Over the past two decades I’ve campaigned for many causes close to my heart — including academic freedom, historic preservation, sustainable living and safe active mobility.
Click on the items below for descriptions of my leadership role in diverse campaigns with national and international reach.
In 2003-2005, while teaching art history at Stanford University, I served as Vice President for Private Universities and Colleges of the California Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). In the latter capacity I played a leading role in a successful nationwide campaign to counter the mandating of conservative values in university classrooms. The so-called Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR)—vigorously promoted by several right-wing think tanks—was a thinly-veiled attack on the professionalism of academic workers, and an attempt to discredit policy critiques authored by academics. Some of my key statements in that debate, many of which originated as blog posts on the California AAUP website, have been collected in Stephen H. Aby, (ed.), “The Graham Larkin-David Horowitz Debate” in The Academic Bill of Rights Debate: A Handbook (Westport, CT: Praeger Press, 2007), pp. 67-90. Content from the CA-AAUP site has disappeared, but you can read my essay “What’s not to like about the Academic Bill of Rights” here; you can watch my PBS TV conversation with ABOR author David Horowitz; and you can read here about my debate with then-California State Senator (R) Bill Morrow.
By June 2017 I had long been a supporter of the US-based Drop the ‘A’ Word / #crashnotaccident campaign to rethink the language of traffic violence. So I was agreeable when I was asked to take over the campaign editorship at that point. The new job entailed looking out for reports of motor vehicle “accidents” and urging the writers (mostly via Twitter) to say crash or collision instead. The Associated Press has now incorporated #crashnotaccident thinking into their style guide, but there’s still plenty of work to be done.
RECENT ASSESSMENT WORK IN CALIFORNIA
Since February 2022 I have been working as an architectural historian on the Cultural Resources team at Sapphos Environmental in Pasadena. In that capacity I have applied my strong background in architectural history and regulatory compliance to projects in California, and I have enhanced my capacity for managing historic assessment projects and building client relationships. This work has also included assessment of some non-architectural cultural resources, including a gravesite and a tree. I meet the Secretary of Interior’s Professional Qualification Standards for History and Architectural History.
What follows is a survey of my recent work as Project Architectural Historian working for clients on various levels, from the state down to individual developers and homeowners.
Projects for the State Of California
The cultural resources element of the Survey for the Caltrans I-10 Express Lanes Extension included an intensive-level field survey of approximately 120 freeway-adjacent built environment resources, ranging from residential, commercial and industrial buildings to a park and a college campus. This task included assessing the eligibility of all resources for listing in the NRHP and CRHR, and the preparation and delivery of DPR 523 forms for each property. This work was made challenging by the departure of the firm’s other two architectural historians partway through the project, when the deadline was fast approaching and most of the work was still remaining. I saw the project through to completion by writing dozens of assessments in short order, and working with a sister firm on the revision of submitted forms. My efforts were acknowledged with a promotion to the level of Architectural Historian Specialist. I have since completed a field survey for a CalTrans project involving assessment of 45 properties in Wilmington, CA. For the California High-Speed Rail Authority I conducted federal-level Historic American Building Survey (HABS) documentation for the properties adjacent to the proposed high-speed rail construction.
Projects for Los Angeles County
Lead historian on a wide variety of projects for LA County in fulfillment of an open contract, including drafting of a historic preservation element for the Florence-Firestone Transit Oriented District Specific Plan; drafting a landmark nomination and reporting on upgrades for the Owen Brown Gravesite in Altadena; writing a comprehensive condition report with recommendations for mitigation for the Alpine Village historic site; reporting on the condition of sites including the Unique Theatre in East Los Angeles and the ‘Old Glory’ site in Santa Clarita; recommendations on Mills Act eligibility and compliance for historic districts including View Park and Historic Highlands; and providing historic content and illustrations for the Regional Planning Commission’s centenary booklet.
Projects for Municipalities
Since February 2022 I have completed Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) documentation for scores of residential, commercial and municipal buildings in the City of Sierra Madre. Also at the request of the City, I have regularly advised homeowners with the preparation of Mills Act applications and historic district nominations.
At the request of the City of Pasadena, I wrote an evaluation of the historic significance of the Swanson & Peterson furniture factory in East Pasadena, built in 1929 and recently threatened with demolition. Based on my analysis of the physical fabric and the historic record, including Sanborn maps and some recent assessments, the building was ultimately spared from demolition and slated for adaptive reuse. It was the subject of my talk Lessons from the Daylight Factory, presented in April 2023 at the National Association of Environmental Professionals conference in Phoenix, AZ, and in September 2023 at the Pasadena Heritage headquarters.
Projects for Individual Developers and Homeowners
Since 2022 I have produced reports for homeowners and developers in more than thirty communities across Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Kern counties. These have included Historic American Buildings Surveys (HABS) reports; California Department of Parks and Recreation DPR 523 Series assessments; Historic Resource Assessment Reports (HRARs); Historical Resources Evaluation Reports (HRERs); Landmark and Mills Act applications; and a wide variety of Memoranda for the Record (MFRs). The buildings have included single-family residences, multi-family residences, commercial buildings, industrial facilities, banks, churches and schools. One of the more unusual assignments was reconstructing the history of the huge V-O Milling complex, founded in 1933 and located beside a rail spur in a heavily industrialized area of East Los Angeles. Following extensive discussion with the current owner and the City of Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources (OHR), the complex was ultimately deemed worthy of commemoration, but not preservation.
Shortly after launching Vision Zero Canada in late 2015, I was approached by Rod King MBE, founder of the remarkable UK-based 20’s Plenty for Us campaign for safe (20 mph) urban and residential speed limits. Rod wanted to know if I would be willing to start a Canadian version of their fledgling European Love 30 (km/h) campaign for Ireland and continental Europe. I told him I’d be interested if I could localize the campaign with a logo based on a North American style speed limit sign, and with an independent website geared toward Canada.
Rod was rightfully wary of my proposal. So I devised a logo and a prototype website to show him exactly what I meant. Upon seeing it he gave me the green light, and the Love 30 Canada website and Twitter feed have been going strong since May 2016. When I began the campaign, dropping urban speed limits to 40 km/h was considered radically progressive in Canadian cities. But less than two years after the launch the nation’s largest newspaper ran an anonymous editorial perfectly encapsulating the Love 30 Canada mandate. Clearly the message had gotten home.
On the Slow Ottawa website and Twitter feed I campaigned heavily for public investment in sustainable urbanism, including the reduction of car dependency and the promotion of active mobility for people of all ages and abilities. Canada’s cities are dominated by automobiles, leading to shockingly high rates of vehicle-induced harm and low rates of walking and cycling as compared with other developed countries. Cities in Scandinavia and the Netherlands saw remarkable safety gains on their highways and city streets after establishing a zero-tolerance policy for death and serious injury, combined with failsafe methods of infrastructure design. In Sweden the plan is called Vision Zero, which is the name I adopted for the Canadian campaign. Since launching in 2015 I’ve made hundreds of media appearances nationwide, and I’ve gained close to 7,000 social media followers in the fight for safer, more equitable streets.
I have long been worried about the destruction of our planet by global warming. In 2013 I began promoting more sustainable living with the Slow Ottawa website, a one-stop guide to financial, social and ecological well-being in Canada’s capital. It presents readers with countless ways to reduce their carbon footprint, and — crucially — to drive policy on all levels of government in the direction of ecological and economic resilience.
Despite the local focus, Slow Ottawa soon had considerable international reach, especially thanks to the Pinterest boards gathering ideas for sustainable urbanism in 30 categories. Within a few years those boards had more than 10,000 global followers, with over 770K monthly views and 65K engagements in the form of likes or repins. The Slow Ottawa Pinterest boards were the only non-American site listed in Planetizen’s Top 10 Websites of 2015.
