Examining the Psychological Resiliency of Latino Immigrants in Five Texas Cities: Policy, Economics, and Politics – The Case of the Latino Community (open access)

Examining the Psychological Resiliency of Latino Immigrants in Five Texas Cities: Policy, Economics, and Politics – The Case of the Latino Community

This dissertation examines the impact of city-level characteristics (immigration-friendliness index, unemployment rate, and the percentage of Democrat Party votes) on the psychological resiliency of Latino immigrants. In the light of increased attention on the immigrant issue throughout the world, this study aims to develop our understanding of the factors that have the effect on the resiliency of immigrant populations. This dissertation examines these different characteristics by examining five different cities in Texas: Austin, Dallas, Fort-Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. The survey was distributed through the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to those individuals who define themselves Hispanic or Latino. Results suggest that the city characteristics have a significant impact on the resiliency of Latino immigrants suggesting that local governments have a potential capability to increase the resiliency of the immigrant groups in the United States by embracing the notion that immigrants should be integrated into the fabric of the local community.
Date: December 2019
Creator: Icer, Mehmet Mustafa
System: The UNT Digital Library
Examining the Impact of Community Policing on Public Attitudes toward Fear of Terrorism, Resilience, and Satisfaction with Police in the Face of New Terrorism (open access)

Examining the Impact of Community Policing on Public Attitudes toward Fear of Terrorism, Resilience, and Satisfaction with Police in the Face of New Terrorism

This dissertation examines the impact of citizen's perception of community policing on public attitudes toward fear of terrorism, resilience for a future terrorist attack, and satisfaction with the police in the face of new terrorism. In particular, considering the changing nature of terrorism in recent years as a response to the centralized homeland security efforts, this dissertation attempts to develop our understanding about the extent to which community policing could be a strategy in dealing with terrorism fear among citizens, in building up resilience for future terrorist attacks, and to increase citizens' satisfaction with the police in order to enhance the quality of life in the face of new terrorism. Additionally, this dissertation examines the impact of the variation in the level of community policing implementation on public attitudes toward fear of terrorism, resilience for a future terrorist attack, and satisfaction with the police. Data was collected through an online survey conducted in the cities of Arlington and Frisco, Texas. The survey distributed to the citizens through the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform. These cities were selected based on a community policing scale which was created through the help of the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey. Results …
Date: December 2019
Creator: Ayazma, Tayfun
System: The UNT Digital Library
Flexibility in Emergency Management: Exploring the Roles of Spontaneous Planning and Improvisation in Disaster Response (open access)

Flexibility in Emergency Management: Exploring the Roles of Spontaneous Planning and Improvisation in Disaster Response

One of the long-standing debates in disaster science and practice is the tension between planning and structure on the one hand and flexibility and adaptation on the other in maximizing the effectiveness of response operations. This research aims to reconcile the divide that currently exists among scholars and practitioners and present a continuum that bridges the above models and ties planning, improvisation, and spontaneous planning together. The main questions that were examined with this research are: First, what role did spontaneous planning and improvisation play in responding to the two disasters. Second, in what ways do hazard characteristics (e.g. speed of onset and scope of impact) influence the roles played by spontaneous planning and improvisation? This is a qualitative study that employed a comparative case study to examine the characteristics of spontaneous planning. The major findings are that spontaneous planning does occur and that variables such as speed of onset, scope, magnitude, and number of organizations involved impact the visibility of spontaneous planning characteristics.
Date: December 2019
Creator: Gutierrez, Miguel
System: The UNT Digital Library
Perceptions of Public Health Professionals and Emergency Managers: Using the Institutional Collective Action Framework to Better Understand Coordination during Health Crisis (open access)

Perceptions of Public Health Professionals and Emergency Managers: Using the Institutional Collective Action Framework to Better Understand Coordination during Health Crisis

