Regional planning

Addressing the current homeland security challenges requires scholars,
practitioners, elected officials, and community partners working in unison to mitigate the
hazards confronting first responders. Built on public choice theory, this research
addressed a specific component of the emergency preparedness matrix: the most
preferred fire service organizational design. The fire department organizational designs in
this study included a Florida county, city, and independent special control fire district
(ISFCD) that serve residents on a full-time platform. The concurrent embedded
methodology used attempted to unearth which organizational design achieves economies
of scale based on quarterly emergency service calls: the centralized county model or the
decentralized city/ISFCD models. This study was an inquiry into the centralization versus
decentralization argument, with emphases on fire service scale economies and inter-local
service agreements Using multiple linear regression modeling accompanied by face-to-face
interviews with the respective fire chiefs, this research showed that the county and
ISFCD achieve scale economies over 44 quarters, fiscal years 2004-2014. Moreover, the
interviews uncovered that response times were the driving factor behind instituting
voluntary inter-local service agreements between the three fire departments. Other
positive benefits from the service agreements include an increase in personnel and scene
safety, dispatch center protocol enhancements, multi-company/jurisdictional training,
overtime savings on large-scale disaster incidents, and trust building.
The implications of this research for the scholarly and practitioner community
include a better understanding of the technical and allocative efficiencies within the fire
service arena. Melding public choice theory with strands of inter-local service agreement
literature provides policymakers and scholars with a template for uncovering the fire
service production/provision narrative. Though the centralization-decentralization
argument is not solved within the research scope presented, the future narrative as
uncovered in the research requires a citizenry inclusion. The future public choice
prescriptions regarding fire service consolidation requires not only statistical modeling,
but a normative democratic ethos tone incorporating multiple stakeholders with the
citizens’ concerns at the forefront.

Northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States are understudied from the perspective of hurricane vulnerability. In an attempt to fill this gap in research, this dissertation attempted to assess the hurricane vulnerability of the northeastern and mid- Atlantic United States through the construction of a Composite Hurricane Vulnerability Index (CHVI) for 184 counties extending from Maine to Virginia. The CHVI was computed by incorporating indicators of human vulnerability and physical exposure. Human vulnerability was derived from demographic, social and economic characteristics whereas physical exposure was based on attributes of the natural and built up environments. The spatial distribution of the CHVI and its component indices were examined and analyzed to meet the research goals, which were a) to develop indices of human vulnerability, physical exposure and composite hurricane vulnerability for all counties; b) to assess vulnerability distribution in terms of population size, metropolitan status (metropolitan versus non metropolitan counties) and location (coastal versus inland counties); c) to identify the specific underlying causes of vulnerability; d) to identify the significant clusters and outliers of high vulnerability; and e) to examine overlaps between high human vulnerability and high physical exposure in the region. Results indicated high overall vulnerability for counties that were metropolitan and / or coastal. Vulnerability clusters and intersections pointed towards high vulnerability in the major cities along the northeastern megalopolis, in the Hampton Roads section of Virginia and in parts of Delmarva Peninsula. Evidence of relationship of population size, metropolitan status and location with vulnerability levels provides a new perspective to vulnerability assessment.

The rapid increase of urban growth is a major issue for many regions around the world, which result in astounding loss in farmlands and increase in population densities. It important that urban growth be monitored as it will aid the local government in implementing the appropriate measures for a growing population. The city of Boca Raton, Florida, is the case study for this research. A multi-temporal analysis is done of five Landsat satellite images over a thirty year time period, 1973-2002. Textural analysis was performed on each of the images, to delineate the urban areas. Three by-products resulted from the textural analysis: time series tinted overlays, dasymetric mapping and a series of animated maps, showing the movement of growth across the landscape through time. All the resulting products of the time series analysis were used to show the magnitude and direction of growth over time.

The history of public space in America is consistent with a pattern of privatization, rationalization, and individual escapism. From the frontier to the regulatory bureaucracy and into suburbanization and New Urbanism, we have and are witnessing the steady decline of vibrant, critical, and democratic public spheres and their replacement with a corporate and media controlled space that reflects the commodification and militarization of American culture at the hands of these corporate elites. After tracing a genealogy of the public and public space, this thesis will focus on two examples of New Urbanist design that illustrate the corporate nature of community politics: the Disney Corporation's Celebration, Florida and DreamWorks' Playa Vista, California. Discussing the ideological basis for both communities, this thesis will suggest possible lessons to be learned for the creation of a public based on an ethic of common ground made possible by organized resistance to corporate manipulation of place.