There are some issues that have to be addressed for further understanding and improving scenic beauty management. First, the conventional model, preference rating based on fixed scene and direction, may not sufficiently reflect the reality of visual experience. Rather, visual and scenic preference is construed of a spatial experience. Second, the predictors are chosen based on measuring the composition of landscape features shown in the image. The measurement may not necessarily represent the contents of the physical environment. Third, judgements of scenic preference are complicated tasks. Simple linear regression analysis, with limited degree of freedom and some statistical constraints, may not represent the complexity of human judgments. An integrated model was developed by integrating the Scenic Beauty Estimation (SBE) model (Terry, 1976), the geographic information system (GIS) and, the artificial neural network (ANN). The results suggested the integrated model might be utilized as an automatic scenic preference mechanism for policy making. Implications for future research are also suggested.

This study examines landscape regulations and their potential to improve the urban environments of developing countries. The literature on environmental problems of developing countries suggests that landscape solutions must be both economic and environmentally sound. Religion and cultural ethics are the basis for landscape values in the Muslim society. Religion governs Muslims. The religious landscape values would be readily acceptable by Islamic society when used as an implementation strategy. Model landscape guidelines are presented for Karachi, Pakistan which should be helpful in preparing actual landscape regulations. Karachi's economic constraints pose unavoidable restrictions. Setting up design standards requires a careful and realistic approach. Suggestions are made to build up a conceptual policy umbrella at the national, and provincial level, providing a basis for developing landscape regulations by local governments.

This study, first, looks at the underlying causes of the housing problem in Iran, and second, examines the relationships of the number of housing co-ops in a region with the level of economic development and the need for decent and affordable housing in that region. / The census data on all 24 ostans (provinces) and 496 cities in Iran are used in this study. The results indicate that in more developed ostans, greater number of housing co-ops can be expected. However, other indicators such as the ostans' housing costs and the populations' incomes are also influential factors in explaining the variations in the number of housing co-ops. The less aggregate, city-level data also show that the presence of higher education institution in cities affects the mean number of housing co-ops in the city. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-12, Section: A, page: 4607. / Major Professor: Charles E. Connerly. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

From its inception in 1967, the Kenyan national family planning program has suffered from a lack of popular support and confidence within the general population, absence of active local participation at all levels and, above all, the absence of male participation or neglect of men in the provision of family planning services in a country whose societies are predominantly patriarchal. / The present study uses a conceptual and theoretical framework based on data from the 1989 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey and measures the effects of the male role in family planning activities in Kenya. The study also provides analyses that can be used to identify the conditions under which opportunities for men to participate in family planning programs can be expanded. / The findings indicate that lack of communication between husbands and wives may be a greater obstacle to family planning than male opposition. Couples who discuss the subject of family planning are not only more likely to use contraception, but are also more likely to want to space, postpone or cease childbearing altogether and to use contraception to achieve these fertility goals. Hence, the largest gain in contraceptive use can occur if married couples openly, freely and regularly discuss the subject of family planning. Contraceptive use in Kenya is also a function of (1) residence in regions whose constituent communities adhere less to traditional patterns of reproductive behavior (Nairobi and the Central and Eastern regions), (2) higher levels of education for the husbands, (3) employment in higher status occupations, (4) higher levels of education for the wives, (5) women being in the middle of their reproductive ages, and (6) rural residence. Other factors seem to have little or no significant effect on contraception. / The study concludes that inclusion of male factors in the family planning program is not only crucial for more effective program performance, but is also an area of policy that should be among those consciously considered in the deliberative process of lowering fertility and reducing population growth. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2572. / Major Professor: Bruce Stiftel. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

