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.

Schools are seen as an access of future opportunity for children. Consequently, school quality is often identified as a significant influence on housing choice and thereby monetary housing value. This cross-sectional study employs multivariate regression analysis to assess the relationship between school attributes on single-family housing values in the Orlando, Florida metropolitan area. The model includes facility age as a measure of perceived school quality, along with a series of control variables, to assess the relationship between public school facility age and the corresponding housing values within the associated school attendance zone. The key findings demonstrate that there is a relationship between school attributes, including age, on single-family housing values in the sample. It was found that facility age correlated with housing sale price, with both newer and historic school facilities being positively associated with monetary housing value. These findings are intended to aid community development and urban revitalization policy discourse. The implication is that if communities invest in new schools, or renovate schools in older communities, then this could aid in community development initiatives and urban revitalization efforts in those neighborhoods. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2009. / July 14, 2009. / Smart Growth, Public Resources, Housing, Educational Facilities, Community Development / Includes bibliographical references. / Timothy S. Chapin, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Charles E. Connerly, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Keith R. Ihlanfeldt, Outside Committee Member.

Urban informality is a large part of employment and housing provision in many developing world cities and helps define daily living for many. It is established that productivity of informal firms is limited, particularly in Africa, because informal production is typically small scale, underfinanced, under-skilled, and without adequate infrastructure. This research acknowledges these typical reasons for informality's limited productivity, but further tests the hypothesis that productivity of informal firms is limited because of reduced ability to generate agglomeration scale economies. The study evaluates the experience of an informal industry with intermediate input effects, labor pooling, urbanization economies, innovation, production specialization, and joint action. The handicraft industry in Nairobi, Kenya is examined because it is an example of an export oriented light manufacturing industry dominated by informality. The study uses mixed methods including a semi structured interview with 102 firms and obtrusive observation of important contexts. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2012. / May 30, 2012. / Africa, Agglomeration Economies, Economic Development, Nairobi, Urban Informality / Includes bibliographical references. / Petra Doan, Professor Directing Dissertation; James Cobbe, University Representative; Timothy Chapin, Committee Member.

Female Genital Cutting (FGC) is practiced all over the world and impacts millions of women and girls every year. The negative health and social consequences of FGC have been well documented and many interventions to end the practice have been attempted. Policy makers and development planners continue the struggle yet still the practice remains. More recently, those who are involved in FGC eradication attempts have called for a better understanding of behavior change models and for interventions that are based in theory. This dissertation utilizes several analytic techniques including bivariate correlation and logistic regression to analyze data from the Burkina Faso Demographic and Health Survey of 2003 to assess the validity of one such theory of behavior change, the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), to determine if it is an appropriate theory in the particular behavioral domain of FGC. The TRA suggests that attitudes and subjective norms predict intention and that intention in turn predicts behavior. This dissertation tests the first portion of this theory to determine if attitude and subjective norm do indeed predict intention in women in Burkina Faso. The results suggest that the TRA is indeed a valid theory for predicting women's intention to circumcise their daughters in Burkina Faso as both attitude and subjective norm are robust predictors of intention. Furthermore it was found that research based solely on identifying demographic variables should be discontinued as demographic variables for the most part did not predict intention. The one exception was religion with Muslim women being much more likely to circumcise than women who were not Muslim. The recommendations call for an expansion of the Demographic and Health Surveys to collect more information related to FGC, additional research on FGC utilizing the TRA, the discontinuance of FGC research based solely on demographic variables, and changes to current interventions so that both attitude and subjective norm are addressed and so that Muslim populations are specifically targeted. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2008. / June 4, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. / Petra Doan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles Connerly, Committee Member; Christopher Coutts, Committee Member; Doug Schrock, Outside Committee Member.

