David Perry headed the University of Illinois Chicago’s Great Cities Institute for 12 years and was considered an expert on issues including urban and regional economic development, race, politics and public infrastructure.
“He deeply thought about issues and resisted easy assumptions,” said Wim Wiewel, the former dean of UIC’s College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs. “He pushed me in our various collaborative projects to dig deeper.”
Perry, 82, died of complications from progressive supranuclear palsy Dec. 2 at his Gold Coast home, said his wife of 30 years, Judith Kossy.
David Charles Perry was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and grew up in Rochester, New York. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from what now is known as St. John Fisher University in New York and then picked up a Ph.D. from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Perry’s first academic job was at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for about 14 years. He was a visiting professor teaching urban studies and public services courses at Cleveland State University and then spent 15 years as a professor of planning and environmental design at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
In 1998, Wiewel recruited Perry to join UIC after deciding to split his roles as dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs and director of UIC’s Great Cities Institute. Perry was brought on board as a professor and as director of the Great Cities Institute, which was formed in 1993 and is an outward-focused research hub for scholars from multiple disciplines, policymakers and others with an interest in understanding how cities and regions can make themselves into great places. The institute was designed to increase and coordinate UIC’s involvement with the broader Chicago metropolitan area.
“I chose David because I knew he had a very collaborative style,” Wiewel said. “He really excelled at connecting with people. In his role as director of the Great Cities Institute … it was very important that he work with deans and faculty across the university, not just in his home college. Both because of his sincere curiosity, and his broad intellectual perspective, he was able to connect with experts in many disciplines and fields, and develop joint projects of all kinds.”
In 2000, Perry was named interim dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, a post he held until 2002.
“It’s a testament to David’s personality and skills that only having been at UIC for two years, he was made the interim dean,” Wiewel said.
As interim dean, Perry hired one of his former graduate students from the University of Texas at Austin, Michael Pagano, away from a teaching job at Miami University of Ohio to be a UIC professor of public administration. Pagano later was dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs for 14 years.
“What made David special was his capacity to bring a diverse group of people together with varying opinions, backgrounds and policy interests, and to create an open and honest venue for the exchange of ideas,” Pagano said. “David listened and raised questions more than he pontificated, and by raising questions, he encouraged us to reexamine our analyses and conclusions. By today’s standards, his respect for everyone and his approach to encouraging dialogue sound quaint and are certainly in short supply.”
Pagano traced Perry’s interest in urban planning to his early academic research into public management by administrative officers and implementers, followed by a fascination with the Frost Belt and Sun Belt debates of the 1970s. That in turn shaped Perry’s interest in economic development, urban planning and the built environment, Pagano said.
Perry authored or edited about a dozen books and wrote more than 150 articles and book chapters. He and Wiewel co=edited two books: “The University as Urban Developer: Case Studies and Analysis” and “The University, the City and the State: International Studies of Universities as Land Developers.”
Wiewel recalled Perry’s sunny disposition.
“David always was happy, interested in just about any person and topic, and very enthusiastic,” Wiewel said.
Perry was diagnosed with PSP in 2018 and retired from UIC that same year.
Perry’s first wife, Teresa Hickey Perry, died in 1979.
In addition to Kossy, Perry is survived by two sons, Clayton and Evan; two brothers, John and James; a sister, Kathy Perry; and four grandchildren.
A private service was held, and a larger memorial service is being planned for January.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.