Research indicates that mistakes in site selection in public and private facilities result in less than maximum potential effectiveness. For the public library, suboptimal location can mean reduced access and reduced user patronage. This study demonstrates a methodology for construction of location modelling for public library facilities in diverse urban environments. Six metropolitan library markets are included in the study. / The location models in this study are site-specific, practical, inexpensive, and useful planning tools for library managers facing a plethora of location-related problems that require analysis. / The study utilizes population, spatial, library use and library "attractiveness" variables to: (1) estimate the dispersion of the population and size of market areas; (2) to quantify use levels at an existing facility location based on the estimated market area; (3) to forecast use levels of other locations, i.e., for purposes of siting a new facility, or for closure or re-siting; and (4) to descriptively estimate potential use levels of targeted markets of sub-groups within the population in order to develop new services or to ascertain service levels at any given or new location. / Standard marketing planning and research methods are employed. A computerized geographic information system comprised of U.S. census data facilitated the analysis. / The research conducted and reported and reviewed in this study is meant to set a precedent regarding location analysis for public library facilities. The precedent is simply stated. Location of library facilities effects use and cannot be treated in a cursory or descriptive manner. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: A, page: 3939. / Major Professor: Mary Alice Hunt. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

The development of computer-based modeling systems has allowed the operationalization of cognitive science issues. Artificial intelligence, the emulation of high-level human capability on the computer, has led to incorporation of systems that model human behavior. Human cognition has become one of the most interested research areas. An approach to handle human cognition by means of personal construct systems is presented in this dissertation. / The dissertation describes a methodology well-suited for designing of a non-traditional knowledge-based system to evaluate personal cognition derived in urban planning as an application field. The research investigates how to elicit and represent cognitive knowledges obtained from individual urbanites through the application of fuzzy relational theory to personal construct theory and repertory grid techniques. / Crucial to this research is to formalize and process the psychological cognition of the urbanites who interact with an urban environment in order to offer useful advice on urban problem. What is needed is a technique to analyze cognitive structures called Hasse diagrams which are instantiations of these perceptive knowledges of human being. This requires a theory of similarity to deal with underlying problems; identification of individual cognitive structures, comparison of structures and investigation of a group of structures. Unlike standard approaches to similarity based on the statistical techniques, the method presented employs a fuzzy relational approach which centers on the fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic, to cover issues of similarity and dissimilarity. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-08, Section: B, page: 4427. / Major Professor: Wyllis Bandler. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This thesis work addresses two research questions regarding sustainability that may be of interest to the planning profession, namely, is it useful and meaningful to measure the sustainability of residential neighborhoods in terms of their long-term viability? And if it is, is it then feasible to design an instrument for measuring neighborhood sustainability that can be used to inform neighborhood-scale planning and decision making? Interpreting from a review of planning literature regarding sustainability at the neighborhood scale that efforts to measure neighborhood sustainability provide insight and knowledge to planners about neighborhood conditions, I followed a step wise process to construct an instrument. This process involved defining sustainability as is relevant at neighborhood scale, identifying forces that influence it, defining the unit of analysis for the measurement instrument, and operationalizing the instrument. It is my conclusion that while it is feasible to construct an instrument for measuring sustainability, it is through additional research work outside of the graduate thesis that such an instrument can successfully be constructed. Due to time and resource constraints, I have only been able to develop an instrument of measurement that may be useful to planners chiefly as a heuristic tool rather than a policy making analytic tool. / Thesis / Master

