Paul Crawford, 60, planner turned new urbanist

Paul Crawford, a nationally known expert on form-based codes and a practitioner admired among new urbanists, died of a brain tumor May 21 at his home in San Luis Obispo, California. He was 60.
A partner in the planning firm Crawford, Multari & Clark Associates, Crawford died not long after this spring’s publication of Form-Based Codes: A Guide for Planners, Urban Designers, Municipalities, and Developers, written with Daniel Parolek and Karen Parolek. New Urban News called the book a “major advance” in the field. Congress for the New Urbanism cofounder Stefanos Polyzoides said the book is “a significant contribution — deeply useful and very serious.”
After graduating from Cal Poly with a degree in city and regional planning in 1971, Crawford had a highly successful planning career with several distinct phases. He started in the public sector, becoming, at 33, the youngest county planning department director in California, according to the website SanLuisObispo.com. After a decade on the job, which included rewriting the county land-use code, Crawford cofounded his firm and went on to write zoning codes for more than 100 cities, according to partner Chris Clark.
Twelve years ago Crawford met Polyzoides during the creation of a

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