By Bob Needham
Michigan Law
Michigan Law recently hosted an annual academic conference focused on the challenges facing local governments in the US.
The State and Local Government Works-in-Progress Workshop brought together about 30 academics to present papers in various stages of development on topics like zoning, policing, and local courts.
Although the gathering takes place each year, it is informal, with no sponsoring organization. At each annual conference, volunteers are sought to host an upcoming gathering.
This year’s organizers were Michigan Law Professors Noah Kazis and Emily Prifogle, along with Professor Brian Connolly of the Ross School of Business.
Authors use the conference to workshop papers,” Kazis said. “It’s a chance for people to bring ideas at any stage—a few paragraphs, no written work at all, or a full draft—and hear from people in the field about how to improve it. It’s really a working session.”
Kazis said that some of the themes that arose during the two-day conference included the meaning of localism at a time when the federal government is undergoing vast transformation; how to balance participation in government of experts and ordinary citizens; and more consideration of issues in rural areas, the South, and Midwest.
Prifogle said the diversity of issues raised is one of the highlights of the workshop. “For many, zoning and its impact on affordable housing is the pressing local government issue today, but really that’s just part of a larger and much longer ongoing debate about local control and decision making. In broad strokes, that is what we spent most of our time discussing,” she said.
“What always impresses me about this inspiring group of scholars is that the thread that holds the group together—How do groups of individuals at the most local levels experience and utilize the law and governance structures in attempts to achieve their goals?—allows us to learn new insights into how communities, especially marginalized groups in those communities, are affected by access (or lack of access) to power at our most local levels of governance,” Prifogle said.
Prifogle—co-director of the Program in Race, Law, and History—is a legal historian researching how individuals and governments used legal tools to shape rural communities in the 20th century. Her book, tentatively titled, Cows, Cars, and Community: Remaking Modern Rural America, will be published next year. Kazis studies issues of housing, land use, and local governments. Before joining the Michigan Law faculty, he was a legal fellow at New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, and he served as an attorney for the City of New York.
Kazis noted that the conference is important because it helps identify issues likely to dominate academic discourse in the coming years. At the same time, it provides valuable cross-pollination across issue areas.
“Having the land-use people talk to the police scholars and people working on local courts is helpful. We all know different pieces of this bigger picture,” he said. “This conference helps us put all those pieces together.”
Michigan Law
Michigan Law recently hosted an annual academic conference focused on the challenges facing local governments in the US.
The State and Local Government Works-in-Progress Workshop brought together about 30 academics to present papers in various stages of development on topics like zoning, policing, and local courts.
Although the gathering takes place each year, it is informal, with no sponsoring organization. At each annual conference, volunteers are sought to host an upcoming gathering.
This year’s organizers were Michigan Law Professors Noah Kazis and Emily Prifogle, along with Professor Brian Connolly of the Ross School of Business.
Authors use the conference to workshop papers,” Kazis said. “It’s a chance for people to bring ideas at any stage—a few paragraphs, no written work at all, or a full draft—and hear from people in the field about how to improve it. It’s really a working session.”
Kazis said that some of the themes that arose during the two-day conference included the meaning of localism at a time when the federal government is undergoing vast transformation; how to balance participation in government of experts and ordinary citizens; and more consideration of issues in rural areas, the South, and Midwest.
Prifogle said the diversity of issues raised is one of the highlights of the workshop. “For many, zoning and its impact on affordable housing is the pressing local government issue today, but really that’s just part of a larger and much longer ongoing debate about local control and decision making. In broad strokes, that is what we spent most of our time discussing,” she said.
“What always impresses me about this inspiring group of scholars is that the thread that holds the group together—How do groups of individuals at the most local levels experience and utilize the law and governance structures in attempts to achieve their goals?—allows us to learn new insights into how communities, especially marginalized groups in those communities, are affected by access (or lack of access) to power at our most local levels of governance,” Prifogle said.
Prifogle—co-director of the Program in Race, Law, and History—is a legal historian researching how individuals and governments used legal tools to shape rural communities in the 20th century. Her book, tentatively titled, Cows, Cars, and Community: Remaking Modern Rural America, will be published next year. Kazis studies issues of housing, land use, and local governments. Before joining the Michigan Law faculty, he was a legal fellow at New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, and he served as an attorney for the City of New York.
Kazis noted that the conference is important because it helps identify issues likely to dominate academic discourse in the coming years. At the same time, it provides valuable cross-pollination across issue areas.
“Having the land-use people talk to the police scholars and people working on local courts is helpful. We all know different pieces of this bigger picture,” he said. “This conference helps us put all those pieces together.”
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