Yale Rabin, a former urban planner at Penn, died of heart failure at his home at Foulkeways Retirement Community in Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, on March 22. He was 88 years old.

Mr. Rabin was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Trenton High School in New Jersey. He was a Coast Guardsman from 1946-1947, then earned his bachelor’s of fine arts in 1952 at the Tyler School of Fine Arts and his bachelor’s in education in 1953 at Temple University.

He was a ceramics teacher and public school art teacher until 1957, then earned his master’s in urban planning at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. He worked as a city planner in Camden, New Jersey, and in London, England.

Mr. Rabin returned to Philadelphia in 1963 and joined Penn’s staff as an urban planner. In 1964, he took a leave of absence to work on a construction project for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). During winter break in 1965, he used a gift from Penn’s Christian Association to take Penn students to build facilities in Mississippi for sharecroppers who had been evicted from their homes. He left Penn in 1967.

Until 1975, Mr. Rabin was a consultant and witness for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In 1976, he served as an expert plaintiffs’ witness in the court cases that successfully sought to provide affordable housing in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.

He was later associate dean for academic affairs in the urban & environmental planning department at the University of Virginia and a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr. Rabin is survived by his wife, Barbara; two sons, Paul and Andrew; three daughters, Mira, Alix and Sarah Rabin-Lobron; three stepchildren, Judy, Sharon and Dan Wurtzel; eight grandchildren; and three step-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on April 17 at Foulkeways, 1120 Meetinghouse Road, Gwynedd, PA 19436.

Donations may be sent to a social justice organization of one’s choice. Condolences may be offered to the family at Foulkeways at the above address or at http://www.foulkeways.org