Remembering Ray Pahl

Remembering Ray Pahl – https://www.rc21.org/remember


 

On Friday June 3rd Ray Pahl died after a long lasting illness. He was a very special person, innovative and generous, with sociological imagination and a multitude of interests, including the role of space in social relations.

In 1970 at the world congress of sociology in Varna (Bulgaria) he was one of the founding members of the Research Committee on Urban and Regional Development (RC21) and – from 1974 – its second president. In 1977 he was one of the founders of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) and later he become the first chair of the Foundation of Urban and Regional Studies (FURS).

This collection of short texts – written by friends who were involved with him in kicking-off a new urban sociology – wants to be a tribute to his legacy, not only from the scientific point of view, but also from a more intimate and personal perspective.

Yuri Kazepov
RC21 President