David Pass was born on January 14, 1938 in Paterson, New Jersey and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1954. Pass earned a bachelor's from Columbia University in New York in 1958, a master's from the Architecture School in 1962, a B.S. from the Engineering School in 1964, a master's in city planning from University of California in Berkeley (also in 1964) and the equivalent of a Ph.D. in city planning from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1969. During his years as a student, he worked primarily as a planner for both public and private organizations in New York, Sweden, and California. From 1964-1969, he worked in the Royal Institute of Technology as the project director and chief researcher on "Vallingby and Farsta: The Suburban Development process in a Large Swedish City", which was later published as a book by MIT Press. Following his work in Sweden, he returned to the United States to work as the Director of New Communities and Environmental Quality in the New York State Urban Development Corporation. A career employee of HUD from 1973 until his 2003 retirement, Pass worked as the Senior Financial and Economic Advisor in the New Community Development Corporation and then later in Indian Affairs. In addition to writing "Vallingby and Farsta from Idea to Reality: the New Community Development Process in Stockholm" (1973), he also wrote "New Communities in New York State" (1971) and many other articles on new towns in Sweden and the United States. He died in Bethesda, Maryland on July 18, 2007.
From the guide to the David Pass papers, 1934-2001, (Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University)
