The Development of Regional Impact (DRI) concept was codified in Florida in the Seventies, as a measure aimed at planning for the tremendous growth and development that the State had ben experiencing. The DRI statutes that were enacted stated that any development of a magnitude in excess of certain size thresholds had to go through the DRI process to be approved.The process involves extensive studies of what the DRI's impacts will be upon the both the natural and man-made environments. Many public agencies are involved in reviewing the developer's assessments of his impacts. When these analyses are completed to the agencies' satisfaction, a Development Order is drafted. It details both the magnitude of development that will be allowed within the DRI, and the mitigation that developer will have to perform to allay his impacts upon the environments.This report examines the DRI process through the analysis of a case study. The DRI chosen for the case study was the Tampa Triangle DRI, a large tract of land located in Hillsborough County near Tampa, Florida. / Department of Urban Planning

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Awakening Days at Dead River traces the history of a remote public park in north Hillsborough County that was once a privately-owned riverside enclave with modest cabins, and home to a popular fish camp on the Hillsborough River. The timeframe focuses on the mid-twentieth century to present, with a contextual background of earlier history in the immediate area. The story recounts the adventures and challenges of a select group of homeowners and visitors who experienced life on the Hillsborough and Dead Rivers during that timeframe. It also shows how the area evolved into a public property when regional flood control trumped private landownership, in some cases through eminent domain. Finally, the story shows how this event altered Dead River's course from Florida developed, to Florida reclaimed, the clues of the former often hidden by the growth of the woods. Research entails: interviews with former Dead River homeowners and their families (some shared photographs), and people who frequented the fish camp; a journal with text and photographs by Dead River homeowner Arthur Yates; interviews with two year-round live-in rangers who have overseen Dead River since it became a park; studying records of the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD or Swiftmud), the state-run agency that acquired the property to manage regional flooding , including detailed appraisals, maps and correspondence; interviews with Swiftmud officials associated with Dead River; and keeping a first-hand journal of observances walking the woods at Dead River and paddling its waters. As offered above, Dead River Park has many intriguing themes worth studying. That several of its former residents and weekenders are still living, are still Floridians, and have distinct memories of their "Old Florida" fun, makes it a timely study, as well. Finally, since Dead River Park is a public entity, it is worth knowing its history; park-goers might embrace its legacy as theirs.

This study investigates the development of Plant City, Florida as a railroad town developing on the Southwest Florida frontier from 1885-1940. The study chronicles the town's origins and economic, political, and social development in relationship to the broader historical theories of southern urban development, specifically those put forward in David Goldfield's pioneering work, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region 1607-1980. Goldfield contended that southern cities developed differently than their northern counterparts because they were not economically, politically, philosophically and culturally separated from their rural surroundings. Instead, they displayed and retained the positive and negative attributes of southern society and culture, including a commitment to maintaining a biracial society until the 1960s, an affinity for rural lifestyles and values among urban residents, and an economic dependence on outside markets and capital. Since Goldfield derived his findings from research that centered on the cotton producing regions of the Old South, this study sought to determine whether the tenets of his thesis applied to the urbanization process in the frontier areas of Florida, a region often considered an anomaly to the greater South. In the end analysis it was determined that Goldfield's theory generally fits Plant City with some exceptions derived from regional differences found in Florida.

“Safety is an opportunity for people to open their minds” -Jin Baek, 2008 For my thesis I will design an education facility. That education facility will strive to meet with today's security needs and will provide a safe-feeling place for growth. In identifying the problem, I found two main causes for the described conditions in today's schools. They are improper adaptation and uniform building type. Improper adaptation has to do with surface applications, rather than integrating with the social fabric of the school's communal requirements. Unfortunate incidents have caused the solutions to heightened security around schools to be fortressing and disrupting to the human activities. Metal detectors, restricted areas and alarmed doors are some of the possibly necessary but often overlooked attributes of the school design, which in concentration create a trapping, prison-like feeling where they should suggest a place of voluntary education and inspiration for the future. I will utilize CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) strategies, research codes, new building technologies, materials, systems, arrangements, precedent studies, and testing through simulation or experiment, in a form of installation. I can determine possible solutions and interventions using these resources. Uniform building type sets a counterproductive precedent. Today we must look at places were young people want to be, and splice the desired attributes of those places in to modern schools. In fact, uniform building type is one of the reasons for improper adaptation. Through interviewing school administrators, building officials, students, faculty, psychologists, builders and other construction professionals, I can identify the mandatory requirements. Implementing security and safety attributes as part of the concept, and knowing trends in technology can help secure educational facilities while still maintaining the qualities that are conducive to a learning environment. As stated by Holly Richmond in Contract magazine, February 2006 edition, "Students are the most crucial design element in today's schools," says Kerry Leonard, principal and senior planner at O'Donnell, Wicklund, Pigozzi and Peterson Architects in Chicago and chair of the advisory group for the AIA Committee on Architecture for Education. "Understanding how people learn and creating environments that respond to this knowledge is the best building block to start from."

Downtown Tampa, a struggling city core, will continue to struggle as it holds no true identity to its relationship with important surrounding context, as well as within itself. Evidence in the lack of inhabitable, urban spaces with the scale and comfort to support integral human activity on a day-to-day basis has resulted in the absence of a city center within downtown. One lost opportunity for downtown is its disconnection with the University of Tampa, one that could result in an activated edge condition. As UT appears vertically congruous with downtown, it has no relationship as it is separated from it by the river. The key to blurring the edge at this instance could be aided through an inhabitable, urban space activated by the neighboring student population, as well as individuals working within downtown. The site I have chosen is the existing Curtis Hixon Park and Kiley Gardens, directly across from the University, providing a wonderful opportunity to blur the disconnect. It is also situated amidst forces from all directions, including the central business district and residential areas within downtown's nucleus, thus creating an inter[positioned] quality within the site. One issue to deal with on the site is determining the manner in which the project meets the two main edges, downtown and the Hillsborough River. One source that will become a major infl uence on the concept will be that of Peter Eisenman's text "Blurred Zones: Investigations of the Interstitial." This text will allow me to understand another contemporary architect's ideas of that of the in-between. Thus, site conditions and modern culture will intertwine in the creation of an urban landscape situated within a struggling context to serve the public as a destination within downtown Tampa.

