Ira South Lowry

Ira South Lowry (Jack) died peacefully at his home in Pacific Palisades on May 1, 2016. He was born on Feb. 11, 1929, in Laredo, Texas, to doctors Willis Edwards Lowry, Jr., MD and Ruby South Lowry, MD.

Jack graduated from Martin High School in Laredo where he was awarded several state honors in journalism. He was Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Texas, Austin, Plan II, earning both BA and MA degrees.

Drafted into the Marines during the Korean Conflict, he achieved the rank of sergeant halfway through his three-year enlistment. To amuse himself, he would write his mother letters in the style of different authors like Hemingway and Shakespeare.

Jack then enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley, where he met and married the love of his life, Shirley Park. After earning his Ph.D. in economics, as well as receiving the Newton Booth Fellowship in Economics in 1956, he spent three months at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh setting up a research gathering team to work while he took a leave of absence so he and Shirley could spend a year traveling and teaching in Europe with the University of Maryland Extension Service for Military Personnel. They spent six months each in Spain and Germany.

Returning to Carnegie, he spent three years processing the collected data and, at this time, developed the Lowry Model, the first widely applied land use and transportation forecasting model used by many metropolitan planning agencies today (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-use_forecasting#Lowry_model). His model endures as a useful tool and people all over the world still refer to his work from 1964.

The two returned to California where Jack joined The Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, an international nonprofit global policy think tank. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he coordinated the survival plan of the United States for the government, military and civilian populations in event of an atomic attack on the U.S. mainland. His mother learned this while reading the local newspaper when she spotted his name in an interview.

During the 1970s, Jack was principal investigator of the Housing Allowance Supply Experiment, the largest social policy experiment ever to be conducted as of that date.  The experiment saturated the housing markets of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and South Bend, Indiana, with housing allowances, subsidies that a low income household could use to pay for private market housing of its own choosing. The question was whether such a subsidy would drive up local rents. The answer was it would not.

As a result of Jack’s work, housing allowances (now called housing choice vouchers) became the basis of housing policy for low-income people in the U.S. and remained so as of 2016. Jack provided intellectual leadership to a large team of researchers, who remember his mentoring at a key point in their careers.

In his late 40s, Jack left The Rand Corporation and went into private consulting.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the infrastructure and housing in many countries were in dire straits. Governments contracted him to gather demographic and economic data, and articulate new plans for housing development. He worked in many countries, including Albania, Russia, Uzbekistan and Thailand.

A true Renaissance Man, Jack authored two books and many articles (rand.org/pubs/authors/l/lowry_ira_s.html) on subjects in his field.

His Lowry Model transformed the way housing analysis was done and has had a lasting impact on the field. He played the flute with a small classical music group, was an avid tennis player, built handmade furniture on a professional level, was a strong supporter of the Nature Conservatory, and organized and led backpacking trips in the back country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Jack was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Shirley. He is survived by three brothers and a sister: W.E. (Bill) Lowry (Ollie), New Braunfels, Texas; S. Todd Lowry (Faye), Lexington, Virginia; Dr. T.I. (Tim) Lowry (Ann), Austin, Texas; and Mary Boone L. Ervin (Mrs. Kyle Ervin, Jr.), San Antonio, Texas, plus three generations of nieces and nephews.

A private family memorial was held in Austin, Texas.