George Sternlieb, who held his doctorate from the Harvard Business School, was the founder and former director of the Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research (CUPR), a Rutgers Professor of Urban Planning and Policy Development, and then awarded the position of University Professor. In 1967, he was a consultant and advisor to the Kerner Commission, also known as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. This bipartisan task force was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of racial riots in the United States in 1967. The commission’s report, released in 1968, was a scathing indictment of white racism and racial segregation.

His extensive national service included membership on the Census Advisory Committee on Population Statistics, a trustee of the Urban Land Institute, numerous Presidential task forces on urban development, and was an expert witness for the Senate Subcommittee on Organization and the Senate Subcommittee on Housing. Dr. Sternlieb was the author of many influential books including The Future of the Downtown Department Store (Cambridge, Massachusetts; Harvard University, 1962), The Tenement Landlord (New Brunswick, New Jersey; Rutgers—Urban Studies Center, 1966); Newark—Social Needs and Social Resources (Newark, New Jersey: Rutgers, The State University, 1967),  Patterns of Development (New Brunswick, NJ: CUPR, 1986), and Atlantic City Gamble (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983). The latter book was the subject of the lead headline editorials of both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal on the same day.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he was considered one of the nation’s leading urbanologists. At the same time, he was one of Rutgers’ leading media stars, often appearing on the Today show at the behest of Barbara Walters, and quoted extensively in the New York Times and other national media.