About
Becky Nicolaides
I'm a historian specializing in American cities, suburbs, and metro areas. I earned my doctorate in American history at Columbia University, then served on the faculties at Arizona State University West and UC San Diego, where I was tenured. During my years at UCSD, I taught hundreds of students, wrote two books, got married, had a kid, and did a monster commute from Los Angeles to La Jolla. In 2006, when our second kid arrived, I left "traditional" academia to become an L.A.-based historian and consultant.
My work focuses on the history of North American suburbanization. I've been especially interested in exploring histories of suburban diversity, breaking free of "Ozzie and Harriet" stereotypes to discover what happened when workers, the poor, immigrants and ethnic and racial groups became suburbanites. My first book, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (Chicago 2002), told the story of blue-collar suburbanites in southeast Los Angeles, and how their everyday lives shaped their political sensibilities — they ultimately ended up as Reagan Democrats. My second book The Suburb Reader 1st and 2nd editions (Routledge, 2006/2016), is co-edited with my long-time friend and collaborator Andy Wiese. It's a big, broad survey of North American suburban history with tons of great documents, essays, illustrations, and scholarly excerpts to ground you in how the suburbs started, how they got to where they are today, and some ideas for moving forward in more sustainable, equitable ways. My latest book project, The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945 (Oxford, January 2024) explores everyday life in our changing suburban world. I've also written articles, blogs, and op-eds, for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and academic publications - the recent stuff coming out of my New Suburbia project.
In 2022, I joined a transnational team of scholars working on “Urbanism and Suburbanization in the EU Countries and Abroad: Reflection in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts.” This initiative is funded by the EU Erasmus + Programme, and our group includes scholars from the Czech Republic, France, Germany, and the U.S. - Andy Wiese and I are representing the U.S. During our periodic meetings and workshops, we exchange insights on the processes and experiences of suburbanization, across national borders. Our capstone conference will be held in May 2024 at Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic.
I've worked as a consultant over the years — on historic preservation projects for Survey LA, the LA Conservancy, the state of California, and for various film projects. I am co-coordinator of the L.A History and Metro Studies group at the Huntington Library. I recently served as a subcommittee co-chair for Mayor Eric Garcetti's L.A. Civic Memory Working Group. I've served on academic and editorial boards over the years, including the Governing Council of the American Historical Association (an elected position). In 2020, I co-founded History Studio, a partnership of award-winning scholars providing expert research, script vetting, and original content for the entertainment industry.
I've given numerous lectures and presentations, including talks at Princeton, UC Berkeley, UCLA, George Tech, University of Exeter, UK, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany, and Université Clermont Auvergne, France. I am an affiliated scholar at the USC Institute on California and the West. I'm married to a brilliant actor-film producer-engineer, we have two kids and two dogs, and we live in the suburban foothills of L.A.