Public Managers and Metropolitan Governance
Local government managers play a unique and often poorly understood role in responding to problems such as suburban sprawl, pollution, poverty concentration, and infrastructure decline. I work as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration within the School of Public and Global Affairs at Northern Illinois University. My research encapsulates questions of how managers and administrative systems process information, formulate policies, and influence urban environmental governance. One goal of this work is to find ways cities might optimize their search for sustainable solutions to public-goods problems.
Because local governments maintain strong authority over land-use in the United States, one substantive domain for observing managerial influence is sustainable development. Sustainable development at a city-scale includes efforts by local governments and regional networks to use community development and smart-growth policy tools and technologies to address sprawl, transportation infrastructure backlogs, urban disinvestment, population stratification, and air and water pollution. I've published research on these efforts, which you can see here.
Social scientists have a lot to offer natural scientists studying the environmental impacts of human development, and I try to engage in inter-disciplinary work. I am a faculty affiliate with the Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy at NIU. I have worked on a team studying transitions in water management in three U.S. cities, funded by the University of Maryland's National Center for Socio-Environmental Synthesis (SESYNC).
I have studied Bayesian inference and network analysis at the University of Michigan’s Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). My research has appeared in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Urban Affairs Review, the Journal of Urban Affairs, Policy Studies Journal, and other outlets. I have presented papers at conferences for the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), the American Political Science Association (APSA), Public Management Research Conference (PMRC), the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), and the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA), among other conferences and invited workshops.
I have also watched state and local policy processes from different professional vantage points. Prior to changing careers, I worked as a government reporter for 15 years. During that time, I covered city councils, school boards, state legislatures and state and national political campaigns in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Florida for news organizations including The Kansas City Star, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Gannett News Service and the Orlando Sentinel.
Because local governments maintain strong authority over land-use in the United States, one substantive domain for observing managerial influence is sustainable development. Sustainable development at a city-scale includes efforts by local governments and regional networks to use community development and smart-growth policy tools and technologies to address sprawl, transportation infrastructure backlogs, urban disinvestment, population stratification, and air and water pollution. I've published research on these efforts, which you can see here.
Social scientists have a lot to offer natural scientists studying the environmental impacts of human development, and I try to engage in inter-disciplinary work. I am a faculty affiliate with the Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy at NIU. I have worked on a team studying transitions in water management in three U.S. cities, funded by the University of Maryland's National Center for Socio-Environmental Synthesis (SESYNC).
I have studied Bayesian inference and network analysis at the University of Michigan’s Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). My research has appeared in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Urban Affairs Review, the Journal of Urban Affairs, Policy Studies Journal, and other outlets. I have presented papers at conferences for the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), the American Political Science Association (APSA), Public Management Research Conference (PMRC), the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), and the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA), among other conferences and invited workshops.
I have also watched state and local policy processes from different professional vantage points. Prior to changing careers, I worked as a government reporter for 15 years. During that time, I covered city councils, school boards, state legislatures and state and national political campaigns in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Florida for news organizations including The Kansas City Star, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Gannett News Service and the Orlando Sentinel.
My dissertation, "City-County Management, Representation, and the Dynamics of Political Markets for Growth Management," examined the role local government managers play in steering both the design and implementation of growth management policies. This dissertation was supervised by Dr. Richard Feiock in the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University.
I am a faculty associate with FSU's Local Governance Research Lab, which investigates questions about why cities and counties collaborate and compete in arenas ranging from energy use to development, environmental resource management and land-use. Here are some of the collective works examining local government land use and political markets.
Here are the courses I regularly teach:
PSPA 600 - Scope and Dynamics of Public Administration
PSPA 605 - Organizational Theory and Behavior
PSPA 630 - Local and Metropolitan Government
PSPA 631 - Urban Planning and Zoning
PSPA 632 - Local Government Administration
PSPA 635 - Local Economic Development Policy
PSPA 699 - Public Service Research
Contact: adeslatte@niu.edu
