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This dissertation explores the application of spatial organization models to medieval Islamic urbanism. In particular, the systems of urban settlements in Mesopotamia and Persia during the ninth and tenth centuries A.D. are investigated, depending primarily on medieval indigenous sources. The study of Islamic urbanism in general, and medieval Islamic urbanism in particular, remained for a long time obscured by an inadequate single perspective: the "Islamic city" as an individual social entity occupying a fixed geographical area. The conventional approach can be criticized for its restricted focus on Islamic cultural tradition as the only explanatory variable and for its search for an ideal-type construct in the tradition of Western urban-ecological writings of the first half of the twentieth century. The alternative approach put forward in the present thesis examines the city as part of a larger urban network extending over several regions. It is argued that the application of spatial organization models to medieval Islamic urbanism will help to clarify the place and role of cities in both the regional and national structures and will provide a suitable framework for comparing the stages of urban and regional development. Following a historical perspective, the study results indicate the sequence in the evolution of a distinctive form of Islamic urbanism through the operation of several spatial processes. Such processes signify the expansion, assimilation, and integration of urban settlements in former Sasanian lands. Analysis of the road network provides the necessary framework by which interurban contacts are examined on both the national and the regional levels. Hierarchical organization of space and settlement interdependencies are further demonstrated by the analysis of long-distance kharaj (land tax) mobility. This medieval fiscal system is used as a surrogate for human spatial interaction and is supplemented by an evidence for the existence of an urban hierarchy derived from the actual methods and approaches used by the medieval Arab geographers themselves. The findings of the present study demonstrate the evidence for the evolution first of a nationally integrated urban system and second of several regionally organized urban subsystems.

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Archaeological studies of early civilizations in southwestern Asia concentrate on the evolution of urbanism and the state, and generally assume that cities were the foci of complex societies. However, some early civilizations may represent largely extinct forms of complex, but essentially rural, society. Archaeological concepts of urbanism and urbanization are reviewed and critiqued. Rural communities are defined as agriculturally self-sufficient, while cities have populations too large for independent agricultural subsistence. Ethnographic and historical data are used to propose size classifications for ancient "urban" and "rural" settlements in Mesopotamia and the southern Levant. Survey data show that Mesopotamia is characterized aptly as a "Heartland of Cities," in which urban centers restructured regional settlement systems. The southern Levant is reconsidered as a "Heartland of Villages," in which Bronze Age populations grew, and social complexity developed, primarily in the countryside with little urban influence. The nature of this "rural complexity" is illuminated by excavated data from Tell el-Hayyat and Tell Abu en-Niᶜaj in the Jordan Valley. Niᶜaj suggests the importance of sedentary rural agriculture during the otherwise "pastoralized" Early Bronze IV Period. Middle Bronze II temples at Hayyat, a diminutive village site, exemplify social institutions normally interpreted as "urban" in distinctly rural settings. Neutron activation analysis is used to investigate rural pottery manufacture and exchange in the Jordan Valley. A brief excursus proposes a means of distinguishing trace element signatures of clays from those of non-clay inclusions in archaeological ceramics. This revised method reveals that some villages specialized in fine ware production during the absence of towns in Early Bronze IV, and that fine ware production continued in villages despite the reappearance of towns in Middle Bronze II. Thus, economic and social differentiation had characteristically rural manifestations, and Bronze Age society in the southern Levant should be reconsidered as a distinct and provocative case of "rural complexity" in a "Heartland of Villages."

Serious resistance to urban growth in the Southwest arose at the beginning of the post World War II boom and persisted throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Most historians of the urban West ignore this early resistance. Even New Western historians truncate their studies of urbanization in the Southwest by assuming that serious opposition to development only appeared with the rise of environmentalism in the late 1960s. Urbanization in Tucson and Albuquerque proceeded in the face of constant protest. The expressions of opposition to urban expansion arose in conservative and libertarian political critiques and in ethnic resistance to urban renewal plans that targeted barrio areas. A loosely defined environmentalism appeared in these early forms of resistance as residents fought to preserve their lifestyle and native culture.

Cities Beyond is a collection of poems about the liminal space between the suburbs and the pasture as metaphor for the created space of memory, self, and location.

The Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve is one of twenty-six such reserves in the United States established with the intent of protecting coastal estuaries. GIS-based analysis of aerial photographs of the southern half of the reserve reveals high rates of erosion along the margin of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway which runs through the reserve. From 1970/1971 to 2002 nearly 70 hectares (approximately 170 acres) of shoreline habitat were degraded by erosion along the 64.8 kilometers of channel margin analyzed. Wakes generated by vessels in the Intracoastal are hypothesized to be the primary cause of this erosion. An examination of the relationships between lateral movement of the channel margin and factors with the potential to affect erosion and accretion supports this hypothesis. Exposure to boat wakes was found to be the causal factor most strongly correlated with rate of lateral margin movement. Margin movement rates were also found to vary significantly with exposure to wind waves and with the type of channel margin eroded. A reduction in nearshore wave energy appears to be necessary to allow the recovery of impacted ecosystems. Approaches to erosion management based on nearshore stabilization and regulation of navigation are discussed, and the intricacies of the implementation of such plans are described. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2005. / Date of Defense: March 29, 2005. / Erosion Management, GIS / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Deyle, Professor Directing Thesis; Sergio Fagherazzi, Outside Committee Member; John Thomas, Committee Member.

Regional planning and management are problematic in many countries. Control over land and natural resources is fragmented among different levels of government and agencies with narrow missions. Interorganizational collaboration is advocated as a solution, but research to date has predominantly involved case studies with little theoretical rigor. The main objective of this study is to identify the determinants of success in interorganizational collaboration. There is extensive literature on why organizations collaborate, but what factors make collaborations successful is not well documented. To add to the knowledge of this field, this research integrates theory and empirical research from organizational theory, management studies, public administration, urban and regional planning, and environmental planning and natural resource management to define operational measures of successful collaborative planning and applies multivariate analysis to assess hypothesized determinants of success. Natural resource management provides a very good opportunity to examine this due to the fragmentation of administrative structure. However, the implications of the results are not limited to natural resource management. The findings will be useful in understanding collaborative planning and decision making in many other interorganizational settings including regional planning, metropolitan area planning, economic development, and growth management. Understanding what makes collaborations work is important, because despite the documented need to collaborate, many efforts take years to bear fruit, and most do not achieve much. I believe this is due to poor understanding of the collaboration process and its elements. If this process is thoroughly examined and the factors that lead to success are determined, it will help future collaboration efforts immensely by identifying the circumstances in which collaboration is most likely to succeed and the factors that can be manipulated to enhance the likelihood of success. The research methodology includes multivariate analysis of a mail survey of participants in 70 collaborative natural resource planning processes. Representatives of 3 to 4 organizations that collaborated in the development or revision of a management plan for one of six natural resource management program types were surveyed: (1) Remedial Action Plan development under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, (2) the National Estuary Program of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water, (3) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Sanctuary Program, (4) Habitat Conservation Plan development under the Endangered Species Act, (5) the Surface Water Improvement and Management Program of Florida Water Management Districts, and (6) National Estuarine Research Reserves administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The survey included questions on the measures and determinants of success identified from the collaboration literature as well as open-ended questions designed to help identify other ways to define success and other determinants of success. The dependent variable, success, is measured objectively and subjectively and includes responses to single survey questions as well as arithmetic average indices of four major theoretical categories (realization of goals, satisfaction of collaboration participants, enhanced interorganizational relations, and efficiency) and component-based scales. Principal Component Analysis was utilized to determine the elements of the components and their weights. The independent variables, determinants of success, are also grouped together by arithmetic average indices based on theoretical groupings as well as component-based scales. The determinants of success include member factors that are related to the participants in the collaboration, process factors that are related to discretion over the process of collaborating, and resource factors that may be beyond the control of the collaboration participants. The results of the multivariate regression analysis support the hypothesis that most of the member factors, process factors and resource factors influence the success of interorganizational collaboration. However, due to multicollinearity between the independent variables it is not possible to investigate the individual contributions of each factor to success. The models show clearly that the relationship between the parties, equity in decision making, participant characteristics (inclusion of all affected stakeholders, proportional representation, and effective leadership), agreement between the participants on ground rules and the scope of the collaboration, and ripeness of the issue are important for collaboration success no matter how success is measured. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2004. / Date of Defense: December 11, 2003. / Natural Resource Management, Interorganizational Collaboration, Interorganizational Cooperation, Collaborative Planning, Collaboration Success / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert E. Deyle, Professor Directing Dissertation; Richard C. Feiock, Outside Committee Member; Bruce Stiftel, Committee Member.

