Michael R. Adamson

Oil and Urbanization on the Pacific Coast: Ralph Bramel Lloyd and the Shaping of the Urban West will be released on October 1, 2018, by West Virginia University Press as a contribution to its Energy and Society Series.

Lloyd invested millions from the development of the gigantic Ventura Avenue oil field in commercial real estate, most notably on the East Side of Portland, where the Lloyd Center opened in 1960 and the district bears his name. This book uses the career of Ralph Lloyd as a lens through which to view the long regional reach of Los Angeles as an "energy capital" during the 20th Century.

I introduced Ralph Lloyd and the methods he deployed to deliver his building projects in my 2013 book, A Better Way to Build: A History of the Pankow Companies. Oil and Urbanization on the Pacific Coast explores Lloyd's most important projects in greater detail. As such, it will interest architects, builders, developers, urban planners, and other construction and real estate professionals.

I began researching this book in 1998 and began writing it in 2013. Along the way, I presented my research at numerous conferences and in journal articles. I am very excited to share this important story with a wide audience!