Chester Rapkin; Urban Planner Coined ‘SoHo’

Chester Rapkin, 82, an influential theorist of urban planning who coined the designation SoHo for the artistic Manhattan neighborhood south of Houston Street. Rapkin’s 1962 study of SoHo was credited with saving the downtown neighborhood from being demolished as it was changing from a district of light industry to one of loft spaces for artists. He also co-wrote a pioneering study in the 1950s on what has since become a standard method of thinking in urban planning: that land use must integrate vehicular traffic patterns. A native of Manhattan, Rapkin graduated from City College of New York and later earned a doctorate in economics from Columbia University. On Jan. 28 of pneumonia in New Brunswick, N.J.