Tony

Anthony (Tony) Downs, 90, of McLean, Virginia, passed away from natural causes on October 2, 2021 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. Son of James Chesterfield and Florence Downs (née Finn), Downs graduated as valedictorian from Maine Township High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. He attended Carleton College in Northfield, MN, graduating as valedictorian in 1953 with a degree in Political Theory and International Relations. He went on to receive his Masters and Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University, graduating with highest honors in 1954. Downs’ Ph.D. thesis became his most influential work: An Economic Theory of Democracy, published in 1957. The book applied an economic model to the workings of democracies that assumes voters act in their own self-interest when choosing political candidates and parties, just as they do when buying a house or a car. This theory became the foundation of the Public Choice school of political economy and led to Downs’ being short-listed for a Nobel Prize. The book is still influential in the field of political science. After serving in the US Navy for two years as an intelligence officer, Downs joined Real Estate Research Corporation, the firm founded by his father in Chicago. This was the beginning of his long career as a consultant and speaker on real estate, housing and urban development. In 1962 he was invited to join the RAND Corporation. While there, he wrote Inside Bureaucracy, which examined how large bureaucratic organizations make decisions and offered a theoretical framework for predicting their behavior. This book has also been widely influential. He was a staff member of the Kerner Commission, established by then-president Lyndon Johnson to investigate the causes of the widespread riots in the United States in the summer of 1967 and recommend policy changes to prevent future riots. He wrote several chapters of the final report, which blamed the unrest largely on lack of economic opportunity, failed social service programs, police brutality, racism, and the white-oriented media. His experience on the Kerner Commission led to a life-long interest in promoting social justice. Downs wrote widely on many subjects, including housing policy, rent control and housing affordability. In all, he published 24 books and more than 500 articles. Late in his career, he became interested in transportation economics. His books Stuck in Traffic (1992) and Still Stuck in Traffic (2003), described how trying to reduce peak-hour traffic congestion by expanding highways inevitably fails, because traffic simply expands to fill the capacity of the new lanes. He proposed congestion pricing as the only effective solution for peak-hour traffic jams. While these ideas were controversial when he first published them, congestion pricing has since been adopted by cities and traffic agencies around the world. Downs joined the Brookings Institution as a Senior Fellow in 1977. He also served on the boards of numerous companies and organizations, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Pittway Corporation, and MassMutual. He was a consultant to many of the nation’s largest corporations and public institutions, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the White House. HUD Secretary Jack Kemp appointed him to the Advisory Commission on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing in 1989. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco from June 2004 until March 2005. He was much in demand as a speaker. He had a knack for enlivening dry subjects by illustrating key points in his talks with jokes culled from his collection of more than 200 joke books. Tony married Mary Katherine (Kay) Watson in 1956. The couple had five children and were married for 42 years until Kay died of ovarian cancer in 1998. He married Darian Dreyfuss Olsen in 1999. Downs was predeceased by his first wife, Kay Downs, and his sisters, Carolyn (Carol) Stahl, of San Francisco, California, and Susanna (Sue) Bell of Evanston, Illinois. He is survived by his second wife, Darian Downs; his five children, Katherine (Kathy) Downs of Roslindale, Massachusetts, Christine Mann of Richmond, California, James Anthony (Tony) Downs Jr. of Sherborn, Massachusetts, Paul Downs of Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, and Carol Downs of Roslindale, Massachusetts; their spouses, J. Kevin Mann, Jin-Kyung (Kay) Kim, Nancy Bea Miller, and Charlie Rose; his stepchildren, Howard Olsen, Spencer Olsen, and Jennifer Yeamans; thirteen grandchildren, Patrick Drury, Alyssa Bossenger, Anna Waddill, Adrian (AJ) Rose, Ruby Rose, Peter Downs, Henry Downs, Hugh Downs, Sonya Mann, Destiny Mann, Matthew Downs, Jonathan Downs, and Emma Downs; and three great-grandchildren. In his private life, Anthony Downs was a dedicated family man and a devout Catholic. He founded and ran a small group dedicated to exploring spiritual issues that met regularly for decades. He will be remembered for his intelligence, his original insights that sometimes opened whole new fields of study, his dry wit, and his willingness to call things as he saw them, no matter what other people might think. A memorial and burial service is being planned for the spring of 2022. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Maryknoll Sisters. The family would like to extend their heartfelt gratitude to the medical and nursing staff at Suburban Hospital for their kind and devoted care.