The time it takes for the residents to evacuate an area is calculated as an evacuation time estimate (ETE). In theory, these time estimates are calculated based on a number of inputs, including clearance time, the impact of traffic management techniques, and the time for the public to prepare to evacuate (Dow, 2000). Evacuation models can calculate clearance times, as well as incorporate the temporal impact of traffic management techniques, like contra-flow traffic. However, these models do not include delays associated with pre-evacuation trips. Because these trips are not well represented in hurricane evacuation models, the evacuation time estimate may be miscalculated (Wilmot and Mei, 2004). In order to capture pre-evacuation trip behavior, an online survey of residents’ responses to the evacuation order associated with Hurricane Wilma in 2005 was conducted. Survey data gathered from the residents of Key West, Florida indicate seven important aspects of preevacuation trip making behavior: (1) Socio-demographic variables, which have some association with evacuation behavior, were found to have a very weak to no association with pre-evacuation trip-making; (2) Socio-demographic variables were found to have an association with predicting evacuation behavior for respondents making pre-evacuation trips, and these associations are consistent to what has been found in other studies of evacuation behavior; (3) Delays at stops are longer than delays on links; (4) Trip delays are associated with trip purpose; (5) Residents did not travel from a single origin point directly to an evacuation point, but made various preevacuation trips, often exhibiting trip chaining that included traveling toward as well as away from the city; (6) Though the Key West mandatory evacuation for Hurricane Wilma consisted of a phased evacuation based on housing types, the residents did not evacuate based on housing type, and (7) the personal stories offered by respondents indicate that evacuating or not is often related to job requirements, economic opportunity, previous evacuation experience, and evacuation burnout.

Wastewater treatment has long had a powerful restraining influence on land use patterns in the United States. The limited availability of central sewers confined intense property development to the sewered areas of cities and towns. The drawbacks associated with septic systems restrained even moderate-density development in areas with inappropriate soils. The advent of decentralized wastewater systems abolished these restraints, however. This technology made it possible to develop land at even high densities with no regard for the proximity of sewers and little for soil quality. This presented an opportunity for developers to pursue projects wherever attractive conditions prevailed. It also offered communities a tool for creating a more appealing pattern of development. These two possibilities were recognized shortly after the technology emerged but limited early use prevented empirical inquiry into which would prevail. Now, with numerous systems installed in Tennessee, we have the opportunity to study the development patterns to which they have given rise. The study employed GIS to identify where systems have been used and what kind of development they have supported. This pattern of system use was compared to the state’s “smart growth” planning initiative. Results revealed that their use undermined orderly growth and accelerated sprawl. Once the local patterns of use were identified, the decision processes behind them were explored through in-depth interviews and examination of policy documents and regulations. Research focused on state regulatory agencies and three case-study counties. Inquiry revealed that developers and landowners were quick to grasp the opportunities presented by the technology while planning authorities failed to either see or act on the opportunities these systems presented for promoting orderly development. The late and weak response of planning was ultimately traceable to how the public’s interest in orderly development was only imperfectly articulated through state or local government channels. It thus was unable to counter the technology’s opportunistic use. This suggests that if decentralized systems and other new infrastructure technologies are to promote orderly growth, the public's expressed desire for such growth must be articulated through public channels and embedded in policies to manage these technologies with community goals in mind.

The transformation of the Polish-German border from a carefully monitored border to an open border with no restrictions on the cross-border mobility of individuals was complete with Poland's full membership in the Schengen Agreement in the fall of 2007. Meanwhile, funding from the European Union since the early 1990s has been supporting the development of projects that require collaboration between Polish and German borderlanders. A chief mechanism for this has been the zoning of border regions into so-called euro-regions, zones of cross-border cooperation, that by financially supporting projects that require collaboration across the border encourage Polish and German organizations and towns in the border region to establish closer ties. In the summer and fall of 2007 during the final months of controls on the border, I interviewed Polish borderlanders living in the northwestern provinces of Lubuskie and Zachodniopomorskie to learn how successful these policies have been at reducing the divisive effect of the border between European member countries. Surveys and open-ended interviews were used to capture Polish borderlanders opinions on the changes in their cross border mobility, to learn about their awareness of euro-regions and to explore how they identify with the region. The findings of this study are meant to contribute to a better understanding of the early stages of European Union integration in Central Europe. Despite the delight borderlanders in my study expressed over the closing of custom checkpoints along the border, I found that linguistic and economic differences continue to influence individuals' decisions to cross the border and structure their interactions with German borderlanders. Although it has become relatively easy for borderlanders to cross the border, most participants only cross the border once a year. And although the majority of borderlanders in my study held positive views on cooperating with German communities across the border their actions appear to be driven by the perceived economic benefits of cross-border cooperation and not a sense of belonging in an multicultural European society.