Decentralization strategies have been applied widely in both developed and developing countries. Previous research analyzes decentralization from above by dealing with two aggregated levels of government: the state and the local. Measures adopted by previous studies fail to reflect the various dimensions of decentralization. They do not show how decentralization is performed at the local level or whether local governments are empowered and able to make independent decisions without direct of indirect intervention from the central government. In this research, I argue that local power over decision-making for comprehensive planning reflects governmental decentralization and captures its economic, political, and administrative dimensions. This research develops and tests a set of empirical measures of local agency power over decision-making for comprehensive planning. The measures analyze decentralization from below by investigating the extent of agency power over decision-making for comprehensive planning at the municipal level. It deals with local governments as disaggregated units, which enables us to compare and trace levels of power over decision-making across municipalities and over time. Major questions of the research are: what are empirical measures of local agency power over decision-making for comprehensive planning? and to what extent do proposed measures of local agency power succeed in reflecting levels of governmental decentralization? Florida was selected as the case study, because it has experienced xiii changes in its governmental decentralization levels since the adoption of its growth management system in the late 1960s. The unit of analysis is a governmental planning agency within municipalities having 10,000 or more inhabitants. A Delphi study was conducted to develop measures of each major dimension of local agency power over decision-making for comprehensive planning. Dimensions of power include agency legal authority, relative autonomy, control over local planning actions, and capacity to make planning decisions. Agency capacity consists of four sub-dimensions: technical, fiscal, institutional, and enforcement capacity. The proposed set of measures of local agency power over decision-making was tested empirically in Florida. Its applicability as an indicator of governmental decentralization was investigated by contrasting the model with measures of decentralization proposed by previous studies. The proposed empirical measures succeed in: 1) analyzing decentralization from below by dealing with local governments as disaggregated units, 2) demonstrating the variation in levels of power across Florida's municipalities, and 3) providing a comprehensive picture of decentralization by capturing its economic, political, and administrative dimensions. The research indicates that Florida's growth management system has shaped the structure of power over decision-making for comprehensive planning. The Department of Community Affairs (DCA) has been given a dominant role in the process of local planning. Regional planning councils (RPCs) have no power over decision-making despite their responsibilities as technical assistants, facilitators, and negotiators. Local governments have been required to prepare local comprehensive plans/plan amendments consistent with state and regional plans. Sanctions are used to ensure local compliance xiv with state requirements and standards. Therefore, the growth management system of Florida has reduced the power of local governments over decision-making for comprehensive planning, which increases levels of centralization in Florida. This research fills partially a gap in the literature of international development planning by presenting a tool to analyze decentralization from below, which enables us to design better strategies to establish decentralization at the local level. The research also contributes to the field of growth management by providing empirical measures of local agency power over decision-making for comprehensive planning. These measures should be addressed in policy analysis of growth management in order to improve planning systems and practices. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2002. / Date of Defense: August 9, 2002. / Florida, Comprehensive planning / Includes bibliographical references. / Petra L. Doan, Professor Directing Dissertation; William Serow, Outside Committee Member; Rebecca Miles, Committee Member; Richard RuBino, Committee Member.

Much research has been done on transportation accessibility of the central-city minorities and its impacts on income, automobile ownership, and employment. The proportion of people using transit for any purpose in the U.S. is so minuscule that most of these studies consider accessibility to jobs by automobile as general transportation accessibility. However, few studies reveal that transit accessibility to jobs could be an important factor for the employment outcomes of the welfare recipients as they are dependent on public transit, and not on automobile. This study investigates the impacts of transit accessibility to jobs on the employability of the welfare recipients in Broward County, Florida, expressed by a surrogate variable 'length of stay in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program by the welfare recipients' and measured in 'number of months.' The study develops an OLS regression model that includes both the aggregate data at traffic analysis zone (TAZ) level and disaggregate data at individual welfare recipient's level. To these, the variable transit accessibility to jobs is added, and its contribution is examined statistically. The study uses an ArcMap GIS for geocoding the welfare recipients' addresses in each specific TAZ, and then relates the TAZ features to those of the individual welfare recipients by spatially joining the maps. The study finds that most of the welfare recipients live in the TAZs associated with high accessibility indices instead of concentrating only in the inner city areas. Some also reside in the TAZs attached to low accessibility indices. It finds that the people living in accessible-rich TAZs stay shorter period of time in the TANF program, and vice versa. It leads to the inference that transit accessibility to jobs of a TAZ has inverse impacts on the employability of the welfare recipients living in that specific TAZ. The study also finds that the women and the U.S. citizens have direct effects while the blacks and the neighborhood quality variable the ratio of number of vehicles to number of households at TAZ level has significant inverse effects on the employability of the welfare recipients. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban & Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2005. / Date of Defense: April 27, 2005. / Welfare/TANF recipients, transportation modeling, employability, geographic information systems, transit accessibility to jobs / Includes bibliographical references. / Gregory L. Thompson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Keith Ihlanfeldt, Outside Committee Member; Charles E. Connerly, Committee Member; Jeffrey Brown, Committee Member.