Obituary

Carl Anthony
February 8, 1939 – April 4, 2026

Carl Anthony was a groundbreaking architect, author, and community strategist who bridged the oft-separate worlds of civil rights and environmentalism. As a founder of Urban Habitat and the Breakthrough Communities Project, Anthony spent more than five decades arguing that a healthy environment is a fundamental human right; one that cannot be separated from the struggle for social and economic equity.

Born in 1939 in Philadelphia’s Kingsessing neighborhood, Anthony’s early life was shaped by the stark contrasts of mid-century urban America. One of the few Black students at Columbia University’s architecture program in the 1960s, he felt the profound tension between his professional training and the civil rights movement burning in the streets outside. Rather than choosing one, he integrated both, traveling across Africa after graduation to study how indigenous cultures adapted their structures to the natural world; a journey that would define his “ecological architecture”.

In San Francisco, as the former president of the Earth Island Institute, Anthony combined the traditions of Martin Luther King Jr. and John Muir. He challenged the mainstream environmental movement to look beyond pristine wilderness into the heart of the “built environment;” the neighborhoods, transit systems, and parks where people of color lived and worked.

Anthony served as president of the Berkeley Planning Commission and led the Ford Foundation’s Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative, where he championed the idea that cities and suburbs are part of a single, interdependent system. In the Bay Area, he was an advisor on the conversion of the Presidio into a national park and supported such neighborhood projects as the Potrero Gateway Park.

Anthony taught at the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard, and Columbia. He authored The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race, which offered a roadmap for a activists seeking to build a “multiracial leadership for sustainable communities”. Anthony envisioned a future where every neighborhood—from Dogpatch to the Delta—offered clean air, green space, and a sense of belonging. 

He’s survived by his longtime partner and collaborator, Dr. Paloma Pavel.