John William Reps ’43

John William Reps ’43—professor emeritus in the city and regional planning department at Cornell—died November 12, 2020, at his home in Ithaca, New York, from a cystic mass in his brain. At Dartmouth he was involved in Green Key and the Interdormitory Council and graduated cum laude. After the war, he studied planning at Cornell, the University of Liverpool, and the London School of Economics. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1951 with an interest in land-use policy and shifted in the mid-1960s to city-planning history. He wrote 15 books, including The Making of Urban America and Cities of the American West, which received the 1980 award for best book on American history from the American Historical Association. In 1996 the American Institute of Certified Planners named John a “National Planning Pioneer.” From 1964 to 1994, he was the founder and publisher of Historic Urban Plans, a company that issued facsimiles of more than 500 town plans, city views, and maps originally published from 1493 to 1894. After John’s retirement from Cornell in 1986, he continued to write books and lecture. Shortly after his death he was named the recipient of the 2021 Henry Hope Reed Award for “an individual working outside the practice of architecture who has supported the cultivation of the traditional city, its architecture, and art through writing, planning, or promotion.” John is survived by children Martha and Thomas. He was predeceased by his wife of more than 60 years, Constance.