I am a socio-legal scholar whose research focuses on ways to make cities more livable, productive, and democratic. I compare policy reform projects over time, by combining historical and ethnographic methods. Right now I have a few projects underway. I am completing a book that uses urban agriculture in Chicago since the 1890s to explain how and why urban reformers have repeatedly sought to address poverty and unemployment by redistributing use but not ownership of idle property. My next major project examines urban climate resilience policy projects in comparison with other historical moments when new scientific concepts of what cities are have reshaped notions of how they can and should be governed. Finally, I am working on a couple papers that use the emergence of compulsory voting in Kansas City in the 1890s to think about how and where a duty to vote might re-emerge in an America city.
I work at Temple University Beasley School of Law, where I am Assistant Professor of Law. Before coming to Temple I was at University of Cincinnati’s School of Public and International Affairs and College of Law, as Assistant Professor of Political Science and Law.
Here you can learn about the book I’m working on, as well as my other research projects and publications.
You can download my CV here.