SPATIAL ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE IN AN URBAN HIERARCHY SYSTEM

ABSTRACT. This paper develops a model to examine the economic interaction between central places and their hinterlands. The model allows interindustry linkages and upward trade flows in an urban hierarchy system. Trade balance equilibrium between hierarchical levels is established by direct mutual interlevel trade, rather than by indirect trade via the rural sector. The economic base multipliers generally increase with city size but occasionally they could be smaller than those of lower places. A continuous urban hierarchy is formed due to their relative location within the system, not to unspecified randomness.     

Mephisto

This article explores the resonances of objects that travelled between continents and the entangled imaginaries tied to them – here a 30-tonne German military tank captured by Australian soldiers during the First World War in France and shipped to Brisbane to be exhibited at the Queensland Museum. The author ‘reads’ the tank, intriguingly named ‘Mephisto’, as the apotheosis of nature/culture divide entrenched in nineteenth-century colonialism, which exported the taxonomies of the Enlightenment to the antipodes and in return repatriated objects of flora and fauna all over Europe. Mephisto thus also marks the manifestation of a German–Australian modernity: developed from the agricultural tractor, the tank remains a brutal and clumsy device designed purely to subdue and conquer territory.     

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?     

Reviews

“MUST WE LOSE AFRICA?” by Colin Legum. (Allen, London) pp. 264: 16/ stg.

ANCIENT FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMICS IN INDIA, by K. T. Shah, Bombay, 1954. Pp. 175.

THE PROSPECTS FOR COMMUNIST CHINA, by W. W. Rostov, in collaboration with Richard W. Hatch, Frank A. Kierman, jun., and Alexander Eckstein. Technology Press and John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1955. Pp. xx plus 379. $5.00.     

Book reviews

DIPLOMACY IN A WHIRLPOOL — Hungary between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. By Dr. S. D. Kertesz, University Of Notre Dame Press. Notre Dame, Indiana, 1953.

DOCUMENTS AND SPEECHES ON BRITISH COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS, 1931–52, Vols. I and II. By Nicholas Mansergh, R.I.I.A. Oxford University Press, 1953. Pp. xii, 1308 Price 131/‐

THE PROMISE THAT IS NEW CHINA. By K. T. Shah, Vora & Co. Bombay, 1953. 342pp.

APPROACHES TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: A Symposium introductory to Problems and Methods of Village Welfare in undeveloped Areas. Edited by Phillips Ruopp. W. Van Hoeve Ltd., The Hague, 1953: pp. xvi‐352.

HOW RUSSIA IS RULED. By Merle Fainsod. Published by Harvard University Press, 1953. pp. 574. Price 78s. 9d. (Aust.).

SOVIET POLICY IN THE FAR EAST; 1944–1951. By Max Beloff. Oxford University Press. 278 pp. 34/9.

THE STRUGGLE FOR KASHMIR. By Michael Brecher. Issued under the auspices of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and the Institute of Pacific Relations. Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1953. 211 and xii pp.

THE WORLD AND THE WEST. By Arnold Toynbee, pp vi and 99. The B.B.C. Reith Lectures 1952 (Oxford University Press 1953).

THE DEPRIVED AND THE PRIVILEGED. By B. M. Spinley (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953, pp. viii and 208, 18s.).

RUSSIA, PAST AND PRESENT. By Anatole G. Mazour, Professor of History, Stanford University, U.S.A. Third Printing. Macmillan & Co Ltd., London. Printed in U.S.A. Preface. Selected Readings for Chapters. Chronological Table. Index. Maps. Pp. vi and 785. Price 40/: Copy from publishers.