Robert Pierson; Educator, Writer Who Explored L.A.

Robert John Pierson, an educator, preservationist, urban designer and prolific writer on the neighborhoods of Southern California, has died. He was 41.

Pierson, who once sought a seat on the West Hollywood City Council, died Thursday in Arcadia of complications from AIDS.

A native and enthusiastic booster of Los Angeles who taught public administration at USC, Pierson was co-author of “Labyrinth: A Student’s Guide to Los Angeles” and the author of “The Beach Towns: A Walker’s Guide to L.A.’s Beach Towns.”

He also wrote articles for The Times and other publications on self-guided walking tours of the neighborhoods of Southern California, emphasizing both upscale and bargain shopping, ethnic restaurants, historic architecture and cultural monuments, recreation and nature.

Pierson was founder and director of the Neighborhood Place Project, a research and educational organization focusing on the changing urban neighborhoods of Southern California. He was a founding member of the West Hollywood Urban Conservation League and served on the board of the Society for Architectural Historians.

At USC, he directed the School of Public Administration’s Los Angeles Semester Program, which emphasizes urban neighborhood field research.

A political novice, Pierson ran unsuccessfully for the council post in 1992, campaigning openly as a gay candidate in West Hollywood, where about one-third of residents are gay. Calling the new city “dysfunctional,” he campaigned for cuts in administrative salaries and programs. He also urged a major restructuring of city commissions through creation of a network of neighborhood councils--an extension of the neighborhood approach to urban planning he espoused in his teaching.

He was active in the Los Angeles Conservancy, the California Historical Society and a Christian ministry known as Evangelicals Together Inc.

Pierson earned an undergraduate degree in sociology and religious studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, a master’s in theology and urban studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, and a doctorate in social ethics at USC.

He is survived by his father, Robert; his mother, Patricia Walters; two brothers, Stephen and Edward; a sister, Katherine Gundersen, and a half-brother, Ronald Walters.