Welcome to the home
page of Evan McKenzie. I teach Political Science here at the University of Illinois at Chicago in downtown
Chicago, Illinois. I also teach as an adjunct instructor at The John Marshall Law School. You can read a
brief bio, or you can
contact me by e-mail at mckenzie@uic.edu. John Marshall students should e-mail me at 9mckenzie@jmls.edu
Biographical
and Contact Information
If you want some basic
information about me, such as my background and publications, read my c.v.
I maintain a weblog
called The Privatopia Papers that
you are welcome to check out. That’s where I post my running commentary and
sundry materials on my main research interest, which is the rise of private
government. The weblog also has links
to other materials, such as articles I’ve written.
Here is how to reach
me:
E-mail: mckenzie@uic.edu
Telephone: 312-413-3782
Fax: 312-413-0440
Mailing address:
Political
Science Department
University
of Illinois at Chicago
1007
W. Harrison St., M/C 276
Chicago,
IL 60607
USA
The
Courses I Teach
I teach courses in
American government, law, urban politics, and public policy. You can view and download the syllabi for my
courses by clicking the links below.
The syllabi contain links to study guides for the exams and requirements
for assignments. These links are in the
“Reading and Assignment Schedule” section at the end of each syllabus.
Pre-law Advising
I serve as the
pre-law adviser for the Political Science Department. I help political science
majors make decisions about whether to apply to law school, how to prepare
themselves for the Law School Admission Test, which schools to apply to, and
other issues. If you are a political science major, you can contact me for an
appointment. Anybody is welcome to learn more about this by reading about Pre-law Studies in Political
Science at UIC. Here is a good
starter set of links
to resources for pre-law students that I put together, and I welcome recommendations
for new links to add.
My
Research Interests
I work in the
fields of urban politics, public policy, and law. Within those fields, I
specialize in the following areas:
- Gated
Communities--I study the
massive growth of residential private governments in common interest
housing developments, or "CIDs," which are often called “gated
communities,” “homeowner associations,” “residential private governments,”
or “community associations.” Read and download several of
my papers on this subject here. This is also the topic of my book
called Privatopia:
Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government.
Don’t miss my weblog on the
subject of privatization: The Privatopia Papers. I welcome e-mails containing
appropriate items to add to it, so send them along.
- Common interest housing is the fastest
growing form of home ownership in America, and homeowner associations are
the most widespread privatization of local government services in
American history. In the last ten years, there has been an enormous
increase in the use of security measures such as entry control, perimeter
security, and internal surveillance. These things led people to start
calling them "gated communities."
- I am part of an international network of
scholars studying the way private residential government, often with
gates or walls, is spreading to many nations around the world. If you would like to read more about
this, you can go to the websites of two recent conferences on the
subject, where many papers are posted for your review or download. In September 2003, we met in Glasgow,
Scotland at the University
of Glasgow, Centre for Neighbourhood Research. In June 2002, we met at in Mainz,
Germany, at the University
of Mainz.
- Check out my weblog, The Privatopia Papers, for all
my current musings on this subject.
- The politics of
suburbia, and
particularly issues pertaining to housing, taxation, education, crime,
privatization, and racial segregation, integration, and diversity. I am
writing a book about Oak Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb that has unusual
public policies designed to maintain a racially integrated community.
For those interested in
doing research on the internet on these or other topics having to do with
politics, I have put together a set of links to many
great sources of information on politics, law, and government on the internet.
You can also leave
this page and go back to: