TWENTIETH-CENTURY RETAIL CHANCE IN THE HALIFAX CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT

The Halifax downtown area has experienced considerably change in the amount, type, and location of retailing in this century, exemplifying many processes and patterns typical of North American cbds. Owing to increased competition from suburban business districts, retail activity has remained fairly constant in absolute terms but has declined relative to the rest of the urban area. In response, the mix of downtown retailing has been reoriented to emphasize the district's comparative advantages, cbd retailers have differentiated their goods and services from those of suburban competitors but have also attempted to provide settings and amenities - notably, indoor malls and off-street parking - which mimic those found at suburban shopping centres. Such changes are investigated in this case study by means of two broad questions: (1) how and why has the cbd's overall mix of retail types changed through time, and (2) how and why have changes occurred in the location of retailing and retail types within the cbd?     

THE INDUSTRIAL RESTRUCTURING OF SOUTH WALES: THE CAREER OF A STATE MANAGED REGION

This paper examines the causes of the current economic crisis in the industrial region of South Wales. The authors maintain that past as well as current government policies have played a major role in bringing about the crisis by contributing to the vulnerability of communities in South Wales. The authors review the history of the policies which have contributed to the current steel and coal crises. They then provide a brief discussion of current legislative policies designed to combat the crises. Finally, they critique alternative strategies: continued monetarism; a return To Keynesian/‘corporatist’ policies; and the radical restructuring demanded by an ‘Alternative Economic Strategy’ (AES).     

Single-Family House Values in Metropolitan Halifax, 1981

The overall pattern of home values in metropolitan Halifax has been strongly influenced by the early (mid-nineteenth-century) establishment of a prestige sector in the South End. This sector failed to develop outward due to the barrier of the Northwest Arm, which, paradoxically, was not bridged, since to have done so would have marred the original attraction of the sector. While nearly all ‘exclusive’ housing remains in pockets on or near the Arm, new prestige housing areas have been developed in the suburbs, wherever fine settings and the absence of wartime shacks allow. In particular, the presence of extensive ‘low-value’ tracts south of Armdale has forced most new high-value developments in Halifax to the north mainland. Finally, while public housing has tended only to reinforce the low-value pattern established by 1950, publicly funded land developments, particularly Forest Hills, have created large peripheral areas of below-median value.     

Book reviews

Technology and Work in German Industry. N. Altmann, C. Köhler and P. Meil (Eds), London, Routledge, 1992, 466pp., £45 hb.

Retraining — Not Redundancy: Innovative Approaches to Industrial Restructuring in Germany and France. G. Bosch, Geneva, International Institute for Labour Studies, 1992, 183pp., 30 Swiss Francs pb.

Conflict in Urban Development. A. Dekker, H. Goverde, T. Markowski and M. Ptaszynska‐Woloczkowicz, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1992, 181pp.

The Global Region: Production, State Policies and Uneven Development. David Sadler, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1992, 274pp.     

Race,polygenesis and equality: John Crawfurd and nineteenth-century resistance to evolution

The nineteenth-century Orientalist and ethnologist, John Crawfurd, publicly rejected Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in 1868. Crawfurd was a leading advocate of polygenesis but also a supporter of racial equality. In 1820 he published his History of the Indian Archipelago, where he advocated granting household suffrage to all races in the British colonies. After finishing a career in the East India Company in 1828 he became the foremost expert on South-East Asia in Britain. Crawfurd became a regular writer on ethnology and Asian affairs for the Examiner newspaper and in the 1860s he was President of the Ethnological Society of London. Accounts of nineteenth-century anthropology in Britain characterise debate around race as falling into two camps: advocates of monogenesis and advocates of polygenesis. In the United States of America, advocates of polygenesis were often associated with advocates of slavery and racial inequality. Recent research has demonstrated that Charles Darwin’s hatred of slavery drove him to write Origin of the Species to demonstrate the unity of the human species and reject the polygenesis position. This paper explores Crawfurd’s ideas and demonstrates that a belief in polygenesis in the nineteenth century did not necessarily equate with a belief in racial inequality.