Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Property Tax Appraisal For Green Buildings: Energy Star Certification In Texas, Kevin G. Hogan

Planning Dissertations - Archive

This study investigates whether tax appraised values of commercial office buildings in major Texas cities are influenced by ENERGY STAR (ES) rating. Per square foot (PSF) tax appraised value of property improvements and certification ratings are used to determine whether higher levels ES rating (a numerical grade from 75 to 100) increase tax appraised values in the five most populated Texas cities - Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio.Quantitative data on ES buildings in each selected city is obtained through the EPA and county tax assessor online resources. Data on 723 ES properties is collected and cleaned for …

What If Hewlett And Packard Had Started A Band Instead?... Denton Texas' Music Scene As Economic Cluster And Its Broader Implications For The City's Economy, Michael Seman

Planning Dissertations - Archive

A growing body of research examines the production processes, economic activity, and symbolic value of the arts in the urban economy. This research often broadly considers all arts disciplines together, masking structural and operational differences amongst them. Research detailing popular music and its relationship with the urban economy is minimal. Prior research tangentially acknowledges that local music scenes function as economic clusters, but little detailing of their dynamics as such exists. The bulk of attention is paid to how these clusters operate in the framework of the broader music industry and not how they develop or impact their surrounding urban …

Challenges Of Mixed-Use Developments : An Analysis Of Current Mixed-Use Developments In U.S.A., Gizachew Teferra Tesso

Planning Dissertations - Archive

There are numerous urban problems that could not be addressed in single use development. Mixed use development as a new theory claims to have the solutions to the urban issues associated with single use development. However, mixed used developments have been criticized for also failing to address their purported claims. This research focuses on analyzing and evaluating the tenets of mixed-use development to determine whether claims of accommodating mixed-income residents, increased density, improved racial diversity, provision of affordable housing, and improved employment trends are achieved. In doing so, 632 single use Block Groups and 84 mixed-use development Block Groups that …

Monetary Policy In The Organization Of Eastern Caribbean States: How Important Is The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank In Crafting Policy, Moses Pologne

Planning Dissertations - Archive

The research examines the effectiveness of monetary policy in improving standards of living at the local level in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States. The study postulates that monetary policy should not be viewed strictly as the responsibility of the national government, instead, under specific conditions it can be viewed as a local economic development strategy. A combination of interviews and econometric techniques are applied to determine whether monetary policy is as useful as other more widely discussed variables in urban planning and policy making. The findings support monetary policy as a local economic development strategy in situations where certain …

Sustainability In The Private And Public Sectors: A Comparison Of Motivators, Actions, Barriers And Reporting Of Results, Lisa London

Planning Dissertations - Archive

The concept of sustainability has developed over the past 40 years and continues to advance as organizations implement sustainable practices, quantify sustainability results, and communicate their accomplishments to key stakeholders. Despite these advances, sustainability remains an emerging field in need of clear definitions and goals; development of best practices; and effective tools for measuring, reporting, and benchmarking results. The literature suggests that the private sector is more advanced than the public sector in addressing these challenges. The purpose of this study was to discover if the public sector lags in pursuing sustainability, and if so, to identify some of the …

Variation In Commercial Property Tax Appraisal Accuracy In Texas, James Howard Johnson

Planning Dissertations - Archive

Article 8 of the Texas Constitution requires property taxation to be "equal and uniform," and state law requires nearly all real property to be assessed at 100% of market value. Despite these requirements, evidence exists that the appraisals of some high-value commercial properties, specifically downtown class A office buildings, vary widely from market value. According to the state Comptroller's Property Value Studies, residential property tends to be fully valued for tax purposes. An equity issue arises from the apparent undervaluation of high-value commercial properties, which typically are owned by wealthy individuals and institutional investors.While residential property tends to be homogeneous …

Impacts Of Transit Oriented Developments (Tod) And Mixed Use Centers (Muc) In Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex On Housing Values And Demographic Composition, Narasimha Pratap Mandapaka

Planning Dissertations - Archive

Suburban sprawl was attributed to be the cause of number of problems such as traffic congestion, depletion of natural resources, and decreasing air quality. Over the past two decades, policy makers and smart growth proponents encouraged Transit-Oriented Developments (TOD) and Mixed Use Centers (MUC) to increase transit ridership and development density; revitalize inner-city neighborhoods; improve environmental quality and livability; and to counteract suburban sprawl and real estate market forces in various communities in the U.S. Though many policy makers, urban planners, environmentalists see significant opportunities in sustainable development, there have been concerns related to affordability of housing combined with transportation, …

Housing, Capitalism And Underdevelopment In Sub-Saharan Africa: An Analysis Of Sierra Leone's Housing Market And Its Developmental Challenges, Steven Nabieu Rogers

Planning Dissertations - Archive

The issue of available and affordable housing in Sub-Saharan Africa poses an overwhelming problem, and yet receives weak policy responses. Since independence, housing policies have shifted from ambitious schemes of state intervention to increasing emphasis on the private market. This shift coincided with the global economic trend that advocated for escalating privatization. The 1993 World Bank's housing "Enablement" policy became the blueprint for planning in developing countries. Despite decades of policy shift, housing outcomes foreshadow derelict housing structures, poorly structured mortgages and increased unaffordability for the urban poor. Critics have highlighted that the approach is biased towards the market, exclusionary …

Identifying The Barriers To Collaboration Between Transportation Planning And Public Health Using The Network Model, Lou Kelley Brewer

