California Suburban Dreams and Dystopias: Altadena and Pasadena
Tour sponsored by the Schuele Family Charitable Fund
Saturday, October 11, 8am - noon
Transport: Van tour. Meet at Rendezvous Court, Biltmore Hotel.
Tour Maximum: 26 people
Cost: $25
Tour description:
One of the oldest tropes about Los Angeles is the juxtaposition between "sunshine and noir" in the nation's original suburban city. This tour explores the history of suburban dreams and dystopias in one corner of the LA metropolis, Pasadena and Altadena. Set against the San Gabriel Mountains, these suburbs were formative locations for the evolution of suburban dreaming in California. In the late 19th century, Eastern millionaires and Midwestern home-seekers created a landscape of affluent leisure and communion with nature in Pasadena. Elite white settlement attracted a parallel migration of Black families (including future baseball pioneer, Jackie Robinson) who pursued opportunities in service jobs, property ownership and political and social freedom. These dreams clashed repeatedly in conflicts over segregation and civil rights. By the 1960s and 1970s, neighboring Altadena beckoned as an interracial suburban haven, and ultimately achieved unusually high rates of Black multigenerational homeownership. The 2025 Eaton Fire challenged the area’s suburban dream once again, destroying nearly 50 percent of Altadena’s structures. In its aftermath, competing voices are advocating different paths for building back in the context of housing, justice, and climate crises. This van tour explores these histories, including stops along Orange Grove Boulevard and the Rose Bowl area, historic Old Town Pasadena and the 710 freeway, Eaton Canyon, Altadena, and impacts of the 2025 fire. The tour concludes with a Q&A with community activists and organizations advocating for a just and sustainable reconstruction.
Tour leaders:
Becky Nicolaides, research affiliate at the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, is author of The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945 (Oxford), and co-editor with Andrew Wiese of The Suburb Reader (Routledge).
Andrew Wiese, Professor of History at San Diego State University, is author of Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century (Chicago), and co-editor with Becky Nicolaides of The Suburb Reader (Routledge).