Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item The effects of flood zone designations on land development(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2024) Poteet, Samantha Joy; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Nick HagertyIn 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit Harris County, Texas and caused devastating flood damages. These flood damages were exacerbated by a rapid land development. This paper estimates the impact of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) high risk flood zone designation, the Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA), on land development. FEMA's flood maps convey information to homeowners regarding their property's flood risk and requires flood insurance for most properties in the SFHA. Using a spatial regression discontinuity design I find evidence of a 64% decrease in land development just inside of the SFHA boundary line. These results suggest FEMA can significantly impact the allocation of land development with the SFHA designation. Currently, FEMA underestimates flood risk, accurately assessing flood risk can help better prepare homeowners for future flooding events and allocate future land development in a more socially optimal way.Item Landscapes, architecture(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2010) McGrane, Kurt Ryan; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ralph JohnsonContinued population growth is inevitable to Montana's future. This can be seen as a source of great alarm or great opportunity. If suburbanization of Montana's agricultural and wild mountain landscapes continues, eventually that which makes Montana so appealing - its open space - will disappear. Future growth should be seen as an opportunity to densify and enrich Montana's existing urban centers. However, prevailing attitudes of what it means to live in Montana as well as economic and infrastructural constructs, currently promote a gradually expanding low density sprawl. As important as open landscapes and nature are to the identity and appeal of Montana, continued population growth means man-made structures are increasingly becoming the dominant presence on the land. Perhaps instead of pressing low density architecture outward over the landscape, the landscape can be drawn into the architecture. By providing an urban park of densely layered activity but defined by a spacial characteristic of openness, a surrounding urbanity can be made possible which still retains Montana's defining character and appeal. This project will be a proactive architectural act, an urban catalyst for change. It will utilize the concepts of Landscape Infrastructure, Terrain Vague, and The Fold to give a sense of ambiguity and slipperyness to the program and allow it to relate to both urban and ecological frameworks. This ambiguity will allow for the interpretive freedom necessary for the assertion of individual identity to occur, as well as give the project an ability to adapt to future changes in the urban (and rural) fabric. Individual programs will be defined based on local needs, and where these separate (and perhaps strikingly disparate) programs intersect, nodes of unpredictable excitement can manifest. Introducing a public, open ended, multi-layered program designed with both specificity and ambiguity will provide an answer to the western conflict between freedom of the individual and the shared environmental responsibility of land stewardship.