science outside North America.

David Boyce

Archivist

Regional Science Association International

The Philadelphia Inquirer Posted on Thu, Mar. 12, 2009
Thomas A. Reiner, Penn professor
Thomas A. Reiner, 77, of Manhattan, an emeritus professor of regional science at the University of Pennsylvania, died of leukemia March 3 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.
Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Mr. Reiner fled with his parents to England in 1939 and in 1942 arrived in the States on a ship that had survived being torpedoed.
Mr. Reiner graduated from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York in 1948, his brother Martin said, and in 1952 from Swarthmore College. He earned his master's degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955 and his doctorate in regional science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963.
Mr. Reiner began teaching at Penn in 1958, his son, Salem, said, and retired in 1993. In the Philadelphia region, he had lived most recently in Ardmore. He was a consultant to the U.S.
Agency for International Development and to the Inter-American Development Bank. He was coauthor of Transitions in Land and Housing: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Poland, which was published by St. Martin's Press in 1996. He authored The Place of the Ideal Community in Urban Planning, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 1963.
Besides his son and brother, Mr. Reiner is survived by his wife, Susan; daughter, Lisa; and three grandchildren.

The RSAI is sad to hear of the death of Leslie Curry, on January 12, 2009, at the age of 86.

Les was a major contributor to the new theoretical geography of the quantitative revolution and was active in the RSA/RSAI from its early days. Although he began his academic career as a physical geography (even then working on climate change) he will best remembered for his pioneering work on settlement theory, gravity modelling and stochastic processes generally for map description.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends and former colleagues at the University of Toronto.

Full obituary appears below.

In Memoriam: Professor Emeritus Leslie Curry

Author: Anonymous

Les Curry, Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Toronto and recipient of the Meritorious Contributions Award of the Association of American Geographers in 1969, died on January 12, 2009, at his home in Annapolis, MD. He was 86. He was pre-deceased by his first wife, Jean Blick Curry, who died in 1981. Survivors include his wife of 18 years, Caryl Pines Curry of Annapolis; three children from his first marriage, William Curry of Oakville, Ontario, Claudia Curry of Port Hope, Ontario, and Ann Curry-Stevens of Portland, Ore.; two stepchildren, Eve Pines of Springfield, Ill., and Roger Pines of Chicago; and seven grandchildren. A celebration of his life will be held at the Faculty Club, University of Toronto, on Monday, April 20th 2009. If you would like to attend, please contact Andrew Malcolm at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Les Curry was born and raised in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. After a standard grammar-school education, at age 18 he volunteered for the Royal Navy, and joined the 14th destroyer flotilla (as a radar mechanic) based initially in Alexandria, Egypt. His ship joined convoys to supply Malta and then supported invasions in the Aegean and Italy. It was in Anzio that his ship had its bows blown off, requiring a return to Britain via Gibraltar. Next, he was in the Normandy invasion when the bombardment of special targets was the main activity. When the war ended, he was training as crew on a submarine destined for deployment to the Far East.

Les Curry graduated from Kings College at the University of Durham in 1949. Two years later, he received a master's degree in geography from Johns Hopkins University while he was a Fulbright Scholar. He worked as an economist at the United Nations and then at Charles Warren Thornthwaite's Laboratory of Climatology in Seabrook, N.J. He received his doctorate in geography from the University of Auckland in New Zealand in 1959 and taught at the University of Washington, the University of Maryland and Arizona State University before moving to the University of Toronto, where he spent 21 years before retiring in 1985. He then moved to Annapolis. 

As a theoretician, Les Curry was a modeler, using stochastic analysis to delvep deeply into processes, especially economic, that produce the patterns and flows of the world. One of his early papers showed that natural climatic change could occur as the result of random exchanges involving heat storage in the oceans. Another paper treated central places, again in terms of inventory management and stochastic processes. Author of the book The Random Spatial Economy and Its Evolution (1998), he was featured in Geographical Voices (2002), an anthology of autobiographical essays by 14 eminent geographers, edited by Peter Gould and Forrest Pitts. 

