CENTRALIZATION AND URBAN SERVICES: THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE

The effect on the distribution of urban services of the “geographical fragmentation” of American metropolitan areas into many local government jurisdictions, each with important service responsibilities, is often overlooked. Comparison with Australia, where services are generally administered and financed at the State level, is instructive. Australian centralism tends to have an equalizing effect, largely due to bureaucratic patterns of service delivery, but has also produced both an insensitivity to specialized local factors and an “organizational fragmentation.” Developments in the 1970s suggest improvements in these areas of deficiency.     

Cities without politics

Max Neutze, Australian Urban Policy, George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1978.

Leslie Kilmartin and David C. Thorns, Cities Unlimited: The Sociology of Urban Development in Australia and New Zealand, George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1978.     

Refining Woodland Period Chronology and Interactions in Northeastern Missouri: Contributions from the Avenue of the Saints Project

The recently completed Avenue of Saints (AOS) highway project in the Mississippi Valley of northeastern Missouri resulted in the documentation of Woodland period sites ranging from approximately 200 cal BC to AD 1200. This article updates the existing Woodland chronology for this locality based on new information collected during the project. Data pertaining to Early, Middle, and Late Woodland sites are presented. The approximately 1,400-year occupation span provided researchers an opportunity to view diachronic trends in tool manufacture, subsistence economy, and landscape use. Based on regional comparisons of ceramic and lithic technologies and vessel decoration, the Woodland sequence in northeastern Missouri was influenced by population movements originating from east of the Mississippi River and from southern sources in the Salt River valley.