This dissertation comprises two essays in the field of public finance and urban development. The first essay, 'Interdependence among Municipality, Firms and Households', tackles a contentious issue in local taxation and urban development--whether business development increases the residential tax burden. The second essay, 'Does Tax Competition Exist at the Municipality Level?', examines existence of tax competition at the municipality level Community planners and development officials tend to believe that business development would lower residential property tax burdens by drawing taxes from nonresident business owners. However, these beliefs have recently been challenged by some urban planners and other analysts of the suburban growth process. The first essay provides the first effort to assess relations between residential property tax rate and urban development in a simultaneous framework. It examines not only the impact of business and residential development on the residential tax burden, but also the effect of local fiscal decisions on the intra-metropolitan location of firms and households. Using the data collected from suburb Chicago, business development, especially manufacturing projects, is found decreasing the residential property tax burden while taxes are found detrimental to business development. The diagnostic testing results confirm that taxes, firm and household location decisions are simultaneously determined. That is, empirical studies without modeling them simultaneously would generate biased results It has long been recognized that local governments engage in fiscal competition either for resource or for political support. However, while we observe many cases of fiscal competition, we also notice that some seemingly highly-profit development projects are rejected by locals due to environment concerns. So far, few empirical efforts have been made to address the issue of fiscal competition and none of these studies used the data collected at the municipality level. Using the significance of Moran's I spatial autocorrelation coefficient as an indication of tax competition, the second essay examines property tax rate increases over last 10 years in 109 Chicago suburban municipalities. We find that, although tax rate movements among neighboring communities do cluster, the sources of the observed clustering are not physical proximity. That is, tax competition does not exist / acase@tulane.edu

The Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), the core of the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), saw building socialism as its fundamental task. This dissertation elucidates the means by which the regime constructed 'socialism' and evaluates both the effects and the effectiveness of the procedure, using the city of Eisenhuttenstadt as a prism The city was founded in 1950. It provided a tabula rasa, upon which the policies and practices of the SED and the GDR could be engraved and exhibited. It was not 'average,' but representative. Stalinstadt, as the city was known from 1953 to 1961, is instructive as a model for what socialist life actually was in the German Democratic Republic. What happened in Eisenhuttenstadt happened in other cities across the GDR; policies affecting the lives of Stalinstadt's citizens likewise affected East Germans everywhere The official historiography suggests that a new and better type of community was created in Stalinstadt. The collective memory and pride of the residents and builders of the city in their community reinforces the image. Recent studies of the city in all fields, however, have uncovered discordant notes and revealed many of the claims regarding the city as partial truths at best. Why and to what extent Stalinstadt failed to meet the expectations of its founders is one of the central questions of this dissertation By using the extensive records of the SED and the city administration, it evaluates success against the standards they set for themselves. Because the city was a social experiment in which external, historical factors were minimized, the effects of government policy are more clearly distinguishable in Stalinstadt. It may be true that Stalinstadt eventually came to resemble most other cities in East Germany, but it can also be said that most other cities in the GDR came in many ways to resemble Stalinstadt. By examining the city and asking big questions of a small place, this history will contribute to a clearer understanding of life in East Germany / acase@tulane.edu

In the late 1950s and 1960s, Buenos Aires was the site of social conflict in both material and symbolic terms. After Peron's ouster, different groups carried out their struggle for power by reorganizing the material city, by altering urban practices, and by representing Buenos Aires in particular ways in literature and film. There were new types of buildings and new trends in urban development. Lifestyles were more quickly paced. Writers focused on alienated middle-class protagonists wandering the city streets as did a new generation of filmmakers called the Nueva Ola. In this shifting urban landscape, residual and emergent discourses represented the city in distinct ways Certain sectors tried to reassert classic liberal ideology. In texts about Buenos Aires, authors and filmmakers criticized the alienating nature of contemporary urban life while expressing nostalgia for lost humanist principles. Blaming the supposed deterioration of Buenos Aires on the Peronist administration, oligarchic and middleclass sectors attempted to bolster certain spatial configurations that protected them from the working-classes. A concern for maintaining the public/private divide could be seen in both literature and film as well as the practices of the middle classes, particularly in the construction of high-rise apartment buildings and the increased use of automobiles over public transportation At the same time, new types of magazines and new publishing houses were reworking the patterns of cultural production and consumption and circulating their goods to ever wider sectors of the urban population. Incorporating trends in the business world, the new cultural institutions advocated timely consumerism and equated democracy with consumption. The increasingly prevalent and explicit treatment of sex and sexuality in literature, films, and magazines was the ultimate sign of the breakdown of the traditional notions of the private. While experiencing a backlash in the form of government censorship, the new articulations of the social meaning of the city and urban life were the basis of a new hegemonic formation / acase@tulane.edu