Florida S Big Dig

This book is the story of people of vision and courage, of a small group of prominent Saint Augustine investors who conceived of the Florida waterway and began the first dredging work; of an obscure group of New England capitalists who provided significant financing and obtained a million acres of undeveloped Florida public land in pursuing what was, at best, a speculative enterprise; of innumerable citizen groups like the Florida east coast chamber associations and the larger Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association that demanded at the turn of the last century what they believed was the peoples right-a public waterway, free of the burden of tolls; and finally, of the U>S> Army Corps of Engineers, who conducted all of the Florida waterway's early surveys and assumed the project's control in 1929 to convert what was once a private toll way into Florida's modern-day, toll-free Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.

Florida Historical Society Stetson Kennedy Book Award Stretching along 156 miles of Florida's East Coast, the Indian River Lagoon contains the St. Lucie estuary, the Mosquito Lagoon, Banana River Lagoon, and the Indian River. It is a delicate ecosystem of shifting barrier islands and varying salinity levels due to its many inlets that open and close onto the ocean. The long, ribbon-like lagoon spans both temperate and subtropical climates, resulting in the most biologically diverse estuarine system in the United States. Nineteen canals and five man-made inlets have dramatically reshaped the region in the past two centuries, intensifying its natural instability and challenging its diversity. Indian River Lagoon traces the winding story of the waterway, showing how humans have altered the area to fit their needs and also how the lagoon has influenced the cultures along its shores. Now stuck in transition between a place of labor and a place of recreation, the lagoon has become a chief focus of public concern. This book provides a much-needed bigger picture as debates continue over how best to restore this natural resource.

Now available as revised edition: The successful title on integrated ecological landscape planning Infrastructure, as we know it, no longer belongs in the exclusive realm of engineers and transportation planners. In the context of rapidly changing cities and towns, infrastructure is experiencing a paradigm shift where multiple-use programming and the integration of latent ecologies is a primary consideration. Defining contemporary infrastructure requires a multi-disciplinary team of landscape architects, engineers, architects and planners to fully realize the benefits to our cultural and natural systems. This book examines the potential of landscape as infrastructure via essays by notable authors and supporting case studies by SWA landscape architects and urban designers, among them the technologically innovative roof domes for Renzo Piano’s California Academy of Science in San Francisco, the restoration of the Buffalo Bayou in Houston, and several master plans for ecological corridors in China and Korea. Other projects develop smart re-use concepts for railroad tracks that no longer serve their original purpose, such as Kyung-Chun railway in Seoul or Katy Trail in Dallas. All case studies are described extensively with technical diagrams and plans for repositioning infrastructure as a viable medium for addressing issues of ecology, transit, urbanism, performance, and habitat.

An Illustrated History of Palm Beach is a nostalgic journey through the history of the town of Palm Beach as told through the photographic collection of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. From an early pioneer community, Palm Beach evolved over the past 150 years into today's sophisticated resort, starting with the grand hotels of Henry Flagler, the Royal Poinciana and The Breakers, and elegant mansions of the Gilded Age. An Illustrated History of Palm Beach is a primary source look into the development of one of America's most prosperous and enchanting communities.

In 1915, the road system in south Florida had changed little since before the Civil War. Travelling from Miami to Ft. Myers meant going through Orlando, 250 miles north of Miami. Within 15 years, three highways were dredged and blasted through the Everglades: Ingraham Highway from Homestead, 25 miles south of Miami, to Flamingo on the tip of the peninsula; Tamiami Trail from Miami to Tampa; and Conners Highway from West Palm Beach to Okeechobee City. In 1916, Florida's road commission spent $967. In 1928 it spent $6.8 million. Tamiami Trail, originally projected to cost $500,000, eventually required $11 million. These roads were made possible by the 1920s Florida land boom, the advent of gasoline and diesel-powered equipment to replace animal and steam-powered implements, and the creation of a highway funding system based on fuel taxes. This book tells the story of the finance and technology of the first modern highways in the South.

"The New River winds its way through a mysterious and tumultuous history, from the whirlpools of a legendary birth to banks stained with the blood of a massacre. Long-lost tribes flourished on the bounty of fish from its crystal-clear water and game from its wooded shores, only to succumb to European weapons and disease ... South Florida's destiny was changed forever when inshore transportation evolved from foot and hoof to inland waterway and steel rails. Schemes to 'drain the Everglades' turned swamp to subdivisions with the New River at its core. Trace the storied arc of Fort Lauderdale's ancient waterway with author Donn R. Colee Jr."--Publisher marketing.

Is there an allure of spoiled places? Spoil islands are overlooked places that combine dirt with paradise, waste-land with “brave new world,” and wildness with human intervention. Although they are mundane products of dredging, these islands form an uninvestigated archipelago that demonstrates the potential value and contested re-valuation of landscapes of waste. To explore these islands, Spoil Island: Reading the Makeshift Archipelago navigates a course along the U.S. east coast, moving from New York City to Florida. Along the way, a general populace squats, picnics, and reflects on the islands, while other forces are also at work. New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses first deplores then adopts Hoffman and Swinburne Islands, UN Secretary General U Thant meditates on the East River’s Belmont Island, businessman John D. MacArthur rejects the purchase of Peanut Island, artist Christo surrounds Miami’s spoil islands, Key Westers debate the futures of two spoil islands that mark their sunset view, and artist Robert Smithson augments this archipelago materially and conceptually. Historical and contemporary stories highlight each island’s often contradictory ecologies that pair nature with infrastructure, public concerns with private development, rationalized urbanism with artistic impulse, and order with disorder. Spoil islands put you in places you normally wouldn’t—and perhaps shouldn’t—be. To examine these marginalized topographies is to understand emergent concerns of twenty-first-century place-making, public space, and natural and artificial infrastructure. Today, spoil islands constitute an unprecedented public commons, where human agency and nature are inextricably linked. Spoil Island will be of interest to anyone working in the areas of architecture, cultural history, cultural geography, environmental studies, or environmental philosophy. Linking the islands with their environmental aesthetics, Charlie Hailey provides a lively and critical topography of places that play a part in current events and local situations with global implications.

Project management lessons learned on the Big Dig, America's biggest megaproject, by a core member responsible for its daily operations In Megaproject Management, a central member of the Big Dig team reveals the numerous risks, challenges, and accomplishments of the most complex urban infrastructure project in the history of the United States. Drawing on personal experience and interviews with project engineers, executive oversight commission officials, and core managers, the author, a former deputy counsel and risk manager for the Big Dig, develops new insights as she describes the realities of day-to-day management of the project from a project manager's perspective. The book incorporates both theory and practice and is therefore highly recommended to policymakers, academics, and project management practitioners. Focusing on lessons learned, this insightful coursebook presents the Big Dig as a massive case study in the management of risk, cost, and schedule, particularly the interrelation of technical, legal, political, and social factors. It provides an analysis of the difficulties in managing megaprojects during each phase and over the life span of the project, while delivering useful lessons on why projects go wrong and what can be done to prevent project failure. It also offers new ideas to enhance project management performance and innovation in our global society. This unique guide: Defines megaproject characteristics and frameworks Reviews the Big Dig's history, stakeholders, and governance Examines the project's management scope, scheduling, and cost management including project delays and cost overruns Analyzes the Big Dig's risk management and quality management Reveals how to build a sustainable project through integration and change introduction