Improving traffic safety for pedestrians is an urgent task for the Hillsborough County. The objective of this research is to understand the contributing factors that cause pedestrian accidents in Hillsborough County in the State of Florida. Specifically, this research attempts to determine the effects of demographic, land use, roadway and traffic volume factors on the number of pedestrian accidents. Five hypotheses were proposed to examine these factors. GIS was used to perform spatial analysis. Based on pedestrian accident records from 1999 to 2001, accident density map was created using Kernel density method. The value of the accident density was assigned to each census block group, and this value formed a dependent variable of the model. Accident models were developed using negative binomial regression to model the relationship between contributing factors and pedestrian accidents.

New Hampshire has become a competitive swing state in presidential elections over the past two decades. Though New Hampshire was once a reliable red state and the home for many “Yankee Republicans,” the state has experienced a shift toward the Democratic Party beginning in the early 1990s. Scholars often attribute this shift to the “migration theory,” arguing that the influx of Massachusetts liberals who migrated to New Hampshire in the latter half of the twentieth century has created a larger Democratic voting bloc in the state. However, a county-level analysis of New Hampshire provides a different story. Southern urban counties with the highest migration rates, such as Hillsborough and Rockingham, had relatively small gains of Democratic voters and remain competitive swing counties. Northern rural counties with much lower migration rates, such as Coos and Grafton, have experienced a far greater political shift to the left. By using both of these case studies, this report casts doubt on the “migration theory” by showing that numerical migration rates do not fully account for New Hampshire’s shift. Instead, this report finds that the different types of economies in the southern and northern parts of New Hampshire significantly influence the political effects of migration in the state, offering a more nuanced theory based on county-level data than the one currently provided for the state as a whole.

Multiple linear regression models were developed to calculate lake fluctuation that occurs between 10 percent, 50 percent, and 90 percent of the time lake surface elevation is exceeded. A total of 48 lakes were selected from Hillsborough, Pasco, Highlands and Polk counties, which were identified as natural lakes through the study the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) conducted in 1999 and 2002 to develop the models. "Natural lake" refers to lakes that were not impacted by ground water pumping. Among these 48 lakes, 22 lakes from Hillsborough and Pasco counties sit in the coastal lowlands area. 26 lakes from Highlands and Polk counties are located in the Upland and Highlands Ridge area. In developing multiple regression models, the 48 lakes were divided into two groups, the same group of lakes that SWFWMD used to develop the Reference Lake Water Regime, the method that is used to set the minimum lake levels in the region. Further, these two groups of data were subdivided into four categories based on their physical characteristics. 22 lakes were divided into surface water flow through lakes (SWF) and surface water drainage lakes (SWD). 26 lakes used their county line as the divider to separate them into Highlands County lakes and Polk County lakes. A total of six sets of multiple regression models were developed to predict the lake stage fluctuation for lakes that have no or limited lake stage data. The Polk County date set provides the best model with R2 at 0.9. However, due to the lack of available information on lake basin characteristics, the models that were developed for Hillsborough and Pasco counties do not provide a good prediction.

Nutrient pollution has been identified as a significant threat to U.S. coastal and estuarine water quality. Though coastal and estuarine waters need nutrients to maintain a healthy, productive ecosystem, excess nutrients can lead to eutrophication. There are significant potential negative consequences associated with eutrophication, including loss of habitat, loss of economic activity, and direct threats to human health. Hillsborough Bay experienced eutrophication in the 1960s and 1970s due to a rapidly growing population and associated increases in nutrient pollution. These eutrophic conditions led to more frequent phytoplankton and macroalgae blooms and declines in seagrasses. To address these problems, a series of actions were taken including legislation limiting nutrient concentrations from domestic wastewater treatment plants, development of water quality and nutrient loading targets, and establishment of seagrass restoration and protection goals. Since the 1970s, water quality improvements and increasing seagrass acreages have been documented throughout Tampa Bay. In the current study, a series of analyses and tools are developed to obtain a more in depth understanding of water quality in Hillsborough Bay. The first tool is a linked hydrodynamic and water quality model (Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code) of Hillsborough Bay which can be employed to predict water quality responses to proposed management actions. In the second part of the study, a series of water quality indices were evaluated. The most appropriate index for determining overall water quality in Hillsborough Bay was identified. Chlorophyll a is one of the constituents in the water quality index and is currently used to evaluate annual water quality conditions in Hillsborough Bay. Therefore, the statistical distribution that describes chlorophyll a concentrations in Hillsborough Bay was identified and robust confidence intervals were developed to better understand the uncertainty associated with chlorophyll a measurements. Previous work linked chlorophyll a concentrations in Hillsborough Bay to explanatory variables based on monthly estimates. These relationships were used to develop water quality targets for the system. In this study, the previously developed relationship was revisited, resulting in an improved statistical model that is more robust. This improved model can also be used to evaluate the previously proposed targets and to better predict future changes due to climate change, sea level rise, and management actions. Lastly, a new method was developed to estimate atmospheric temperature in the contiguous United States.