Browsing by Author "Minde, Julie M."

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    Building a Framework for a Spatial Decision Support System for Co-locating Public Facilities
    (2009-01-30T18:36:13Z) Minde, Julie M.; Minde, Julie M.
    Co-location involves the intentional siting together of public facilities. Co-location of public facilities is becoming an increasingly common practice, particularly for its perceived benefits of resource savings, increased efficiency and synergy of services, and enhanced sense of community. Such advantages may be especially critical in a location undergoing rapid growth. The ability to plan and manage the process of co-locating public facilities can be very important to the successful, efficient growth of a community. However, there can be significant challenges. Deliberate planning can be problematic in an environment of rapid growth. Co-location may instead be left to opportunity, which does little to maximize overall resource savings or to establish a coherent, long-term policy of co-location. Modeling can also be problematic in a rapidly changing environment. In general, modeling has proven to be limited in terms of serving as a predictive siting tool for public facilities under real-world conditions. There are no one-size-fits-all models for siting facilities, let alone for co-locating them, which is a far more complex endeavor. Thus, a more sustainable approach might be to develop a decision support tool. This research develops a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) to co-locate public facilities in Loudoun County, a rapidly growing county in northern Virginia. The goal of the project is to determine if employing a SDSS based on CommunityViz in ArcGIS 9.2 facilitates successful co-location of public facilities in a dynamic decision-making environment.
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    Shared Reservoir as Irony: The Role of Social Identity in the Aral Sea Environmental Situation
    (2011-08-22) Minde, Julie M.; Minde, Julie M.; Sandole, Dennis J. D.
    Social identity has been shown to significantly impact – or even to cause – conflicts. However, it appears to be a relatively unstudied influence in terms of situations of environmental crisis, Western development aid, and conflict over natural resources. This study attempts to address this gap using the case study of the Aral Sea environmental situation as it has played out in Uzbekistan. The hypothesis is that the Uzbek regime has been able to manipulate social identity of outsiders in order to fulfill its own agenda, garner benefits, and otherwise improve its means of control in Uzbekistan. The research investigates the role of history in Uzbekistan as well as post-Communist dynamics and factors and uses Charles Tilly’s mechanisms as a means of understanding the dynamics and processes involved in social identity manipulation. Additionally, Western professionals (e.g., academics, NGOs, IFIs, government workers) involved in the Aral Sea situation or related issues in Uzbekistan were targeted for study in order to determine their perceptions about the role of social identity in their work and in the situation in general. Interviews as well as an online survey were conducted. Results indicate that social identity has been a significant influence in the situation. However, the situation is extremely complex and requires further study.