Internationally Recognized Local-Government Expert Richard Feiock to Examine Regional Collaboration Efforts in Sustainability, Climate Protection During March 16 Lecture at Pitt

PITTSBURGH—Why are cities—not nations—taking the lead in developing policies that address global climate change? How can local-level action improve sustainability and other policies in metropolitan areas? 

Richard Feiock, the Augustus B. Turnbull Professor of Public Administration and Policy in the Askew School at Florida State University, will address these questions during a 10 a.m. March 16 lecture titled “Regional Collaboration for Sustainability and Climate Protection: Local Institutions and Policy Networks” in Ballroom A of the University of Pittsburgh’s University Club, 123 University Place, Oakland. His presentation is the Spring 2012 Wherrett Lecture sponsored by the Pitt Graduate School of Public and International Affairs’ Center for Metropolitan Studies.  

Feiock’s lecture is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are requested. For more information or to RSVP, e-mail CMSGSPIA@pitt.edu or call 412-648-2282.

The Wherrett Lecture Series originated in 1955 and, through the years, has brought distinguished scholars to the University to discuss the purpose and nature of local government in the United States.

Feiock, internationally recognized for his expertise in local government and democratic institutions, argues for a regional approach to sustainability where efforts ranging from consolidation to collaboration can be used to help coordinate local action.

Feiock is the founding director of the DeVoe Moore Center’s Program in Local Governance at Florida State University and served as PhD program director for the Askew School from 1999 to 2004. He currently directs the Sustainable Energy and Governance unit of Florida State’s Institute for Energy Systems, Economics, and Sustainability. He received his bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University and his MPA and PhD degrees from the University of Kansas. He has generated more than $1 million in external research grants and has been principal investigator on four National Science Foundation research grants as well as grant awards from the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy, the Aspen Institute, the IBM Center for the Business of Government, and the Fulbright Scholar Program. 

Feiock is the author of six books, among them Institutional Constraints and Local Government (SUNY Press, 2001), City-County Consolidation and Its Alternatives (M.E. Sharpe, 2004), Metropolitan Governance (Georgetown University Press, 2004), and Self-organizing Federalism (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and more than100 refereed journal articles. His work appears in the leading scholarly journals of political science, public administration, and urban affairs. 

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