In addition to his AAG Meritorious Contributions award, Les Curry's honours included a Visiting Commonwealth Professorship in the U.S.; a Guggenheim Fellowship at Cambridge University; an inaugural Connaught Senior Fellowship in the Social Sciences; a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation's Study Center in Bellagio; a Fellowship at Australian National University; and the Canadian Association of Geographers' Award for Scholarly Distinction. He also received the International Geographical Union's prestigious Lauréat d'Honneur 2000; only three or four are awarded every fourth year at the IGU's conference. The IGU citation describes him as 'a scholar who by way of his contributions in climatology, economic geography and spatial analysis has challenged established lines of thinking and provided valuable new insights into the ways whereby human behavior shapes the world we live in. Professor Curry's theoretical studies in economic geography, especially studies that draw upon the mathematics of probability theory and the concepts of physical systems analysis, have been unmatched in their originality and rigor and have established his international reputation as one of the leading theoreticians in the discipline.?  

The RSAi is saddened to hear of the death of Bill Miernyk one of our founder members. A full obituary has been posted. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Dr. William H. Miernyk

Dr. William H. Miernyk, of Morgantown, died on August 7, 2008, at age 90. He was born on January 4, 1918, in Durango, Colo., to Elizabeth Sopko and Andrew Miernyk. Dr. Miernyk was a scholar who had a great love for research, teaching and writing, and for his family.

He and Mary Davis met growing up in Durango, where they married during World War II. He served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army and was stationed in the South Pacific Theater throughout the war. After the war, William and Mary, and their growing family lived in Colorado and Massachusetts, arriving in Morgantown in 1964. They lived for many years on Price Street before moving to the Village at Heritage Point. They were married 63 years, and sadly, Mary preceded him in death in 2005.

Dr. Miernyk attended Ft. Lewis College in Durango, and then earned bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from Colorado University, followed by master's and doctoral degrees in economics from Harvard University. Dr. Miernyk was on the faculty at Northeastern University, Colorado University and WVU, and was a visiting professor at MIT, Harvard and the University of Edinburgh.

At WVU, Dr. Miernyk founded the Regional Research Institute, where he served as director from 1965 until his retirement in 1983. He was the recipient of many honors and awards. In 1989, he was inducted into the Order of the Vandalia. In 2005, the first "William H. Miernyk Research Excellence Medal" was presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Regional Science Association. His titles at WVU were Claude Worthington Benedum Professor of Economics, Professor Emeritus, and Director Emeritus of the RRI.

Known for his critical insight and expertise, Dr. Miernyk served as a consultant for U.S. Senate committees, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and The World Bank, among many others. Dr. Miernyk authored and co-authored over 40 books, 144 monographs, articles and reviews, and wrote a weekly newspaper column on economic issues for The Charleston Gazette.

As a young man, Dr. Miernyk loved sports, and was a boxer, gymnast, and football player at Durango High School, Ft. Lewis College and Colorado University. He was a longtime fan of WVU football. He also loved to fly, and for many years, had a small plane, which he flew over the Morgantown area for the sheer joy of it.

He will be remembered by his children, Jan Miernyk of Columbia, MO, Judith Miernyk of Washington, DC, Jeanne Miernyk of San Francisco, CA, and James Miernyk of Olympia, WA; granddaughter, Briana Lomax of Tampa, FL; and sister, Irene Miernyk of Los Angeles, CA; two nephews, Bill Miernyk of Anchorage, AK, and Dick Miernyk of Las, Cruces, NM. In addition to his wife Mary, his brothers, John and Andrew, preceded him in death.

A memorial Mass will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, August 16, at St. John's University Parish in Morgantown. The family will greet friends from 9 a.m. until the time of the service at 10 a.m. Inurnment will follow at a later date.

Memorial donations may be made to Christian Help Inc., 219 Walnut St., Morgantown, WV 26505.

Hastings Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. Send condolences online at www.hastingsfuneralhome.com.

