Planner, educator, and author Norman Krumholz, FAICP, who championed the importance of equity in planning throughout his long career, died December 21, 2019, in Rockville, Maryland. He was 92.

In his roles as Cleveland planning director and long-time professor at Cleveland State University, Krumholz worked to make equity a central part of urban planning. "It is not enough for cities to be beautiful and efficient," he wrote. "They could, and should, be just and fair as well, and planners should work toward human betterment."

Krumholz was the director of the Cleveland City Planning Commission from 1969–1979. He established the Cleveland Center for Neighborhood Development at Cleveland State in 1979.

"Norm represented the interests of the people versus the corporate interests, the development interests, the growth machine, the people who had little care for, little thought for, the people of the city of Cleveland," Hunter Morrison, former Cleveland planning director, told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

Krumholz was an APA leader, serving as president of the American Planning Association from 1986–1987 and a member of the APA board from 2002 to 2005. He was president of the American Institute of Certified Planners from 1999–2001 and received the APA Award for Distinguished Leadership in 1990.

In 2003, he was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners, recognized as a developer of equity planning, "an educator to thousands, and an author that has inspired a nation of planners."

Krumholz was the author and co-author of several books, among them, Making Equity Planning Work: Leadership in the Public Sector and Reinventing Cities: Equity Planners Tell Their Stories. APA chose Making Equity Planning Work, co-authored with John Forester, as one of the 100 Essential Books of Planning in the 20th century.

In 2017, at the celebration of his 90th birthday, colleagues at Cleveland State University honored Krumholz for service to Cleveland and planning. During the celebration, the City of Cleveland renamed a block of East 18th Street as Norman Krumholz Way.

Read more about Krumholz's life and career in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

Arrangements and burial are private. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Levin College Annual Fund for distribution to the Norman Krumholz Lecture Series or Norman Krumholz Scholarship Fund.

A celebration of Krumholz's life and contributions to Cleveland will be held from 2:00–4:00 p.m. on February 29, 2020, at Cleveland State University's Student Center.