Retail geography is a field of study that is growing in significance and importance within the academic, business, economic, and governmental realms. This study's main focus is on the changing retail environment with regards to business location and function within a small Midwestern city. The research focuses on Port Huron, Michigan because of the growth and shift of the retail community within the city over the past twenty years. The study specifically examines the changing influence and roles of Port Huron's central business district and of Birchwood Mall a retail development opened on the urban area's north end in 1990. The study uses the chi-squared, ANOVA, and cross tabulation statistical tests to analyze the changing geography of retail functions in the city. These statistics are used along with relative entropy equations to distinguish areas of high diversification, changing area functions, and common locations for multiple retail types.

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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / James E. Sherow / This project examines ecological change in Lake Huron during the nineteenth and twentieth century and investigates the causative role of the commercial fisheries in that change. The repeated failures of various regional and international efforts designed to improve management of the lake’s fisheries are also examined. The fundamental argument is that economic considerations were the primary motivations for policy development related to the Great Lakes fisheries. Historically management programs and legislation were shaped by local and regional economic interests. The central focus of this project is Lake Huron. Anthropogenic changes in that lake’s environment dramatically affected the lives and relationships of its non-human inhabitants. The same changes also transformed relationships among human beings who relied on the lake’s resources. Commercial fishermen who operated in the waters of both the United States and Canada relied on the lake for their livelihood, but as the twentieth century commenced the supply of marketable fishes decreased. Competition accelerated and fishermen introduced new technologies and increased their quantity of fishing gear in an effort to maximize their catches in response to fluctuating returns. Economic considerations were of primary concern to both fishermen and government bureaucrats. Lake Huron’s status as an international borderland further complicated the situation. Analysts in both the United States and Canada recognized the dramatically changing conditions of the lakes as reflected through the woes of the commercial fishery. Nonetheless, the germane state, provincial and national governments repeatedly failed in their attempts to develop a cooperative management plan. By the second half of the twentieth century Lake Huron’s embattled biome stood in stark contrast to the once seemingly endless numbers of fishes and flora that sustained the lake’s web of life for hundreds of years.

Recreational boating in the Great Lakes is suggested to fuel tourism and the Ontario economy. Like many other tourism sectors, boating-tourism is a highly climate-sensitive economic sector which significantly relies upon compromising climatic conditions. Climate change in the 21st century is projected to alter climatic parameters in the Great Lakes region, thereby generating low lake water conditions and inadequate water levels within some marina facilities that cater to recreational boats. This study examines the multiple implications lakeside marina facilities have previously endured during low water conditions and the possible implications they may experience during three scenarios of water level reductions as a result of climate change. Among the five Great Lakes, Lake Huron has become one of the most prominent lakes for understanding the relationship between climate variability and water-level fluctuations. A questionnaire was administered to 58 marina operators on the Canadian Lake Huron coastline. The questionnaire results were analysed, indicating implications Lake Huron marina operators experienced at their facilities during low water conditions and methods of adaptation that they used to overcome these conditions. The results also projected future implications that may result from climate change and reduced water levels. The most imminent impacts Canadian marina facilities on the Lake Huron coastline would endure as a result of climate change and low water conditions would be the loss of docking slips and potential marina closures. Without adaptation of marina infrastructure, future implications on some Lake Huron Canadian marina facilities may cause substantial economic loss for nearby communities and businesses. Economic losses resulting from lake level water reductions and reduced boat-based expenditures for two regions located on Lake Huron's Georgian Bay shoreline are derived in the study. It is anticipated that the results of this study will provide significant groundwork for systematic and regional evaluations on the impacts in which climate change has upon Great Lake marinas and boat-based tourism.

Recreational boating in the Great Lakes is suggested to fuel tourism and the Ontario economy. Like many other tourism sectors, boating-tourism is a highly climate-sensitive economic sector which significantly relies upon compromising climatic conditions. Climate change in the 21st century is projected to alter climatic parameters in the Great Lakes region, thereby generating low lake water conditions and inadequate water levels within some marina facilities that cater to recreational boats. This study examines the multiple implications lakeside marina facilities have previously endured during low water conditions and the possible implications they may experience during three scenarios of water level reductions as a result of climate change. Among the five Great Lakes, Lake Huron has become one of the most prominent lakes for understanding the relationship between climate variability and water-level fluctuations. A questionnaire was administered to 58 marina operators on the Canadian Lake Huron coastline. The questionnaire results were analysed, indicating implications Lake Huron marina operators experienced at their facilities during low water conditions and methods of adaptation that they used to overcome these conditions. The results also projected future implications that may result from climate change and reduced water levels. The most imminent impacts Canadian marina facilities on the Lake Huron coastline would endure as a result of climate change and low water conditions would be the loss of docking slips and potential marina closures. Without adaptation of marina infrastructure, future implications on some Lake Huron Canadian marina facilities may cause substantial economic loss for nearby communities and businesses. Economic losses resulting from lake level water reductions and reduced boat-based expenditures for two regions located on Lake Huron's Georgian Bay shoreline are derived in the study. It is anticipated that the results of this study will provide significant groundwork for systematic and regional evaluations on the impacts in which climate change has upon Great Lake marinas and boat-based tourism.

No description available.

An analysis of the discourse in the Jesuit Relations indicates that the Jesuits' representation of Huron and Montagnais Indians is informed by a colonial ideology. The Jesuits' attempt to identify Indians according to permanent customs and manners is compared to conventional ethnographic description and is shown to result in a reductive, essentializing discourse. In their elaboration of the category of 'savagery' Jesuits metaphorically equated Indians with wild animals. They then stressed the need for reclaiming the Indians' humanity through conversion to Christianity. The Jesuits' figuration of the spiritual realm as a territory to be subdued and conquered is discussed, and the language of conversion is revealed as a language of control and conquest. It is finally argued that Jesuit representations of Indians functioned as an instrument of colonial domination. The analysis points to the need for decolonization of textual and historical spaces dominated by Eurocolonial discourses.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Fisheries and Wildlife, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Sept. 11, 2009). Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in print.

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No description available.