CONSERVATION LAND AMENITIES AND REGIONAL ECONOMIES: A POSTMATCHING DIFFERENCE‐IN‐DIFFERENCES ANALYSIS OF THE NORTHWEST FOREST PLAN

The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) resulted in the protection of over 11 million acres of public forestland in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. This paper quantifies the amenity effect arising from protected NWFP lands on long‐run community economic growth. Using community fixed effects and postmatching panel regression to control for many sources of bias, we find highly localized and positive amenity impacts on the growth in median income, population, and property values for small communities close to protected NWFP land, as compared to communities far from the NWFP. We find no effect on medium‐sized communities.     

Waivers,Federalism, and the Rule of Law

Waivers from legislation have been praised as the foundation for a new era of collaborative federalism. But these exceptions of law, often made without clear statutory authority, undermine the necessary basis for collaboration among governmental entities. That basis is law. Waivers in effect dispense from or even change laws in the interests of administrative flexibility. And, while some commentators have lauded this increased flexibility as empowering for state governments in particular, the real effect is to reduce relations based on law to a condition of perpetual bargaining in which federal administrators hold all the power. Able to change rules and even laws almost at will through new waiver programs and criteria, federal agencies gain arbitrary power, undermining the ability of states and people to plan for their futures on the basis of known rules—the most basic and necessary good provided by the rule of law.     

Automated mound detection using lidar and object-based image analysis in Beaufort County,South Carolina

The study of precontact anthropogenic mounded features—earthen mounds, shell heaps, and shell rings—in the American Southeast is stymied by the spotty distribution of systematic surveys across the region. Many extant, yet unidentified, archaeological mound features continue to evade detection due to the heavily forested canopies that occupy large areas of the region, making pedestrian surveys difficult and preventing aerial observation. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) is a tool for analyzing light and radar (lidar) data and offers an inexpensive opportunity to address this challenge. Using publicly available lidar data from Beaufort County, South Carolina, and an OBIA approach that incorporates morphometric classification and statistical template matching, we systematically identify over 160 previously undetected mound features. This result improves our overall knowledge of settlement patterns by providing systematic knowledge about past landscapes.     

Ecomuseum Performance in Piemonte and Liguria,Italy: The Significance of Capital

Research carried out by the authors in northern Italy (see Corsane et al., ‘Ecomuseum Evaluation: Experiences in Piemonte and Liguria, Italy’, International Journal of Heritage Studies 13, no. 2 (2007): 101–16) was designed to assess how closely selected ecomuseums met the demands of ecomuseum theory. However, the discussions with ecomuseum personnel at five sites in Piemonte and Liguria also provided an opportunity to explore how these community‐based heritage projects measure their ‘success’. This research indicates that the methods of performance evaluation that are applied to most national or regional museums—criteria such as visitor numbers, the number of new collections that have been acquired, or number of educational activities delivered—have less meaning in an ecomuseum context. This work suggests that success could be measured more effectively in terms of the forms of capital that result from local people’s use of ecomuseological methods to engage with and conserve their heritage.     

Book reviews

Filippo Mazzonis (ed.) (1995) L'ltalia contemporanea e la storiografia internazionale (Venice: Marsilio), pp. 1‐315, 54,000 lire, ISBN 88‐317‐6207‐9.

Giuseppe Ricuperati (1994) Le avventure di uno stato ‘ben amministrato’. Rappre‐sentazioni e realtà nello spazio sabaudo tra Ancien Régime e Rivoluzione (Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori), pp. 1‐249.

Angela Groppi (ed.) (1996) Il lavoro delle donne (Rome‐Bari: Laterza), pp. i‐xvi, 1‐530,50,000 lire, ISBN 88‐420‐4868‐2 hardback.

Anna Bravo and Anna Maria Bruzzone (1995) In guerra senza ami: Stone di donne, 1940‐1945 (Rome/Bari: Laterza), pp. 1‐214, 25,000 lire, ISBN 88‐420‐4590‐X paperback.

Stefano Cavazza (1977) Piccole patrie: Feste popohri tra regione e nazione durante il fascismo (Bologna: II Mulino), pp. 1‐263,32,000 lire, ISBN 88‐15‐05762‐5 paperback.

Barbara Spackman (1996) Fascist Virilities: Rhetoric, Ideology, and Social Fantasy in Italy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp. 1 ‐187, US$ 18, ISBN 0‐8166‐2787‐8 paperback.

Jane C. Schneider and Peter T. Schneider (1996) Festival of the Poor. Fertility Decline and the Ideology of Class in Sicily, 1860‐1980 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press), pp. 1‐322, ISBN 0‐8165‐1544‐1 hardback, ISBN 0‐8165‐1519‐0 paperback.

Franco Ferraresi (1996) Threats to Democracy, the Radical Right in Italy after the War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. 1‐311, $35, ISBN 0‐691‐04499‐6 hardback.

Gianfranco Pasquino (1996) 1945‐1996: Profilo delta politica in Italia (Bari: Laterza), pp. 1‐117, plus CD‐ROM 1945‐1996: Archivio della politica in Italia, Gianfranco Pasquino with the collaboration of Marzia Zannini, ISBN 88‐420‐5139‐X.

Michela De Giorgio and Christiane Klapisch‐Zuber (eds) (1996) Storia del matrimonio (Bari and Rome: Laterza), pp. 1‐481, 50,000 lire, ISBN 88‐420‐5016‐4.     

Editorial

This article gives a historical and geographical overview of the use of induced abortion from the time of its legalization in 1978 under Law 194. First, we focus from a quantitative perspective on the dramatic changes that have occurred in Italy over the past twenty years, including a 40 per cent drop in the number of abortions, and we offer some explanations for these changes. Second, we illustrate the life patterns that are most typical of abortion seekers in Italy and how they have changed over time: from the conjugal model, where the motive is to limit the size of the family, to the extra-marital model, spontaneous and unpredictable. Another emerging issue emphasized in our work is that of abortion seeking by foreign women; over the past few years this phenomenon has become more relevant and merits attention. Questo lavoro fornisce una panoramica spazio-temporale del ricorso all'aborto volontario a partire dalla sua legalizzazione, avvenuta con la legge 194 del 1978. In primo luogo si sofferma sulle forti modificazioni verificatisi in Italia nel corso del ventennio da un punto di vista quantitativo – il ricorso all'aborto si è infatti ridotto di circa il 40 per cento – e propone delle motivazioni a questo andamento. In secondo luogo pone l'accento sui modelli di abortività prevalenti in Italia e sui cambiamenti avvenuti nel corso del tempo: dal modello tipicamente coniugale, finalizzato a mantenere la dimensione familiare desiderata, a quello extra-coniugale, caratterizzato per la sua estemporaneità ed imprevedibilità. Un altro aspetto emergente che viene sottolineato nel lavoro è quello del ricorso all'aborto da parte di donne straniere; tale fenomeno sta assumendo in questi ultimi anni una grande rilevanza e merita di essere approfondito, al fine di delineare quali tipologie di donne necessitano di politiche di informazione e sostegno.     

The Neapolitan revolution of 1799∗

Abstract

1999 marks the second centenary of the Neapolitan revolution of 1799. The following three short articles examine the ways in which historical interpretations of the revolution and its place in Italian history have changed over time and the ways in which the images and memories of the revolution have been used to transmit powerful political and cultural messages.