 Dr. William H Miernyk (36.09 kB) 

New York Times; Published May 17, 2008

Dick Netzer, 79, Municipal Finance Expert, Dies

By BRUCE WEBER

Dick Netzer, an economist who advised mayors of New York City and governors of New York State and served on the first board of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, which pried New York City out of bankruptcy in the 1970s, died on May 7 in Manhattan. He was 79 and lived in Brooklyn and in East Hampton, N.Y. His death came after a long illness, his wife, Carol, said. Mr. Netzer, who spent much of his career at New York University and became dean of its Graduate School of Public Administration (now the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service), was an expert in public finance, especially as it pertains to state and local government.

Netzer wrote widely and voluminously on the arcana of how people are, should and should not be taxed and how the government should, should not and does spend the money. In the 1950s he wrote about tolls, toll roads and highway finance. In the 1960s he wrote a comprehensive analysis of property tax. In the 1970s, his book about public support of the arts, “The Subsidized Muse” (Cambridge University Press, 1978), argued that government arts financing was generally a good thing but needed to be applied prudently, that money simply flung at arts organizations was both fiscally and culturally irresponsible.

He served, in the late 1960s, as an adviser to Mayor John V. Lindsay, in the 1970s, to Mayor Abraham D. Beame and Gov. Hugh L. Carey, and in the 1980s, to Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. And in June 1975, when the financier Felix Rohatyn and others recommended that the State Legislature create the Municipal Assistance Corporation, an agency with the power to issue bonds backed by portions of the city sales tax, Mr. Netzer joined the board, his deep academic background providing a fiscally conservative anchor. He remained until 1995.

“He provided continuity and perspective and placed the crisis in terms of both the city and state’s long term financial evolution,” said Peter Goldmark, who was the state budget director at the time. “The thing about Dick is that he was a continuing iconic figure. When I first went to work with Mayor Lindsay, Dick Netzer was a god. He was the guy we all looked up to. And he was still that guy in 1985 and 1990.”

Dick Netzer, who was named for his mother, Sue Dick, was born in Brooklyn on May 14, 1928. His father, Solomon, was a doctor who specialized in the treatment of tuberculosis. He attended New York City public schools and the University of Wisconsin and earned a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. He served stateside in the Army during the Korean War. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a sister, Ellen Lane of Los Angeles; two daughters, Jenny Netzer, of Cambridge, Mass., and Katherine M. Bunger of Newtown, Conn.; and six grandsons.

In recalling the fiscal crisis of 1975, Dall W. Forsythe, a professor at the Wagner school who was the state budget director from 1988 to 1991 under Governor Cuomo, said that “Dick was horrified at what the city had done, and he was absolutely delighted to be part of the solution.” Now on the Municipal Assistance Corporation board himself, Mr. Forsythe said that the last of the bonds it issued are to be paid off next month, and that the agency will be dissolved, essentially having succeeded itself out of existence.

“The city now has a double-A credit rating,” Mr. Forsythe said. “It’s a great success story. It’s too bad Dick didn’t make it another month and a half. He could have come to the closing party.”

Dick Netzer was an early member of the Regional Science Association, as shown by his listing in the RSA Directory, 1960-1961. He is listed there as Assistant Vice-President of the Regional Plan Association, New York City. Netzer held the following degrees: B.A., University of Wisconsin, 1946; A.M., Harvard University, 1948; M.P.A., Harvard, 1948; and Ph.D., Harvard, 1952. In the four Directories of the Regional Science Association International issues in 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1998, Netzer is listed as affiliated with the Urban Research Center of New York University. According to the Web of Science, Netzer published 30 articles between 1958 and 2001. Most concern topics in Public Finance published in principal American economics and finance journals. Others treat the fine arts (opera, dance, etc) published in diverse journals such as Opera News. For a list, write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

David Boyce
Archivist
Regional Science Association International

Robert Kuenne, noted economist, author and professor emeritus who taught at Princeton University for 41 years, died November 5 at his home in Princeton. He was 81. Click here for the obit or for more links:

 http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/05/1114/2b.shtml

 http://www.nj.com/news/times/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1131527270217400.xml&coll=5

It is with sadness that we report to the academic community that Chuck ReVelle, a great friend, admired professor and fine person passed away on Wednesday August 10, 2005. Chuck died at home, close to his loving wife Penny and family. Chuck was struggling with a lymphoma, and eventually, an infection took him away.