The objective of this dissertation is to test the Institutional Collective Action framework and examine the governance arrangements during health emergency. Basically, the dissertation argues that due to collaborative risks, transaction costs, barriers to collective action, governance arrangement provides avenues for action and a force for driving coordination across jurisdictional boundaries. The dissertation adopts two studies to investigate the governance arrangements represented by lead agency, emergency plans, Emergency Operation Center and city council mandates and coordination when it comes to health emergencies such as Ebola. The qualitative approach investigates the causal relationship between governance arrangements and coordination. The second study investigates to what extent do formal mechanisms and informal mechanisms affects the outcome of collaboration during a health emergency. This study uses a quantitative research approach to examine the patterns of collaborative arrangement used during health emergency. The findings of the study demonstrate the pattern used in health emergencies is dependent on the application of formal mechanisms represented by higher authority, emergency plans. Both studies indicate that due to collaboration risks, self-governance arrangements or higher authority mandates provides a venue for collective action. The survey data was collected from local, state and federal governments during the summer 2015 on the …
Date: December 2019
Creator: Soujaa, Ismail
System: The UNT Digital Library
Study of Homeless Emergency Discharge Coordination: Understanding Challenges and Success Factors to Collaboration Maturity (open access)

Study of Homeless Emergency Discharge Coordination: Understanding Challenges and Success Factors to Collaboration Maturity

Successful service coordination for the homeless depends on the ability of diverse organizations to effectively collaborate. This study utilizes a life-cycle framework to expand on the collaborative governance theory by highlighting the different stages of collaboration that homeless service networks encounter. Activation, collectivity, and institutionalization are three stages used to uncover the unique nature of emergency discharge planning processes. Since collaboration is not a static process and government regulation for emergency discharge plans were recently enacted in 2012, collaborative networks encounter challenges and success factors at different stages. A qualitative case-study approach of organizational leaders in homeless service networks in Texas (Dallas, Ft. Worth and Houston) examines stages of collaboration. Results show common success and challenge factors identified among the three networks, but the factors take on different forms in relation to where the networks are at in the coordination stages. Practitioners can use the findings from this study as a guide to set up benchmarks and measurable objectives to identify strengths and weaknesses in their coordination processes.
Date: December 2019
Creator: Washington, Federickia L
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Impact of Property Tax Exemptions on the Fiscal Behavior of Cities: A Longitudinal Analysis of 41 Texas Cities

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
As a form of tax and expenditure limitations, property tax exemptions result in an utility gap between two groups of population residing in the same community: free-riders who are paying less than they receive and contributors who are paying more than they receive. This utility gap is problematic to municipalities because contributors may exit the city as this gap becomes wider. How do municipalities respond to the increasing amount of property tax exemptions? Using 41 Texas cities data from 2000 to 2016, this dissertation examines how property tax exemptions affect municipalities' fiscal behavior. The analysis indicates that property tax exemptions lead to higher property tax burden, change municipalities' revenue structure, and lead to less capital spending.
Date: August 2019
Creator: Sun, Jingran
System: The UNT Digital Library

Disasters, Smart Growth and Economic Resilience: An Empirical Analysis of Florida Cities

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This dissertation examines the relationship between economic resilience, disaster experience, and smart growth policies at the local government level. The study is based upon three research questions that examine spatial distribution of economic resilience in Florida cities, and examines the impact of disaster experience, and smart growth policies adopted by local governments on economic resilience. Based upon the bounce-forward approach (Cowell, 2013; Klein et al. 2003), economic resilience is defined using three dimensions—economic stability, economic equity, and economic diversity. The spatial analysis is conducted by mapping economic resilience scores across 780 Census Designated Places in Florida through standard deviation method of classification, and conducting cluster-outlier analysis. Results suggest difference in economic resilience within coastal and inland communities—with higher scores mostly situated inland. East Central Florida, Tampa Bay, and South Florida were identified as high economic resilience clusters, and Northwest Florida was identified as low resilience cluster. Impact of disaster experience, and smart growth policies on economic resilience was examined based upon logic of focusing events by Birkland (1997, 2010). Data was collected from the U.S. Census, the National Climatic Data Center, and the Energy Sustainable Florida Communities Survey conducted by Florida State University in 2009. Results suggest significant association between …
Date: August 2019
Creator: Chatterjee, Vaswati
System: The UNT Digital Library