RICHARD TAUB

1937 - 2020

TAUB--Richard P. Chicago, Illinois, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Richard Paul Taub, University of Chicago sociologist of urban, rural, and community economic development, passed away peacefully on August 19, 2020, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Born in Brooklyn, NY on April 16, 1937, he attended high school in Great Neck and earned his BA at the University of Michigan, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Daily. He earned both his MA in 1962 and PhD in 1966 at Harvard University. His dissertation research in India resulted in his first book, Bureaucrats Under Stress, followed later by a second, Entrepreneurship in India's Small-Scale Industries (with Doris L. Taub). He began his academic career at Brown University before moving to the University of Chicago in 1969, where he taught until 2016, becoming the Paul Klapper Professor in the Social Sciences, the Department of Comparative Human Development, and the Department of Sociology. He expanded his research to urban sociology in Chicago, exploring the factors that lead to the maintenance, decline, and reinvigoration of communities, authoring three books: Paths of Neighborhood Change (with D. Garth Taylor and Jan D. Dunham); Community Capitalism; and There Goes the Neighborhood (with William Julius Wilson). The research in Community Capitalism focused on the role of the South Shore Bank in Chicago. When the bank was invited by then- Governor Bill Clinton and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation to create the country's first rural community development bank in Arkansas, he extended his research to that state, leading to a monograph, Doing Development in Arkansas. He inspired generations of students and received both undergraduate and graduate teaching awards. He helped found University of Chicago's undergraduate Public Policy program, chairing it for 25 years; on his retirement the College established the annual Richard P. Taub Lecture and BA Thesis Prize, now awarded through the Harris School of Public Policy. He was a wise, dedicated, and effective graduate advisor, serving on more than 100 dissertation committees. He served as Director of the University's Program for Urban Neighborhoods, Associate Dean of the College, and Chair of the Department of Comparative Human Development. He was also a Resident Fellow and Visiting Professor at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University (1997-99). He was predeceased by his first wife, Doris Leventhal Taub, and his brother, David S. Taub. He is survived by his wife, Betty Farrell; children, Neela (partner Vanessa S.C. Prell) and Zach (wife Nachi Iijima-Taub); grandsons, Noah and Elijah; sister-in-law, Linda Lewin Taub; and a large extended family who deeply feel his loss. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Crossroads Fund: crossroadsfund.org/donate in Chicago; Santa Fe Community Foundation: santafecf.org/give-now; or the American Civil Liberties Union: aclu.org/give/ ways-to-give.