From Green Acres to Suburban Poverty

With Becky Nicolaides

Informal and countrified blue-collar suburbs echo the tradition of the American homestead, in which workshops, gardens, and elements of subsistence agriculture live alongside dwelling space. From these communities, the “silent majority” of the 1960s emerged. Subsequently, they housed new populations, which public policy has done little to stabilize.

This series of six talks ties together themes of public and private real estate development in Southern California.

In conjunction with A. Quincy Jones: Building for Better Living.

Becky Nicolaides is an historian, researcher, and writer, with expertise in the history of North American suburbanization. She has more than twenty years’ experience working in academia and the private sector. In 2006, she transitioned from a tenured faculty position at U.C. San Diego to independent consulting and scholarship. Nicolaides books include the award-winning My Blue Heaven and The Suburb Reader, co-edited with Andrew Wiese and recognized as a top-ten book of the year by Planetizen.com. She has writen award-winning articles in academic journals, the New York Times, Newsday, and Washington Post. Her current project explores the history of social and civic engagement in the suburbs of Los Angeles since 1945, and has been awarded over $130,000 in grant support since 2007.

Design Strategies for Better Living is presented as part of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. This collaboration, initiated by the Getty, brings together seventeen local cultural institutions from April through July for a wide-ranging look at the postwar built environment of the city as a whole, from its famous residential architecture to its vast freeway network, revealing the city’s development and ongoing impact in new ways.