Location-allocation models based on optimization criteria are appropriate tools for the analysis of archaeological settlement patterns. In early agricultural societies, elite classes might maximize their control of the population and resources by optimally situating their primary settlements. Location-allocation models can simulate the multiple factors that potentially underlie settlement site location decisions. I describe several maximal covering models and their applicability to understand the degree of political centralization in the Upper Tennessee River Valley during several Mississippian archaeological cultural phases (900 to 1600 A.D.). My results support the notion that the main objective of the Mississippian elite in choosing sites for administrative centers was to maximize control of the local population and the supporting agricultural economy. The results also support the work of anthropologists and archaeologists regarding the variable degrees of political complexity during time periods of the Mississippian culture. Cultures during the earliest time period (1000-1200 A.D.) and the northern part of the study area during the latest time period (1450-1600 A.D.) in the analysis were found to be the least complex, resembling simple tribal societies unable to maximize their control over the entire Valley population and its resources. Factors such as the location of trade routes and selected resource deposits were not accounted for in the location-allocation models developed for this research and may account for the less-than-optimal results in settlement system control.

Eastern Tennessee and Great Smoky Mountains National Park are biological hotspots in which settlement by Native Americans and Euro-Americans dramatically changed the landscape through land clearance and changes in fire occurrence. I present two local fire histories using macroscopic sedimentary charcoal, one from a highly managed area and one from private agricultural land. Gum Swamp (35°35' N 83°50' W) is a pond located in Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park that experiences seasonal drying. The 0.94 m sediment profile extends to about 425 cal yr BP, based on an AMS radiocarbon date on charcoal fragments at mid-depth in the profile. Black Pond (35°37' N 84°11' W) is a spring-fed sinkhole surrounded by agricultural fields. The 2.88 m sediment profile is expected to extend to about 3000 yr BP based on comparison with a sediment core previously recovered and analyzed for pollen and microscopic charcoal by Patricia Cridlebaugh in her Ph.D. dissertation research at the University of Tennessee. AMS radiocarbon dates for the new profile are pending. The macroscopic charcoal record of Gum Swamp shows an increase in charcoal concentrations between the early 1800s and the 1950s associated with Euro-American land clearance and settlement. A decrease in charcoal concentration from the 1950s to the present likely signals fire suppression in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This record is correlated with an earlier microscopic charcoal record completed by Jean Davidson in her M.S. thesis research at the University of Tennessee. Both records show similar trends in charcoal concentrations, but Davidson’s chronology, which is based on radiocarbon dating of bulk sediment, differs from the chronology presented here. My results suggest that the Gum Swamp record spans less time than Davidson proposed. The macroscopic charcoal record from Black Pond shows high charcoal concentrations during an interval tentatively correlated with indigenous occupation, based on Cridlebaugh’s chronology. Moderate charcoal concentrations characterize the period of subsequent Euro-American settlement, followed by low concentrations in recent times. The similar trends in macroscopic and microscopic charcoal at Black Pond and Gum Swamp suggest that the microscopic charcoal previously investigated may largely signal local fires in these small watersheds.

First viewed as an aberration by some when it began to occur in inner cities, the process of gentrification is now common and even significant in U.S. cities, as it runs counter to the urban sprawl that plagues most of them. Gentrification can have far-reaching effects, as it usually involves rising property values and changes in ethnic make-up, and sometimes gives rise to concerns over displacement of original residents and affordable housing. In the context of a broad literature on gentrification which has failed to produce much agreement on its causes or how it works, this research attempts, utilizing census data from Atlanta, Georgia for 1990 and 2000 to attempt to understand how gentrification begins and progresses in a Southern city. I conduct T-tests between gentrifying and non-gentrifying inner city neighborhoods for socioeconomic, housing and geographic characteristics, and then attempt to create a predictive model for where gentrification will occur based on these variables. I then further examine the geography of gentrification and the housing and ethnic make-up of gentrifying neighborhoods in Atlanta. Only one housing variable, percent built before 1940, and no socioeconomic variables were significant in the model. The significance of this variable, coupled with the overall difficulty in predicting gentrification, confirmed that various forms of gentrification are taking place in Atlanta, with older housing in some areas being cleared by development companies to make way for large multifamily housing developments, and in others being renovated one by one. Significantly, this research found that geography has an important role in the process, with clustering of gentrifying neighborhoods probably as a result of diffusion from maturing gentrified neighborhoods. Despite Atlanta’s sizable African-American middle class, the data did not indicate African-Americans playing a larger role in gentrification there during the 1990s. Along with these findings, this study confirms the need for further research on the ways gentrification starts, progresses, and affects the people involved.