This paper applies six theoretical models of metropolitan decision-making to analyze the history of rapid transit planning in Charlotte, North Carolina. The political models employed include: the elitist model, the pluralist model, the class-dialectical model, the growth machine model, regime theory, and consensus building. The hypothesis under consideration is that none of these models fully explains Charlotte's decision to build rapid transit, but each one provides unique insights that, when combined, provide a rich understanding of the region's transportation and planning politics. To begin, I develop a set of expectations for how each model would explain Charlotte's decision-making. Next, utilizing information from technical documents, newspaper articles, and interviews with planners in the region, I describe the history of transportation and land use planning in Charlotte from the early 1980's to the late 1990's. Then I compare the historical events observed with the expectations outlined for each model to evaluate the power of the respective models to explain Charlotte's decision-making process. The comparison of observed events to theoretical expectations reveals that each of the models presents unique insights into the region's political process, but none adequately tells the full story, which unfolds over the course of nearly 20 years. Throughout the course of that history, different modes of decision-making seem to come and go, demonstrating the dynamism of metropolitan politics. However, there appear to be relatively consistent parallel streams of political momentum: one which seeks to corral elite interests in support of rapid transit, and a second that focuses on public involvement and neighborhood interests. The successful marriage of these streams by planners in Charlotte was a significant factor in the region's decision to build rapid transit. Finally, Charlotte's history demonstrates that transit planning does not need to operate in direct opposition to highway interests, and the coordination of transportation and land use planning can be achieved without significant state intervention. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Planning. / Fall Semester, 2008. / October 27, 2008. / Metropolitan Planning, Rapid Transit / Includes bibliographical references. / Gregory L. Thompson, Professor Directing Thesis; Jeffrey Brown, Committee Member; Richard Feiock, Committee Member.

The Western Australian Planning Commission, Planning Policy 3.2: "Planning for Aboriginal Communities" provides a framework for the planning of large permanent Aboriginal communities through Community Layout Plans. The policy also provides a basis for negotiation between Aboriginal communities and local government about planning control and fosters the development of cooperative strategies, which aim to minimize the need to use strict regulatory powers. This author proposes that the CLP process is one that should be considered for emulation among historically oppressed communities here in the United States. CLPs are successful due to the fact that they provide direct representation for residents, a formalized system of plan preparation, and are official in nature due to their state authorization. Of specific intrigue is the facilitation of citizen participation that is embedded in the process, and the affect it has on the community and finished product. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Planning. / Spring Semester, 2009. / April 7, 2009. / Planning, Aboriginal, Australia, Western Australia Planning Commission, Communities / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeffrey Lowe, Professor Directing Thesis; Daniel Tope, Committee Member; Rebecca Miles, Committee Member.

First, this study draws on a multidisciplinary social science literature on institutions to outline the concept of institutional informalism, which is then developed further into two related sub-concepts: urban informalism and bureaucratic informalism. The central thesis of both frameworks is that informality can be seen as a process of interaction between the institutional rationalities of the formal institutions of the state and informal institutions of society in which the former is shaped by the latter. Second, as part of the critical review of literature, the concept of `urban informalism' is used to analyze five empirical case examples drawn from the literature as a way to assess what the contemporary idea of urban informality means for policy and practice and the governance of local areas when considered in its alternative understandings as urban informalism. The critical review concludes that urban informality can be seen as a constantly ongoing institutional process in which urban informal actors in pursuit of everyday aspirations of city life knit and reknit the composite institutional fabric and appropriate the monopolized epistemic enactments of the city in an urban theater of unequal power. This can be seen in the infinite processes of experimentation, power play and institutionalization that sustain the effective governing framework in a constant state of flux and reinvention. Third, using the second sub-concept of bureaucratic informalism, I use qualitative methods of study to examine the transactional experiences of urban residents of Accra as it relates to the access to public sector services and opportunities and I identify the informal structures and relations that shape such public sector transactions. Firstly, consistent with theory and existing empirical work, the study finds that informal relational structures in the form of kinship, friendship and co-ethnicity play an important role in facilitating access to public sector services and opportunities. Secondly, the study finds new evidence regarding informal structures and relations of power associated with partisanship and the exploitation of incumbency and the leveraging of power by officialdom and the wealthy urban middle class. The study finds that such leveraging of power enables powerful individuals and their affiliates to obtain privileged access to services and opportunities in the public sector. Such leveraging of power also enables the powerful and the wealthy to appropriate legally and illegally the resources and protections of the law and public policy. It also enables them to play by different sets of rules and standards outside the framework of law and public policy. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / October 26, 2012. / access to public services, informal governance, informal networks, institutional theory, institutions and governance in Africa, urban informality / Includes bibliographical references. / Rebecca Miles, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jim Cobbe, University Representative; Petra Doan, Committee Member.