Ernest E. Erber

Ernest E. Erber, AICP, died in his home in Red Hook New York on February 15. Born in Chicago in 1913 to German immigrants, Gustave and Augusta Erber, he was the youngest of six siblings: Vernon, Bill, Natalie, Emil and Florence. He was an autodidact who never finished grade school. In 1933 he joined the Young People's Socialist League, and was elected its national chairman in 1935. He represented the YPSLs in an international meeting in Switzerland in 1937. In the same year he married Sylvia Schwartz. During the war he continued his work with the YPSLs, writing and speaking as well as working as a tool and die craftsman. By 1949 he went on to work in the field of Urban Planning, first as the Executive Director of the Passaic Valley Citizens Planning Association. He was director of the Regional Plan Association's New Jersey program from 1959 to 1969 and director of research and policy planning for the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing from 1969 to 1980. Through out his life he wrote extensively on various issues and was published widely. He taught Urban Planning at the graduate level. He was, from the very start to his last days, dedicated to social democracy. He embraced it in his public and personal life. This is his legacy to us. He is survived by his two children Eric and Elena, and three grandchildren Sasha, Isaiah and Benjamin. Cremation was private.