This project was designed to aid community design professionals, specifically those professionals associated with "towns and cities that border public lands" (Howe, McMahon, Propst 1997), also known as gateway communities. Many of these towns have already begun a process of planning for future development, realizing the importance of conservation and preservation of their natural resources. By further expanding the goals and scope of town planning, this creative project intends to serve as a promotional resource and model of sustainable community design. More specifically, this creative project intends to provide Gatlinburg city officials with a conceptual master plan for the city's downtown corridor, instituting a combination of SmartCode and Smart Growth strategies with several other innovative strategies in an attempt to produce a sustainable design solution.If used as a guide for new planning and construction, this document should aid inmaintaining a lasting partnership between Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and preserve the Park as a viable natural resource. The solutions produced in this creative project aim to uphold a balance between human settlement and nature and which are environmentally responsible, socially just, and economically viable.Due to the magnitude of change required for many of the proposed development strategies, and to promote consideration for the equity of future generations, the conceptual master planning will be envisioned as a long-range build-out with suggested phasing. Working towards a sustainable goal far into the future will enable local gateway planning and design to become less reactive and promote a vision which the entire community can own. / Department of Landscape Architecture

This research set out to explore how individuals used Twitter during the Gatlinburg, Tennessee wildfire event of November 2016. More specifically, how and what did people from different geolocations share via Twitter during the crisis event and what gratifications were sought by their use of Twitter. A content analysis was completed on a stratified sample of tweets separated by geographic location. Based on prior uses and gratifications research, tweet and retweet content was coded as informational, social, and/or distractive. Findings from this research showed that individuals tweeted and retweeted at a fairly even rate despite their geographical location and that while information seeking and sharing was an important factor for users, social connectivity was the most important gratification to users during this crisis. / Master of Arts / This paper explored how and why individuals used Twitter during the Gatlinburg, Tennessee wildfire event in November 2016. Tweets from individuals who were in local, regional, and non-local areas were analyzed and coded based on the content of their tweet or retweet. Results from this research showed that the social connection an individual receives from using Twitter was the most important factor for using the service during a crisis situation.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2009. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Mar. 10, 2010). Thesis advisor: Daniel Feller. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.