Residential Development,Risk, and Land Prices

This paper examines the relationship between the residential development sequence and land price. Inherent in the dynamics of residential development is that the first consumers face the greatest risk since they do not know with certainty what the neighborhood characteristics will be; subsequent consumers have more information. The model predicts that land prices will rise over time relative to the market; developers offer the first consumers discounted land prices to compensate them for the first-mover disadvantage. The empirical evidence indicates that this is indeed the case.     

Reviews

THE PAPUA‐NEW GUINEA ELECTIONS 1964. David Bettism, Colin Hughes and Paul van der Veur (eds.) Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1965. Pp. xi + 545. $A 9.00.

SEARCH FOR NEW GUINEA'S BOUNDARIES: FROM TORRES STRAIT TO THE PACIFIC. Paul van der Veur. Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1966. Pp. xii + 178. $A 6.30.

DOCUMENTS AND CORRESPONDENCE ON NEW GUINEA'S BOUNDARIES. Paul van der Veur. Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1966. Pp. 212. $A 3.90.

BURMA: FROM KINGDOM TO INDEPENDENCE. Frank N. Trager. London, Pall Mall Press, 1966. Pp. xiii + 455. $A 10.90.

THE POLITICS OF THE THIRD WORLD. J. D. B. Miller. London, Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1966. Pp. xiv + 126. $A2.15.

IRONIES OF HISTORY, ESSAYS IN CONTEMPORARY COMMUNISM. Isaac Deutscher. Oxford University Press, 1966. Pp. vii + 278. $A 5.80.

SOVIET AFFAIRS NUMBER FOUR. St. Antony's Papers No. 19. Michael Kaser (ed.). Oxford University Press, 1966. Pp. 156. $A5.10.

A DECADE OF COMMONWEALTH 1955–1964. W. B. Hamilton, Kenneth Robinson and C. D. W. Goodwin (eds.). Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1966. Pp. xx + 567. (US) $12.50.

THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE‐COMMONWEALTH. Robin W. Winks (ed.). Durham N.C., Duke University Press, 1966. Pp. xiv + 596. (US) $12.50.

TEST BAN AND DISARMAMENT: THE PATH OF NEGOTIATION. Arthur H. Dean. New York, Harper and Row, 1966. Pp. xiii + 153. (U.S.) $3.50.

DETERRENCE AND THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE. Albert Legault. Toronto, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1966. Pp. xv + 103. $2.00 (Canadian).

STRATEGIC POWER AND SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY. Arnold L. Horelick and Myron Rush. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1966. Pp. xii + 225. (U.S.) $5.95.

NEW FEDERATIONS: EXPERIMENTS IN THE COMMONWEALTH. R. L. Watts. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1966. Pp. xii + 417 + Maps. $A 10.90.     

Leadership in Absentia: Negotiating Distance in Centralized Solomon Islands

This article examines a tension at the heart of national leadership in Solomon Islands today: a conviction that national leaders need to spend more time in rural environments to better represent rural interests, needs and values, while having to be in town to access the individuals and organizations that, essentially, make them national leaders in the first place. Drawing on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in urban Honiara and the rural Lau Lagoon, Malaita, we are especially interested in how this tension shapes rural perceptions of the legitimacy of chiefs as national leaders. Given that development projects can only be negotiated in Honiara, where the required state institutions, international (N)GOs and major businesses are based, rural residents feel compelled to send their most important village leaders, especially clan chiefs, to town. However, the longer these leaders are away from their homes, the more they seem distracted by urban ‘luxuries’ and the less they appear committed to their rural homes. In particular, villagers complain about their chiefs' contributions to exchange relations. Villages, thus, find themselves in a double‐bind that exaggerates a broader ‘crisis of leadership’ alongside an urban‐rural divide which challenges the promise of chiefly leadership as solution to antipolitical sentiments and a centralized state.     

Perceptions of tourism impacts and community resilience to natural disasters

Evidence since at least the 1990s suggests that global climate patterns have undergone dramatic changes, often resulting in weather-induced natural disasters that have caused widespread environmental damage. Such conditions raise serious threats to communities that are dependent on natural resources and ecosystem services for tourism development. Communities located in high-risk disaster regions face greater challenges in developing a tourism economy that is both resilient and sustainable. Residents in these communities live with a constant awareness of external threats and try to build a degree of resilience that includes traditional disaster prevention measures and a long history of post-disaster reconstruction. It is necessary to understanding the relationships between tourism and community resilience to address planning and development goals in an era of increasing climate uncertainty.

Three communities are examined that are regularly exposed to the threats of typhoons and flooding and are located within National Scenic Areas in Taiwan. In-depth interviews with community leaders and surveys of residents were undertaken. Residents with high potential to experience natural disasters generally have high degrees of awareness of various forms of tourism impacts. Their perceptions of tourism impacts are positively correlated with community resilience. The strongest relationships are between a perception of the positive economic impacts from tourism and the local capacity for undertaking adaptive responses; and between an awareness of the environmental impacts of tourism and the perceived fragility of their environment. Empowering community resilience usually requires long-term capacity building and is correlated with all three types of perceived tourism impacts. Deconstruction of the special experiences of disaster-prone tourism destinations provides a more nuanced insight into the relationships between community knowledge and awareness of resilience needs and the role and impacts of tourism. This, in turn, facilitates understanding of community tourism development in the face of contemporary changes in weather and climate.     

Flothilde's visions and Flodoard's histories: a tenth‐century mutation?

Although Flodoard of Reims is best known for his comprehensive historical writings, he also recorded separately the visions of a young girl named Flothilde. Re‐examining Flodoard's varied historical works in light of these visions reveals that he was unusually interested in visions generally, and particularly those of women. The question is why. In proposing answers, it will be suggested that both Flodoard's histories and Flothilde's visions represent a crucial moment in the transformation of ninth‐century Carolingian understandings of history, visions, and reform into the quite different patterns of the early eleventh century.     

Illuminating spaces in the classroom with qualitative GIS

As social and postmodern ontologies continue to shape our definition of space, undergraduate instructors have struggled to incorporate these paradigms in the geography classroom. Recent research suggests that practical applications using field work, qualitative research, and geographic information science can augment students’ understanding of these spatial ontologies. Qualitative GIS holds promise as a means to integrate these methods in geographic education, yet there are no signs to date that the methodology has transitioned from research to teaching. This paper details our attempt to incorporate qualitative GIS into an undergraduate urban field studies course in lieu of a strictly lab-based GIS assignment. We outline our approach before discussing students’ engagement with the assignment in greater depth. Drawing from field experiences and deliverables across four terms, we argue that teaching from a qualitative GIS framework can effectively communicate the fundamentals of modern spatial theory and geographic research methods to students as they investigate problems in the field. We also note recurring challenges to mixed-methods teaching for students unfamiliar with the new methods presented. We close by discussing avenues for instructors in different circumstances, e.g. personal skills sets and class characteristics, to consider qualitative GIS in their classrooms.