Planning Dissertations - Archive

Transportation Planning and Public Health worked closely together a century ago but drifted apart over the decades. Today, both groups face enormous challenges. Transportation planning needs to replace aging infrastructures while preparing for population growth and the demands that come with it. Resources are already taxed and new ways of doing business are needed. Public Health successfully addressed communicable diseases during the last century only to be confronted with the high cost of treating chronic diseases including obesity in this century. Prevention in the form of increased physical activity as a key strategy led Public Health to the built environment …

Examining Income Polarization Indices In The Context Of `World City Thesis': An Analysis Of Large U.S. Metropolitan Areas, Chawana Mwangeka

Planning Dissertations - Archive

For more than three decades, the 'global city thesis' or the 'world city thesis' has attracted scholarly contributions from urban planners, geographers, sociologists and urban political economists interested in socioeconomic and spatial polarization in mega cities. Although with limited empirical evidence, these scholars in general are in agreement that globalization is an underlying factor of growing income inequalities and socio-spatial polarization found in these urban areas. On the other hand, the field of welfare economics has traditionally associated income inequalities with factors that have attracted an avalanche of literature since 1950s. In the face of growing income inequalities which some …

Mitigating Climate Change At The Municipal Scale: American Urban Planning At A Crossroads, Kent L. Hurst

Planning Dissertations - Archive

The failure of international negotiations toward a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol to limit global greenhouse gas emissions has highlighted not only the problematic associated with a global agreement on such a scientifically and politically complex issue, but also the importance of sub-national action in lieu of such an agreement. This is especially true in the United States where any national climate protection framework seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. In the absence of any such policy leadership from Washington, it is increasingly falling to states, regional organizations, and municipalities to craft emissions reduction strategies that will contribute meaningfully …

Law And Politics In Public-Private Partnerships: Transparency, Conflict Of Interest, And Renegotiation In Concession Arrangements, Samuel A. Roach

Planning Dissertations - Archive

Many states and local governments have begun to use the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) vehicle as a policy tool in the area of highway transportation infrastructure development. A particular type of PPP, sometimes referred to as a "concession," can involve a state or local government's grant of concession rights, which typically includes the right to collect toll revenues on a roadway, to a private entity in exchange for the private entity's development and management of the roadway. As highway concession practice in the U.S. is a recent phenomenon, policymakers and other interested observers can benefit from a greater understanding of these …

Shared Land Use Impacts Between Military Installations And Contiguous Communities (Post-Brac): Fact And Opinion Differences In Planning And Public Policy, Rumanda Kay Young

Planning Dissertations - Archive

How a policy or planning tool (e.g. BRAC) contributes to real and perceived conclusions from policy implementation is the main focus of this research. This research examines differences between real and perceived encroachment issues and concerns through study of military installations and their contiguous communities using post-BRAC opinion data compared to conclusions drawn from pre-BRAC and post-BRAC empirical data. A study of six (6) supporting research topics from current literature leads to a hypothesis that there are no differences between the same variables using empirical data (reality) and opinions (perception) with respect to variable descriptors of encroachment in the post-BRAC …

Planning For Growth In Cities And Metropolitan Regions: An Empirical Study Of Impact Fees And Choice, Chi-Hyoung Park

Planning Dissertations - Archive

This research examines what city factors relate to the likelihood of adopting impact fees by local governments within metropolitan regions using data from the U.S. Census Bureau. More and more cities are adopting different types of impact fees for financing public facilities and infrastructure to accommodate their cities' growth without full understanding of issues, public and private criticisms of impact fees, and the empirical information needed. This dissertation investigates a random sample of 278 cities out of 827 cities populations over 25,000 located within 97 MSAs to understand what variables within their settings relate to impact fee adoptions using five …

A Comparative Study Of Performance Measurement In Korean Local Governments Using Data Envelopment Analysis And Stochastic Frontier Analysis, Dong Jin Lim

Planning Dissertations - Archive

This study examines efficiency as a key component of performance, applies new performance measurement techniques to the measurement of local government performance, and verifies theoretical debates on economic, financial, political, and environmental factors related to performance in local government. Improving performance and promoting efficiencies in local government are important issues in both academic and practical public administration. Despite the remarkable development of performance measurement in local government since the 1990s, empirical evidence is still limited on the extent of the utility and practicability of performance measurement in local government.

Results of this research are developed from a study of Korean …

Growth/Decline Of Employment Subcenter In Polycentric Regions: The Case Of The Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area, Maher Sayel Al-Shammari

Planning Dissertations - Archive

This research is concerned with explaining the variation in growth rates among employment subcenters. The purpose of the study is to find answers to the question: What factors/variables contribute to the growth or decline of employment subcenters? More specifically, the study aims to 1) identify and describe employment subcenters in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, and 2) explain the variation in their growth rate over a specified period of time through testing a set of variables extracted from related literature. A multiple regression analysis technique is employed to complete the empirical analysis. The DFW metropolitan area was chosen as a …

Spatial Patterns And Determinants Of Industrial Regional Growth In Mexico, 1993-2003: Implications For Regional Planning And Public Policy, Jesus Antonio Trevino

Planning Dissertations - Archive

This research investigates industrial regional growth and its determinants in Mexico from 1993 to 2003. Strategies of local economic development, usually based on industrial promotion, require knowing main determinants of industrial regional growth. The case study shows that there is no variable with a systematically strong effect for all industries which policymakers and planners might directly control. This finding warns us about generic policy designs uncritically based on outcomes from other experiences. Although these results show a complex problem in terms of regional policy, some recommendations for industrial spatial distribution may, however, be derived from this study. For instance, during …