It is very difficult to synthesize Chuck's life and many achievements. After serving on the faculty at Cornell University from 1967 to 1970, he joined the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University, where he remained a faculty member until now. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Netherlands and a Visiting Scholar in the Army's Institute for Water Resources. Author or coauthor of eight books and over 180 journal articles, he applied his mathematical methods to problems in many areas, including public and private facility location, emergency services design, water resources, natural reserve selection, forest management and transportation network design. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Award, North American Regional Science Council, Regional Science Association International, the Lifetime Achievement award of the Section on Location Analysis of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences, and the Agamemnon Award from the Constantine Porphyrogenitus Association (Greece) for his contributions in Environmental Management.

World-renowned for being one of the first researchers working in location analysis, his seminal work not only inspired many other researchers, but also was cited in most of the articles and books on the subject. Dozens were honored by being his coauthors.

Although the list of Chuck's academic achievements could go on and on, all who knew him will remember him also by the fine and kind person he was. Always excited about his students' and colleagues' progress and findings. Always thrilled to hear about new applications of location science and new models. Always explaining difficult concepts in such a way that anybody could understand, and making you feel like a genius for being capable of following him. His enthusiasm was really contagious and, as a gifted teacher, he attracted many undergraduate and graduate students who had the joy of working with him. He had a great sense of humor, and everybody knew of his love for jokes and witty puns. He will be sadly missed.

- Vladimir Marianov, Electrical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad, Chile

Other links include:

 http://www.lionhrtpub.com/orms/news/informs/inf1005memoriam.html 
 http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2005/22aug05/22revelle.html

Britton Harris  died on Tuesday, February 8, 2005 at age 90. Brit participated in the founding meeting of the Regional Science Association in 1954, and served as its President in 1967. He was also a participant at the 50th North American Meeting in Philadelphia in 2003, and many, many North American Meetings during those 50 years. He continued to present papers at meetings during the 1980s and 1990s. His accomplishments and his influence on the fields of regional science and city planning are recalled in the obituary issued by the University of Pennsylvania.

Noboru Sakashita, the former president of the Ryutsu Keizai University and Professor Emeritus of the University of Tsukuba in Japan, passed away on August 13, 2003. He was very active in RSAI, serving as President of the Regional Science Association during 1987-1988 and his work in the fields of Regional Economics and Econometrics are well-known. He was one of the founders of Applied Regional Science Conference in Japan, and served as the managing editor of the Review of Urban &  Regional Development Studies.

Lowell DeWitt Ashby, 89, an economist who retired from the Department of Commerce in 1981, died of pneumonia March 3 at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington. He lived in Arlington. Dr. Ashby joined the staff at the Commerce Department in 1962. From 1948 to 1962, he served on the economics faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was born in Hastings, Neb., and graduated from Hastings College. He received a master's degree in economics from the University of Minnesota and a doctorate in economics from the University of Wisconsin. During World War II, he was a Navy communications officer in North Africa, Italy and France. In 1966, he received the Department of Commerce's Silver Medal for "advancing the concepts and techniques of regional economic research." He was a past president and fellow of the Southern Regional Science Association. In retirement, Dr. Ashby was financial partner of the Potomac Investment Club, which he organized in 1969. He was an accomplished water color artist and a member of the Cosmos Club. Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Fern E. Ashby of Arlington; two children, Genette Ashby-Beach of Atlanta and L. DeWitt Ashby Jr. of Vienna; and three grandchildren.

Wolfgang passed away at the age of 89. Renowned as a trade theory and development economist, Stolper was also a friend and supporter of regional science and aided the publication of August Loesch's book on location theory in English. Stolper participated in the Heidenheim Loesch Tage and received the Ehrenring of Heidenheim City.

 3 New Awards (23.42 kB 2008-02-15 17:14:09)