Clarence Samuel Stein was an American urban planner, architect, and writer, a major proponent of the Garden City movement in the United States. He was born on June 19, 1882 in Rochester, New York, United States. From 1923 to 1926 he was chairman of the New York State Housing and Regional Planning Commission and was among the founders of the Regional Plan Association in 1923. In 1919 Stein started his own practice in New York, and in 1921 began his long association with fellow architect Henry Wright. In 1923 Stein also co-founded the Regional Planning Association of America to address large-scale planning issues such as affordable housing, the impact of sprawl, and wilderness preservation. Other founding members included Lewis Mumford and Benton MacKaye; the RPAA helped MacKaye develop his vision for what would become the Appalachian Trail. Stein wrote Toward New Towns for America in 1951, and received the AIA Gold Medal in 1956. He died in 1975 at the age of 93.