The New Suburbia
How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles after 1945
Becky Nicolaides
Suburban Expert. Historian. Consultant.
Becky Nicolaides is a historian and expert on American suburbs. Her latest book, The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945 (Oxford, Jan 2024) traces how the suburbs transitioned from lily-white to multiracial and reveals the compelling stories that unfolded through that change.
Becky has consulted for Survey LA, LA City, the State of California, she served on the LA Mayor’s Working Group on Civic Memory, and she is part of a transnational group of scholars collectively studying suburbanism in the EU and US. She is a co-founder of History Studio, a partnership of award-winning scholars providing expert research, script vetting, and original content for the entertainment industry.
She is launching a new initiative to help suburbs seeking to foster inclusive, welcoming communities, using The Suburb Toolkit. She gives talks to community groups about the history and future of our suburbs.
Latest News
Upcoming Events
January 12, 2025 | “The New Suburbia” book talk, Claremont Heritage.
February 7-9, 2025 | “Reflections on The New Suburbia,” Seaside Institute Symposium, Seaside, FL.
February 27-28, 2025 | “Reflections on The New Suburbia,” co-sponsored by College of Environmental Design, History, and American Studies, UC Berkeley.
Book News
NPR’s Larry Mantle includes The New Suburbia on his 2024 Holiday Gift Guide.
Recent reviews:
“the book blends authoritative rigor with abundant storytelling, making it ideal for academic and general audiences.” – Jean-Paul Contreras de Guzman, Choice
“Nicolaides shows that there is no white suburban monolith, in L.A. or elsewhere. Yet she does not fully abandon the enduring power of the American Dream, or the hope that the suburbs could be places where people of diverse backgrounds could ‘figure out how to live together in difference.’” — Lily Geismer, Dissent
Nicolaides “masterfully describes how Los Angeles became the apotheosis of a suburbanized metropolis, deftly weaving in the larger forces at play.” — June Williamson, Urban Omnibus
“The New Suburbia is a rich study…simultaneously rooted in a sense of place and broad in scope…” — Nathalie Barton, Western Historical Quarterly
Featured articles, websites, interviews
Co-author, Historical Housing and Land Use Study, City of Los Angeles | Sept 20, 2024
To Understand What Could Happen on Election Day, Understand the Suburbs | Time Magazine August 15, 2024
Blog: Living Black in Lakewood: Rewriting the History and Future of an Iconic Suburb | OUPblog, January 17, 2024.
Op-Ed: Can’t afford a house in L.A.? Here’s how that happened | Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2023
Becky’s projects and events
EU Erasmus+ Transnational Suburbanism, with Andy Wiese in Essen, Germany
Community Engagement:
All Saints Church Pasadena