Key Deer Pond (24° 42' 29.50" N, 81° 22' 36.12" W; ca. 2 m elevation) is a small freshwater pond in a solution hole located within the pine rocklands of the National Key Deer Refuge on Big Pine Key, Florida. Overlapping sediment core sections and a surface grab sample from Key Deer Pond were subjected to pollen, microscopic charcoal, and loss-on-ignition analyses to investigate late-Holocene climate, fire occurrence, and vegetation-fire relationships in pine rockland ecosystems. Macroscopic charcoal from the uppermost meter of the profile was studied to provide a more detailed history of local fire occurrence. The results from the microscopic charcoal analyses show that fire has long been a part of these pine rockland ecosystems. Generally higher values for all microscopic charcoal indices since ca. 1200 cal yr BP suggest increased fire in the region, and likely around Key Deer Pond. The high-resolution macroscopic charcoal, which spans the last ca. 400 years, provides compelling evidence for repeated fires surrounding the pond. This finding is consistent with the interpretation that lower Keys pine rocklands are a fire-dependent ecosystem characterized by frequent surface fires. The very late human colonization of Big Pine Key, perhaps occurring no more than 160 years ago, suggests that early fires were lightning-induced, and that changes in fire occurrence were the result of prehistoric climate shifts. Pollen assemblages reveal that the vegetation at the site has changed only moderately since 1660 cal yr BP. Pine dominance over much of the record indicates that pine has long been abundant in the area. Increases in pollen of Conocarpus erectus since ca. 357 cal yr BP, and decreases in the abundance of pine since ca. 83 cal yr BP, may signal the impacts of rising sea level.

This research investigates the intersections of national identity, representation, and material culture in the Republic of Slovenia. The subject of the thesis, the kozolec, is a freestanding farm implement, usually made of wood, used to dry hay as fodder for animals and, occasionally, corn for human and animal consumption. It is found on the landscape of Slovenia, a small alpine country that was formerly part of Yugoslavia. The kozolec has been romanticized as being indicative of “where” Slovenia is. It has also been cast aside as a symbol marking the Slovene landscape for both representational and practical reasons. This thesis makes problematic the use of the kozolec as representational of Slovenia and its ethnic landscape. It retheorizes the kozolec, and by extension, all material culture studies using philosophical framework of American pragmatism. It asserts that we should not try to know a place via its material culture, but appreciate a place by acknowledging the use of its material culture in that place.

As urban sprawl swallows the areas around cities, planners are looking for alternative methods of development that help to protect and preserve the environment, enhance the lives of residents, and help reduce the skyrocketing costs of maintaining sprawling infrastructure. Green Infrastructure (GI) planning principles have gained in popularity due to their holistic nature and ability to balance preservation and development. A GI plan seeks to identify the critical “green” infrastructure in an area (the environmental resources that we rely on for clean air and water) and proposes complementary development strategies. One plan component of particular interest is the analysis of the hydrologic network, since it is water quality that drives many ecological and environmental planning issues. Over the last 30 years, riparian buffering has emerged as an accepted best practice for the protection and restoration of sensitive hydrologic features. When creating a GI plan, the power of geographic information systems (GIS) is leveraged to help organize, analyze, and display the large datasets needed to synthesize the plan components. The plan components can be quite complex, and the need for solid, well-defined methodologies is great. In response, this thesis proposes a data model that defines the database structure and attributes needed for hydrologic network conservation analysis, based on research conducted during the creation of the Beaver Creek Watershed Green Infrastructure Plan in Knox County, Tennessee. The analysis methodology and some common hydrologic feature buffer practices are described. The specific methods chosen for this project are detailed and a geoprocessing model that generates the datasets necessary to visualize the hydrologic network buffers is presented.

Since their origin in the late 1970s, craft breweries have diffused throughout the United States, greatly changing American perceptions of beer in the process. The manner in which craft breweries have spread throughout the nation has not been ubiquitous; at all scales of analysis, a great deal of variation exists. Some areas are far more developed than others in terms of the number of craft breweries present. The data indicate that, while population does play a role in influencing the development of craft breweries, other sociological and demographic conditions also appear to be of great importance in explaining the spatial distribution of these breweries. This thesis examines the relationship between craft breweries and many factor conditions in an attempt to pinpoint the factors which are most closely associated with the provision of craft breweries. Beginning at the national scale, the focus is narrowed down in scale, including regional, subregional, state and, finally, metropolitan levels. At the state and metropolitan levels of analysis, regression models are developed in an attempt to determine the factors that influence craft brewing development to the greatest degree. Additionally, marketing techniques are examined in an effort to better understand locational variations of how craft beers are being marketed. The results of the state-level analysis suggest the importance of a number of factors which influence the degree of craft brewing development. At the state level, the presence of highly educated residents, the extent of intrastate hierarchical diffusion of craft breweries to non-metropolitan areas, and the per capita state expenditures are among the variables related to the degree of craft brewing development. At the metropolitan scale, median household income, the extent of wage inequality, the provision of arts and culture, the presence of crime, the percentage of highly educated residents, the relative emphasis placed on education, cost of living, and general quality of life are the variables that exert the greatest amount of predictive power over the number of craft breweries per capita in a metropolitan area. At both state and metropolitan scales, the limited effect of raw population numbers in influencing the number of craft breweries is apparent. The results also indicate, however, that there are many other, immeasurable factors that influence the extent of craft brewing to a greater degree than any of the independent variables included in the model were able to capture.