Research & WRiting Samples
2007: Examining the "Urban" New Urbanism for Compatibility with the Evolving Patterns of the Traditional City (Graduate Thesis)
Examining the "Urban" New Urbanism for Compatibility with the Evolving Patterns of the Traditional City: A Case Study of the Parramore Heritage District in Orlando, Florida. This thesis was presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Urban and Regional Planning in 2007.
The research uses a GIS methodology adopted from Emily Talen to measure urban characteristics of the Parramore neighborhood, an historic downtown neighborhood that has been negatively impacted by segregation, highway building, public housing projects, industrial uses, a concentration of low income, minority residents, and general decline for many years.
The research uses a GIS methodology adopted from Emily Talen to measure urban characteristics of the Parramore neighborhood, an historic downtown neighborhood that has been negatively impacted by segregation, highway building, public housing projects, industrial uses, a concentration of low income, minority residents, and general decline for many years.
2008: Understanding and Mapping Institutional Impediments to Walking and Bicycling to School: A Case Study of Hillsborough County, Florida
Abstract: The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) legislation calls for the establishment of a Safe Routes to School program in each state that is funded for the five fiscal years from 2005 through 2009. States are required to spend between 70% and 90% for infrastructure and between 10% and 30% on non-infrastructure programs. For each of these components of the program to be successful, the built environment of the community surrounding the school needs to support all modes of travel. Much of the emphasis in Safe Routes to School programs has focused on increasing walking in neighborhoods with the characteristics that support walking, such as high-density residential areas close to schools and connected grid and pedestrian amenities. Using Hillsborough County, Florida, as a case study, this paper focuses on barriers to walking and bicycling to school by examining how decisions about school siting, school attendance boundaries, street network characteristics, and other factors controlled by local governments and school boards affect the potential for children to walk to school.
2007: Does Transportation Concurrency Address the Needs of Already Urbanized Areas?
Abstract: Transportation concurrency is a fairly simple concept; local governments are required to provide transportation infrastructure concurrent with the impact of development. In Florida, the implementation transportation concurrency has remained controversial since the requirement was first passed in 1986; the legislation has been amended four times to address concerns that have been raised in its implementation. This paper explores the implementation of concurrency in Florida through an evaluation of the use of Transportation Concurrency Exception Areas (TCEAs) throughout the state. TCEAs were incorporated into Florida's Growth Management Act in 1993 to address the concern that local governments could not implement a concurrency management system in already developed areas because these areas did not have adequate roadway capacity. In 2005, in the Growth Management Reform Act (GMRA), the requirements for TCEAs were enhanced to require local governments to adopt strategies within their comprehensive plan that support and fund mobility, and address urban design, appropriate land use mixes and network connectivity needed to promote urban infill, redevelopment and downtown revitalization. In this research the 28 existing TCEAs are evaluated using the new requirements to understand how TCEAs have been used in Florida. The results show that a majority of local governments have adopted policies consistent with the new requirements. These results suggest that the TCEAs have offered local governments a planning tool to address the needs for multimodal planning and community design in already urbanized areas.
2007: A Guide for the Creation and Evaluation of Transportation Concurrency Exception Areas
As a part of a research team hired by the Florida Department of Community Affairs to analyze the use of Transportation Concurrency Exception Areas (TCEAs) in Florida, Jenny was involved with analyzing updated state statutes regarding requirements for TCEAs, as well as the analysis of comprehensive plans from communities across the state that had implemented these exception areas. Jenny conducted analysis of the new statute language, researched best practices in alternative transportation and mobility solutions, compiled charts to analyze and track results, and collected data from case study communities. The resulting document was published by the Florida Department of Community Affairs to aid local governments in updating their comprehensive plans to comply with new rules, as well as providing guidance on best practices throughout the state on enhancing and funding mobility options in congested areas. Two final documents were produced: a summary document (available for download on the left) and a document of more in-depth analsyis of several case study communities (available for download below).
2007: A Guide for the Creation and Evaluation of Transportation Concurrency Exception Areas: Case Studies of Florida Communities
The case study portion of the document described above focused on three communities in Florida to learn more about how exception areas were being used in local jurisdictions. Jenny was the primary researcher assigned to the largest TCEA in the state, the Miami-Dade County TCEA, the boundaries of which encompass 28 municipalities.
